Another one from the NY Times, fast becoming the premier weird-animal-fact-discoverer. Evidently, fanged, bird-eating frogs have been discovered in Southeast Asia. ***SPOILER ALERT*** It's actually Dracula.
Frogs that eat birds? No, thanks. That's almost as bad as spiders that eat birds, wasps that paralyze and lay their eggs inside live tarantulas, and eagles that eat monkeys. I guess you could have a gruesome circle of life: Frog and spider team up to catch bird; bird escapes and goes off to eat monkey; spider is attacked by wasp and becomes horrible paralyzed living nursery for wasp larva, which consume it as they grow and eventually eat their way out.
"Circle of life" may be an optimistic term, now that I think about it. Circle of Painful Death And Sometimes Crippling Fights For Survival doesn't have the same ring to it, though.
Seriously, once you start thinking of humans as prey, poor wee naked monkeys with neither claws nor fangs nor defensive stings (most of us, anyhow) things move into the crueler perspective already shared by the rest of the natural world.
Would my two housecats stalk, kill, and eat me if I was smaller? No doubt. After which they would probably have a hurking fit and barf me onto a section of rug (never linoleum, oh no, they aim for carpet).
Yesterday I encountered further signs that animals have Had It Up To Here. First, as I was recounting my tale of near-gut-exploding terror at work, one guy noted that he had actually run into a deer while jogging.
Was the deer stupid? Nearly blind in the darkness? Or simply ... waiting?
RUNNER: Is that ... a tree branch? A shadow? What the...?
DEER: Oh, step on, mofo. Let's dance.
Then, after work, I was biking up a cruelly steep gravel road when I rounded a bend and saw a fat copperhead snake S-coiled in the road. I noted the location (left turn, powerlines, steep camber) so when I returned, racing downhill later, I wouldn't run it over.
But on my way back down, it was gone. Spooky!
Next week: enough with the animals, already. Boatbuilding and writing galore.
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Fiesta Bizarro here! Better than my night out! Mekong’s mutants. King Arthur and his ducks of the round table paddling near the water’s edge. Look, a frog. That’s no ordinary frog! That’s the most foul, cruel and bad-tempered amphibian you ever set eyes on. It’ll do you a trick, mate! What’s he do, nibble your bum? I’m warning you...
No rest for the gut with “Oh, step on, mofo…” and being prey! My dog would shake me until my neck snapped and then rip the stuffing out of me to get at my voice box. There wouldn’t be much left of me, but you, after being hurked up partially digested and frothy with bile, might fare well enough as a slimy embryonic pod person…
You see you’ve done wonders for my imagination in just 3 short days. When you’re ready to do the testimonials for your Imagination Explosion program, you know where to find me : )
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