Plants have evolved all kinds of wonderful mechanisms that let them disperse their seeds and reproduce, from puffy dandy lions to maple keys that spin their way to the ground. But none are quite as impressive as the squirting cucumber, which launches its seed pods like tiny high-speed missiles.
The chaps over at BBC’s Earth Unplugged pointed their high-speed cameras at the plants to capture this awesome slow motion footage of the pods taking flight. Believe it or not the pressure that builds up in the seed pods can propel them up to almost six metres at speeds of up to 100km/h. Like we needed another reason not to mess with Mother Nature; now we discover she’s got quite an ammunition stockpile.