Saturday, December 13, 2008

SECRET WEAPON

Life is a battle where those better fit and prepared will have a better chance to reproduce and survive. It is an adaptation result of the product of natural selection. Which means that natural selection occurs when individuals vary in their hereditary attributes in ways that affect how many surviving they contribute to the next generation. Therefore, insects develop numerous defense strategies or mechanisms to avoid the capture by predators; such as chemical, camouflage, and an advertisement of unprofitability to deter pursuit. Chemical defense is more popular among insects and typically behave in conspicuous manner, for example, pump beetle's defend themselves by using an acidic and toxic spray.
When the pump beetle is attacked by a frog and there is the reaction chamber that happens when the predator(frog) attacks the pump beetle. And the beetle's use its toxic spray to defend from being captured by the frog. The beetle's have an enzyme that split up the explosion by forming a separate pulse of spray and the louder explosion is in sequence. As soon as the pump beetle's feel the contact with frog, it contracts its abdomen and releases the toxic from the end part of the abdomen in all directions.Pump beetle’s spray is very toxic and hot, when toads attack them its spray causes the toad’s tongue to burn and swell. Therefore, the pain and discomfort caused by the spray causes the frog to run away.

Odmir Rodrigues
12-12-08

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35 Comments:

At 1:05 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a really good article as it reflects on our class lecture about ways that animals deter attack. I was wondering if you could explain more in detail the part about how they have an "enzyme that split up the explosion by forming a separate pulse of spray and the louder explosion is in sequence." I didn't quite understand that part, does it mean that they are able to make the explosion bigger depending on the attack?

Tazneena Ishaque

 
At 3:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just like the milkweed butterfly and the birds example from class, do you think this will cause the frogs to learn not to attack these particular beetles?
-Sasha Rogers

 
At 4:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This article relates closely to what we talked about in class about animal defense mechanism. Does the beetle use the sound of the explosion to scare away the frog or the toxic, hot spray or both?

Hanbing Guo

 
At 4:41 PM, Blogger PWH said...

This is a very cool defensive behavior. Do frogs prefer to prey on other species because of this? How long does the spray affect the frog? Do frogs ever eat the beetle after they have been sprayed?

Rob Lubenow

 
At 5:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a really good relation to class, does this only happen with predators, i can imagine if a male surprise attacked a female and got sprayed. Would this toxin effect their own species?

Amanda Joyce

 
At 5:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great blog! Would the beetles do this attack on all predators or only specific kinds?

- David Huynh

 
At 6:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are the beetles able to spray the frogs if they are attacked head on? And can they spray multiple times?

 
At 6:57 PM, Blogger PWH said...

I think it is so funny how animals use chemical warfare. I kind of reminds me of humans using pepper spray. I really like the way you tied it into what we learned from class. Do you know what is in this toxic spray that makes it so harmful?

Chantal Gomes

 
At 9:45 PM, Blogger PWH said...

Awesome!

Sounds like a pretty cool beetle, I wounder what it would feel like for one of us to get sprayed by it?

-Joe Alonzo

 
At 9:54 PM, Blogger PWH said...

This is neat, but I don't understand how they split up the explosion. Also, it says that the spray occurs when the frog touches the beetle so does this sometimes happen when the beetle is in the frogs mouth and it spits it out or does this spray prevent the frog from even getting that close?

-Tara Quist

 
At 11:01 PM, Blogger pajama said...

An interesting defense mechanism. It's always surprising to see how some prey can deter attacks. Is the toxic chemical created in any way harmful to the beetle itself?

~Dan Hong

 
At 11:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cool, I did a paper on the Secret Weapon of Beetles. And I don’t know about a pump beetle but I think you mean to say “Bombardier beetle” which also releases toxic from their rear end and the experimenter was Thomas Eisner. If you are talking about the bombardier beetle, then I believe that instead of releasing the toxic in all directions, this beetle is very accrete as to where to spray. Anyways, it’s good to know that others also find this as amazing as I did.

Tenzing Y. Dundutsang.

 
At 11:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Really cool, this sounds a lot like the Bombardier beetle. Is it two different names for the same thing, or are they related, or is it convergent?

Cecelia Hunt

 
At 1:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is cool. What kind of toxin does it secrete? Is there any creature that also eats this beetle, but is successful? I'm a bit cofused as to how the enzyme splits the spray action and the sound/explosion after. You said it happens in sequence, but why?

Ada Marie Flores

 
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