Fatal Ways Animals Protect Themselves

to survive in the wild world you have to put in a really great deal of effort some animals rely on sharp fangs and quick paws others on the other hand have mastered fatal ways of defense let's go what can happen if you enter someone else's territory anyway okay no no i'm talking about ant territory they'll start firing all kinds of guns yes ants have not invented artillery yet but they have something better you've probably heard about formic acid it's not sulfuric acid of course but it can still serve as a pretty good weapon let me explain how it works the abdomen of the red forest ant contains a poisonous gland that releases acid it passes through a duct into a reservoir where it's stored until it's needed as soon as a potential danger such as a predator or a scientist they can also be dangerous approaches the anthill or the ants themselves the artillery fires a volley of acid and you would be wrong to think that such tiny creatures are completely harmless an ant shoots acid from a hole near the tip of its abdomen which it can aim at the enemy now this of course is not sniper precision but there are a lot of insects the life of an individual doesn't matter what matters is the survival of the entire colony ants behave as a single organism which is able to resist the attack of any predator even a bear and the insects seem to be quite tiny but in order to get to them predators have to overcome a thick cloud of acid fumes which corrode the mucous membranes well who'd want to go any further in a situation like that better to find some more cooperative food horned lizards are definitely not suitable as such food these guys have so many different defense mechanisms against enemies that they're less likely to be anyone's dinner there are spikes camouflage coloring and quick zigzagging movements that confuse the enemy sometimes these lizards even swell up to appear larger and more impressive but the best part is the ability to shoot their own blood i have never seen a horny toad actually shoot blood out of its eyes but it just totally shot blood out of my out of its eyes yeah it's disgusting it's also amazing look look for yourself yeah caught in a desperate situation a horned lizard can shoot blood from the corners of its eyes at a distance of up to five meters not exactly what you'd expect from any living creature right it does so by blocking the outflow of blood from the head there's an increase in blood pressure which causes the tiny blood vessels around the eyelids to burst yeah the horned lizard has to do a little damage to itself to engage his superpowers but wolverine also cut his skin every time he released his claws all this performance confuses the predator and the taste of the lizard's blood is often unpleasant it can even be poisonous especially if it gets into the mouth of someone in the canine family however bloodshots have no effect on birds of prey so horned lizards can easily become prey to birds it seems time to come up with a new method of defense if horned lizards were social animals and lived in water they could form a kind of bait ball it's a phenomenon where small fish clump together in a huge spherical shoal and no not for the purpose of invoking satan it's a last measure that small shoulders resort to when threatened by predators this for example is how sardines act this instinctive behavior is a defense mechanism because single individuals have a greater chance of being eaten than fish in a large group if the same sardine bait ball can reach 10 to 20 meters in diameter and go down to a depth of 10 meters can you imagine the size a giant thing but bait balls are short-lived and rarely exist longer than 10 minutes soon disintegrating into separate individuals however you can't say that predators see a rotating wall of fish in front of them and just turn around and swim away they too have adapted swordfish attack the shoals at high speed to kill or stun their prey it then turns and returns to eat its catch other fish use their tails or attack strictly vertically rotating on their axis and grabbing anything that swims by and whales well whales simply open their mouths sharply getting close to the bait ball their hunting skills deserve a separate video so if you want it let me know you know i'm beginning to think that the smaller the creature the more bizarre ways of defense it invents the kentish plover can hardly be called a large bird in fact they are no larger than a sparrow and weigh about 40 grams but even in such conditions they've learned to resist predators kentish plovers don't try to attack first or even camouflage themselves they divert danger to themselves to save their young if an enemy approaches the adult bird pretends to have a problem with its wing and moves away from the nest thereby diverting the threat from the clutch see look it pretends to be wounded so badly that it'll become easy prey and when the predator is far enough away from the nest the bird takes off and returns to its eggs i wonder how many times this works with the same threat distracting the enemy is pretty understandable behavioral strategy but it's not only found in birds sabrina's wrecking bergie spiders are considered one of a kind because they're the only ones that hide from their enemies like this sabrina's reckenbergy live only in morocco and unlike their relative from namibia the golden wheel spider which in case of danger can trivially roll down the dunes the moroccan one uses its own legs for that and can roll not only down but also up and even against the wind this is a ninja spider or a gymnast spider whichever you prefer moving at a speed of two meters per second the insect moves twice as fast as running the traditional way just what you need when another spider serpooga or human suddenly appears close by okay if i saw sulphuga i'd roll too by the way the discovery of this species influenced developments in biomimetrics which resulted in an experimental robot that moves in a similar way it's believed that this robot can be used in agriculture at the bottom of the ocean or even on mars in short it doesn't care where it rolls and while we're on the subject of all sorts of crawling creatures these are ribbon worms and the ribbon worms seem to be some sort of very distant earthly relative of venom when pressed they spit out what looks like white slime which immediately takes on a life of its own seriously look it's moving it's moving okay actually it's not just slime it's one of the internal organs that's used when hunting normally ribbon worms twist out their probiscus to grab their prey and the slime that covers it paralyzes the prey the only thing left to do is pull and eat it but sometimes ribbon worms use the same principle to defend themselves against a predator mostly because some species simply can't do anything else now let's go underwater again look at this crab and more specifically at its claws those things look like boxing gloves it carries around all the time why because this guy is always ready for a fight one at a time of course as is usually the case with nature this kind of crab couldn't have just appeared all by itself strictly speaking this tiny creature is called libia and it holds in its claws actinia that is lybia just takes special corals and starts waving them around and it even has a name mutualism it's a form of cohabitation between different organisms equally beneficial to both parties libya uses only three species of actinia which apparently were selected in the process of evolution while hunting the crab freezes blending in with the surrounding background when its prey swims by it grabs it with its unusual claws and each of the animals proceeds to eat without the actinia the crab would be doomed to starve to death its claws are too delicate and it's unable to get food with them in addition to getting the food the actinia helped the crab defend itself from its enemies all the species living on the claws of the libya are poisonous however in case the crab can't find a suitable actinia it uses debris from other corals or sponges it's not that cool but it's better than nothing turns out to be kind of brass knuckles while in one part of the world's oceans small crabs are waving corals to repel fish attacks elsewhere in fresh water there are electric eels it's perhaps one of the most famous species used for intimidation sharks piranhas and electric eels choose which is more appropriate for your horror movie but unlike the first two eels are to truly be feared the electric eel stuns its enemies in prey with an electrical discharge up to 600 volts [Music] it has special organs consisting of numerous electrical plates they're modified muscle cells between the membranes of which the potential difference is formed the organs occupy two-thirds of the body weight of this fish and yes the electric eel is not related to ordinary eels it's rather a very electrified catfish it's an electric eel oh as soon as an eel is attacked by a predator or it needs to stun its prey the organ cells produce electrical discharges and believe me this isn't something you want to feel at all today there are a few known cases of deaths after an encounter with an electric eel nevertheless numerous discharges can lead to respiratory or heart failure which can cause a person to drown even in shallow water but one of the strangest and probably creepiest ways of self-defense is used by japanese bees the main enemy of these insects are hornets which attack and ravage hives a group of 30 hornets destroys an entire hive of 30 000 bees in about three hours and the bees have learned to fight back when the first hornet approaches the hive the worker bees swoop in and leave the passage open allowing the hornet to sneak in once the hornet is inside the hive the bees surround the enemy forming a ball of about 500 bees it's impossible to get out the bees composing this ball use their wings to push the air warmed by their muscular tension inside so that the temperature around the hornet often rises to 47 degrees celsius and since the maximum temperature a hornet can withstand is between 44 and 46 degrees celsius the predator dies literally baked inside a crowd of bees the latter on the other hand are able to withstand temperatures up to 50 degrees and therefore remain unharmed and probably very happy with themselves we'll see you later

Channel: WATOP

Views: 15,737,191

Keywords: WATOP, Wa Top, wild life, defense, fatal ways, top, things

Id: pJ25KPnoe4o

Length: 10min 16sec (616 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 16 2021