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Beetle with Deadly Machine-Gun Butt

#1
Yazata Online
The Bombadier Beetle is capable of farting between 300 and 700 times a second, each fart a hot mix of noxious chemicals deadly to other insects, that forms a spray mist behind the beetle.

There's always been question about how the farts can come so quickly. Was it muscles twitching that fast, or vibrations in the exhaust tube/ butt hole? Now scientists at MIT and the U. of Arizona have figured it out.

They x-rayed the beetles as they let loose and discovered that it's all mechanical. There's a mixing chamber in which the precursers of the chemical spray mix, with one-way valves between the chamber and the glands that feed it. The mixing process seems to be energetic and exothermic. So the chemicals flow in, mix, get hot and expand. That closes the one-way valves and expels the fluid out of the beetles' butt. Then pressure in the mixing chamber goes down, the valves open again and the process repeats. Very quickly.

This is more than merely a defensive gas-attack.

It's basically the principle of a pulse-jet engine, similar to the engines that powered the German V-1 buzz-bombs. Except that this version isn't air-breathing, it's more of a pulse-rocket. I wonder if these beetles experience much thrust from their butt farts. It's possible to imagine evolution utilizing this principle to produce flying organisms with built in rocket engines.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speak...chine-gun/
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#2
C C Offline
(May 1, 2015 05:19 PM)Yazata Wrote: It's basically the principle of a pulse-jet engine, similar to the engines that powered the German V-1 buzz-bombs. Except that this version isn't air-breathing, it's more of a pulse-rocket. I wonder if these beetles experience much thrust from their butt farts. It's possible to imagine evolution utilizing this principle to produce flying organisms with built in rocket engines.

Somewhere on a warmer gas-giant the size of Neptune, the balloon floaters eventually got their numbers trimmed down by predators assisted by a speedy propulsion system. The latter gradually soaring and adapting to higher attitudes till they reached the planet's Karman line. The oldest members undergoing a second metamorphosis that offered a new, end-of-life reproductive strategy; surviving just long enough at the edge of space to forcefully expel their tiny, extremophile procreant vessels into panspermic distances at 24 kilometers a second in an explosive death spasm. These wayfaring "code carriers" reaching elsewhere after vast spans of time, developing into an early, highly mutable larval stage that can radically modify its original survival form when encountering exotic planetary environments that differ from its original habitat.

Secluded rural area where 1950s teen couples go on weekend nights: "The car won't start. Run, Susan, run! The alien monster has me by the leg!"
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#3
Mr Doodlebug Offline
It is a remarkable adaptation, and one wonders how it came about.
For this reason it is one of the main examples proposed as evidence for intelligent Creationism:

[Image: dc-03-08a.jpg]
[Image: dc-03-08a.jpg]


Quote:What is it about this tiny animal that has the aircraft industry sitting up and taking notice? The bombardier beetle has a pulse defense mechanism that works in the following manner. Two chemicals, hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide, are produced in glands, and then stored in a large reservoir housed within the beetle’s abdomen. When the animal feels threatened, muscles surrounding the reservoir contract, pushing the chemicals through a muscle-controlled valve into a heart-shaped reaction chamber lined with cells that secrete peroxidases and catalases—oxidative enzymes. The enzymes quickly break down the hydrogen peroxide, and catalyze the oxidation of the hydroquinones into p-benzoquinones—compounds that are well known for their irritant properties. This chemical reaction results in a release of free oxygen, and causes a substantial liberation of heat. The beetle then is able to eject this spray out a revolvable turret—at 100° C!—in a pulse-like fashion at a rate of 500 pulses per second (see Aneshansley and Eisner, 1969; Dean, et al., 1990; Eisner, et al., 2000).
Can you imagine trying to explain all of this intricate design by “chance evolutionary processes” occurring over millions of years in nature? And yet, evolutionists maintain that there are logical step-by-step explanations for this unique bug’s ability to have a chemical reaction chamber inside its abdomen. The truth is, however, that only intelligent design can explain how the beetle is able to produce the proper chemicals, keep them separate until they are needed, manufacture the right enzymes, and propel the hot mixture into the face of its enemy.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apconten...ticle=1113
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#4
Mr Doodlebug Offline
Somewhere in the world there may be an insect with little glass goggles.
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#5
C C Offline
(May 5, 2015 12:44 PM)Mr Doodlebug Wrote: [...] Can you imagine trying to explain all of this intricate design by “chance evolutionary processes” occurring over millions of years in nature? And yet, evolutionists maintain that there are logical step-by-step explanations for this unique bug’s ability to have a chemical reaction chamber inside its abdomen. The truth is, however, that only intelligent design can explain how the beetle is able to produce the proper chemicals, keep them separate until they are needed, manufacture the right enzymes, and propel the hot mixture into the face of its enemy. http://www.apologeticspress.org/apconten...ticle=1113

"The Creator would appear to have an inordinate fondness for beetles."
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#6
Mr Doodlebug Offline
What about the feelings of the poor creature that gets a face covered with boiling rocket fuel?
Just so long as the beetle is ok.
That's all God cares about.
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#7
Mr Doodlebug Offline
Here's another example of beetle favouritism.
Quote:During its lifetime, a frog will snap up thousands of insects with its sticky, extendable tongue. But if it tries to eat an Epomis beetle, it’s more likely tobecome a meal than to get one. These Middle Eastern beetles include two species – Epomis circumscriptus and Epomis dejeani – that specialise at killing frogs, salamanders, and other amphibians.
Their larvae eat nothing else, and they have an almost 100 percent success rate. They lure their prey, encouraging them to approach and strike. When the sticky tongue lashes out, the larva dodges and latches onto its attacker with wicked double-hooked jaws. Hanging on, it eats its prey alive. The adult beetle has a more varied diet but it’s no less adept at hunting amphibians. It hops onto its victim’s back and delivers a surgical bite that paralyses the amphibian, giving the beetle time to eat at its leisure.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notroc...UpOi45Viko


[Image: epomis-beetle-frog-plos-one.jpg]
[Image: epomis-beetle-frog-plos-one.jpg]



Full report here:
http://www.wired.com/2011/09/epomis-beetle-amphibians/
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