Scientists have found the optimal angle for a serpentine glide is 25 degrees, with the snake's head angled upward and tail downward. While wingless dragons couldn't technically fly, they could glide a very long distance. If the animal somehow stored lighter-than-air gases, it might master flight. To date, no fire-breathing animals have been found. However, it wouldn't be impossible for an animal to expel flames.
The bombardier beetle family Carabidae stores hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide in its abdomen, which it ejects when threatened.
The chemicals mix in the air and undergo an exothermic heat-releasing chemical reaction , essentially spraying the offender with irritating, boiling hot fluid. When you stop to think about it, living organisms produce flammable, reactive compounds and catalysts all the time.
Even humans inhale more oxygen than they use. Hydrogen peroxide is a common metabolic by-product. Acids are used for digestion. Methane is a flammable by-product of digestion. Catalases improve the efficiency of chemical reactions. A dragon could store the necessary chemicals until it's time to use them, forcefully expel them, and ignite them either chemically or mechanically. Mechanical ignition could be as simple as generating a spark by crushing together piezoelectric crystals.
Piezoelectric materials, like flammable chemicals, already exist in animals. Examples include tooth enamel and dentin, dry bone, and tendons. So, breathing fire is certainly possible. It hasn't been observed, but that doesn't mean no species has ever developed the ability. However, it's just as likely an organism that shoots fire might do so from its anus or a specialized structure in its mouth.
The heavily armored dragon portrayed in movies is almost certainly a myth. Heavy scales, spines, horns, and other bony protuberances would weigh a dragon down. However, if your ideal dragon has tiny wings, you can take heart in the realization that science doesn't yet have all the answers.
After all, scientists didn't figure out how bumblebees fly until In summary, whether or not a dragon exists or can fly, eat people, or breathe fire really comes down to what you define a dragon to be. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data.
Select personalised content. The birds then use the fire to kindle new flames elsewhere, which, in turn, smoke out mammals and insect prey that they can eat. As for actual fire-breathing animals, it appears those are confined to our imagination. Just note, this smoke-breathing elephant isn't some kind of dragon hybrid. Rather, it likely ate some pieces of wood charcoal from the forest floor, and then blew away the ash as it chomped down, Varun Goswami, a Wildlife Conservation Society elephant biologist in India, said in a statement.
Originally published on Live Science. Laura is an editor at Live Science. She edits Life's Little Mysteries and reports on general science, including archaeology and animals.
She has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly newspaper near Seattle. To put it in a way we understand, his spray is capable of burning a human hand, and leaving it yellowish-brown for up to three weeks. This is partly due to the highly irritating chemicals released and partly due to the fact that the spray reaches degrees Fahrenheit the boiling point of water.
The animal gets its name as bombardier beetle because the chemicals come out as an explosion rather than a stream. They can have up to twenty bursts of chemicals in one short period of time if they feel threatened. The bombardier beetle is a living example of the use of chemistry. The two chambers within the abdomen of the beetle contain different chemicals, one with hydrogen peroxide and one with hydroquinone.
Both of these are harmless chemicals and, even more interestingly, both of these chemicals are relatively unreactive with one-another. In order for them to produce the explosive result that the animal needs, the bombardier beetle also introduces a catalyst into the mixing chamber. The mixing chamber will decompose the hydrogen peroxide into boiling water and the hydroquinone utilizes the oxygen to oxidize into benzoquinone, which is a very irritating chemical.
The bombardier beetle has surprisingly good aim, with the ability to aim at predators and bothersome ants on top of it, directly below it, behind it, and even directly in front of them.
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