<\/p>
There are no fire-breathing dragons, but there is the bombardier beetle, which ejects a hot, fiery mixture from its butt when threatened. The spray is produced by the reaction between two chemicals; hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, which are stored in separate abdominal compartments before coming together with a bang.<\/p>\n
The resulting heat brings the mixture to almost 100\u00b0C and produces gas which drives the expulsion. This means that if a bombardier beetle gets eaten by a toad, it can literally fart its way out of trouble. It lets rip inside the amphibian\u2019s belly until the predator vomits it up.<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked by: Pad Scanlon, via email<\/strong><\/p>\n To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don\u2019t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p>\n By Helen Pilcher Published: Wednesday, 30 March 2022 at 12:00 am There are no fire-breathing dragons, but there is the bombardier beetle, which ejects a hot, fiery mixture from its butt when threatened. The spray is produced by the reaction between two chemicals; hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, which are stored in separate abdominal compartments before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":11108,"template":"","categories":[30],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/could-any-creatures-blow-fire-like-a-dragon.jpg",1200,536,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/could-any-creatures-blow-fire-like-a-dragon-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/could-any-creatures-blow-fire-like-a-dragon-300x134.jpg",300,134,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/could-any-creatures-blow-fire-like-a-dragon-768x343.jpg",768,343,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/could-any-creatures-blow-fire-like-a-dragon-1024x457.jpg",800,357,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/could-any-creatures-blow-fire-like-a-dragon.jpg",1200,536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/could-any-creatures-blow-fire-like-a-dragon.jpg",1200,536,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Helen Pilcher Published: Wednesday, 30 March 2022 at 12:00 am There are no fire-breathing dragons, but there is the bombardier beetle, which ejects a hot, fiery mixture from its butt when threatened. The spray is produced by the reaction between two chemicals; hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, which are stored in separate abdominal compartments before…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/11107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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