Nature is famously red in tooth and claw. Animals kill each other for many reasons, including predation, defence and access to food and mates. Many species are killers, but a small number do something truly remarkable.
They utilise weather-related features, such as heat, wind and fire, to help them kill more efficiently. Meet eight animals that successfully weaponise the weather.
Animals that weaponise the weather to kill
Flamingos
Flamingos may be best known for their Barbie-coloured plumage and habit of standing on one leg, but these seemingly benign birds have a dark side. They conjure underwater tornadoes to help catch their prey.
At first glance, the long-limbed birds appear to be passive filter feeders, using their beaks to sift algae, brine shrimp and other delicacies from the water. Probe a little deeper, however, and things are not what they seem.
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When flamingos feed, they also stomp their floppy, webbed feet. This churns up the sediment and propels it forwards in whorls, which the birds then draw up to the surface by jerking their heads up and down like plungers, creating mini tornados.
At the same time, they chatter their beaks. This creates smaller vortices which direct the sediment and food into their mouths, where it is then strained out. So, they’re more than just a pretty face. Flamingos are also masters of fluid dynamics.
Japanese Honeybees
Japanese honeybees harness the power of heat and atmospheric gases to kill their prey. These social insects, which build their nests inside hollow trees and rock crevices, live in colonies, containing a single queen, hundreds of male drones and thousands of female workers.
From time to time, hornets invade the nest, hoping to feast on the bee larvae within, but the honeybees have it covered. The hapless hornet is swarmed by hundreds of bees, which vibrate their flight muscles to generate heat.
This increases both the concentration of carbon dioxide and the temperature inside the nest, which rises to exactly 46 oC. The honeybees can survive these particular and precise conditions, but the hornet cannot. It dies, roasted alive by a species that has acquired the ability to control its microclimate.
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Bombardier Beetles
Don’t mess with the bombardier beetle. These feisty insects, which can be found amongst the leaf litter of forests floor, are masters of chemical warfare. If they find themselves under attack, they spray their foe with a cocktail of hot, irritating chemicals. The explosion is so loud, it even generates an audible pop.
The key ingredients – hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone – are highly reactive and so stored in separate compartments in the insect’s abdomen. Then, when they are needed, they are mixed together in a separate internal chamber and ejected almost immediately.
The caustic spray reaches temperatures of up to 100 oC which can easily scald other animals. Where the Japanese honeybee uses vibration to generate heat, the bombardier beetle uses chemistry, weaponising temperature to aid its defence.
Pistol shrimp
Just don’t call him shrimpy. The pistol shrimp may only be an inch long, but it’s a brutal, effective killer that strikes using the forces of heat, sound and light.
Pistol shrimps are so-called because they have an over-sized front claw that they ‘cock’ like a gun. When they snap the claw shut, at speeds of around 60 mph, it forces out a jet of water so fast that the pressure inside the jet drops dramatically. This creates a vacuum-like structure called a cavitation bubble, which is so unstable that it collapses violently.
These ‘bubble bullets’ are louder than an underwater gunshot and hotter than lava. The immense heat and pressure also produce a brief pulse of light, known as sonoluminescence. The result is a targeted miniature explosion that instantly kills the shrimp’s prey, such as tiny crustaceans and invertebrates.
Firehawks
The indigenous peoples of Australia’s Northern Territory call them firehawks. Black kites, whistling kites and brown falcons have been observed spreading wildfires, ostensibly because it helps them to catch their prey.
In his 1962 autobiography “I, the Aboriginal,” Waipuldanya Phillip Roberts wrote, “I have seen a hawk pick up a smouldering stick in its claws and drop it in a fresh patch of dry grass half a mile away, then wait with its mates for the mad exodus of scorched and frightened rodents and reptiles.’
Similar first-hand observations have been collected from non-Indigenous land managers and fire fighters, who all saw birds carry burning sticks. And while video or photographic proof is scarce, the consistency of these eyewitness accounts suggests that the behaviour isn’t accidental. Firehawks really do master the elements and use fire to help them kill their prey.
Buckspoor Spider
Buckspoor spiders live in the deserts of southern Africa, where they harness the heat of the sun to roast their prey alive.
The female buckspoor spider builds a vertical burrow in the sand, which she tops with a horizontal silk web. The shape of the web, which sits flush with the sand, looks like a hoof print or ‘spoor,’ which explains the spider’s name.
When an ant wanders onto the web, the female rushes up from her burrow, sticks out her legs and pins it to the surface. Temperatures there can exceed 50 oC, so the ant is quickly subdued and roasted. The body is then dragged into the burrow where the freshly cooked meal is consumed in peace.
Archerfish
Archerfish manipulate water to kill their prey. The little tropical fish, which are found in the Indo-Pacific region, tend to live in streams and wetlands near overhanging vegetation. They use their mouths to fire a powerful jet of water, which can knock small animals off nearby branches and into the water. Then they gobble them up.
The fish can bring down prey up to three metres above the water’s surface, and adults have a near perfect strike rate. This is partially due to their good eyesight, but also their ability to compensate for the bending of light as it enters the water.
They may not have a Physics GCSE, yet the fish are still able to alter the angle, trajectory and force of their projectile to successfully down their prey.
By-the-wind-sailors
If you’ve ever spent time by the ocean, you may well have stumbled across the ‘by-the-wind sailor, otherwise known as the purple sail, or simply Velella. It looks like a tiny sailboat - with a blue, disc-shaped body, and a translucent triangular sail – and can been seen floating on the water’s surface or washed up on the beach.
Velella is a colonial marine organism which belongs to the same group of animals as jellyfish and coral. Like other members of the group, Velella are carnivorous.
They catch their prey, including plankton and tiny fish, via stinging cell-tipped tentacles which dangle down from the blue disc into the water. Only, there’s a problem. Velella cannot swim or propel itself along, so it relies on the wind to blow it around in the hope it will collide with its dinner.
