• Question: if there was a nuclear war what animals would die?

    Asked by to Aled, Ellie, Kev, Willem on 20 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Willem Heijltjes

      Willem Heijltjes answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      Hi violetroses!

      In the war itself, the bombs would probably be aimed at cities – so mostly animals that live near humans would be killed directly. Animals in the sea would be relatively safe.

      But the main thing that would cause extinctions would be when dust clouds block the sun. Without the sun, plants cannot grow, and animals have nothing to eat.

      If this happens, the animals that would die first are those that need a lot to eat (big mammals). The animals that have the most chance of surviving are those that can adapt to the new situation. That’s probably small animals that can eat a lot of different foods – such as cockroaches and rats…

    • Photo: Kevin Arbuckle

      Kevin Arbuckle answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      Basically, anything that isn’t anywhere near the blast (as in several miles away) won’t get killed by the explosion itself. But the radiation that remains in the area or is carried elsewhere as ‘fallout’ could potentially kill lots of other things too. If we assume that a nuclear war is big enough to leave very high levels of radiation on a large scale then only animals that are highly resistant to radiation will survive (such as cockroaches).

      When the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (in Ukraine) had a meltdown, kind of like a nuclear explosion, the animals and plants in the surrounding area either died or were seriously effected (earlier death, poor reproduction or even being made sterile), but about 25 years on now things are slowly starting to return to normal, even with a lot of radiation still around.

      Interestingly, other organisms that aren’t animals can sometimes survive quite well under high radiation. There is a species of fungus that was found to be growing inside the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl! There is also a really cool microorganism (a single celled species that can only be seen under a microscope) called Deinococcus radiodurans that is remarkably tolerant to radiation, in fact it can survive more radiation that you ever find on Earth! It’s is also resistant to other extreme conditions too so you might be interested to Google this little beastie to find out more 🙂

    • Photo: Aled Roberts

      Aled Roberts answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      Hey violet roses!

      Nuclear bombs are very dangerous things indeed! When one of them blows up it creates a massive area of death and destruction which will kill and destroy anything in its path! Taken from another answer I gave… There are four things associated with a nuclear bomb blast!

      1) The blast – There are two schlock waves… one of pressure and one of “wind”. The first would hit buildings at about 180 mph and cause massive structural damage! The next hits at about 500 mph which wipes it out!

      2) Radition – Nuclear bombs work using radioactive material which lingers around the detonation site and can be deadly to our own cells – resulting in various cancers!

      3) Heat – The heat radiation generated by a nuclear bomb is staggering! If you were stood 7 miles away you would get first degree burns (sun burn)… If you were 6 miles away you’d get second degree burns… and if you were 5 miles away you would get third degree burns! CRAZY!

      4) Fallout – Finally you get fall out… this is from the mushroom shaped cloud where radioactive material goes high into the atmosphere and then is carried by winds long distances before it comes back down! This means radioactive materials could end up in drinking water etc…!

      All in all it is very bad and nothing would survive in the blast zone or they would die shortly after, There are lots of videos of the explosions on youtube! Well worth a look!

      Hope that helps! Don’t forget to vote 🙂

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