Nature’s weirdest defense mechanisms
by Ailsa Harvey · 06/08/2020
How can animals turn their bodies into weapons?
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
Defence mechanisms are the ways in which animals have evolved to protect themselves against danger. There are many ways they can do this – camouflage like a snake or playing dead like an opossum. Here are the top five of the strangest defence mechanisms nature has to offer!
1. Toxic ants
The Camponotus saundersi ant has one of the most insane overreactions in mother nature. Their large mandibular functions as a gland that produces sticky toxic secretion, and when the ant is threatened, it squeezes its abdomen to burst open the gland and spray it over the potential attacker and leaving it immobilised.
(Image credit: Noel Tawatao/ Wikimedia Commons)
2. Blood squirters
The Texas horned lizard will squirt blood out of its eyes when faced with a predator. The two muscles around the major blood vessel in its eye contract and cut off blood to the heart and allowing it to build up in the head. The pressure builds in the ocular sinus until the membrane is ruptured, shooting a jet stream of blood that can reach up to 4 feet! It doesn’t harm the reptile and it can be repeated multiple times without harming the lizard.
(Image credit: Waditalipetit/ Wikimedia Commons)
3. Rib removers
This newt contracts its body and forces its ribs out of its skin, each time breaking the skin and forcing the spikes outwards. In extreme cases, the newt has the ability to lace the ends of the bones with poison – making it an even deadlier defence mechanisms.
(Image credit: Peter Halasz/Wikimedia Commons)
4. Poison production
When disturbed, millipedes of the genus Motyxia will secrete cyanide from small holes running across its body, making it dangerous for predators to touch or attempt to eat.
(Image credit: Walter Siegmund/ Wikimedia Commons)
5. Hot spray
The Bombardier beetle is incredibly inventive – it sprays a foul-smelling poisonous fluid from its anus. This liquid heats to almost 100°C and is sprayed over the attacker.
(Image credit: Peter Halasz/Wikimedia Commons)
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