The bombardier beetle stores two harmless chemicals separately: hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide. When threatened, it mixes them with enzymes in a reinforced chamber in its abdomen, and the explosive reaction fires an irritating spray at about 100°C, in hundreds of tiny pulses per second. It can even swivel its abdomen to aim at an attacker.
In 2022, a young tagged bar-tailed godwit flew from Alaska to Tasmania in about 11 days of nonstop flight, covering 13,560 km without eating, drinking or landing. Before departure, these birds pile on huge fat reserves and shrink their digestive organs, which are useless during the journey.
To escape rivals, a dung beetle rolls its ball of dung in a straight line. At night, it holds its course using the glowing band of the Milky Way. In a planetarium, researchers showed that beetles rolled straight under a starry sky but wandered aimlessly when the galaxy was switched off. It was the first animal known to navigate this way.