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🐝 Ants, Bees & Wasps

Exploding Ant

Colobopsis explodens

About

Minor workers can deliberately rupture their own bodies in an act of self-sacrifice, releasing a toxic sticky yellow secretion that entangles and kills attackers. Described new in 2018.

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Did You Know?

When threatened, these ants literally explode β€” minor workers contract their abdominal muscles so violently they burst open, spraying toxic glue on attackers in a suicidal defense.