The secular Halloween is almost upon us. As is our way, we look to nature for some inspiration. It turns out that the natural world is replete with horrors to help set a spooky, if not terrifying, mood.
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Let’s start with meerkats.
These lovely creatures made especially famous by the wisecracking misfit, Timon, in Disney’s, The Lion King. Timon shares his life philosophy in the song Hakuna Matata, (Swahili for “no worries”) asking us all to live carefree. Let’s leave aside the horrors of cultural appropriation for the moment to focus on the meerkat as an animal.
Meerkats (Suricata suricatta), Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa – Image credit: Charles J. Sharp – CC BY-SA 4.0
It turns out these sweet creatures always on the look out and being collectively cute on the Kalahari are bullying oppressors. Dominant females have been reported to kill the babies of the subordinate females who will then serve as the wet nurses to the dominant female’s young.
Meerkats (Suricata suricatta) are catlike social carnivores that live in communities called “mobs”, yes mobs of up to 40. According to research from South Africa, the dominant female of a mob will kill the offspring of other females.
But these subordinate females can stay in the mob, of course, so long as they work. “Wet-nursing by formerly evicted meerkats may be a way of ‘paying rent’ to be allowed back into the group without receiving further aggression,” study researcher Kirsty MacLeod, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge, in England, said in a statement.
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We love ladybugs (ladybirds in the UK). They are cute. Everyone is always surprised when we stumble upon one in the garden, “oh look a ladybug!” /squeee!
Any Google search will uncover hundreds of crafts projects for kids to cut out a ladybug worksheet and learn about these darling little insects.
Two ladybugs on a leaf during the mating season in the Ukraine – Image credit: Plaksin Alexander – CC BY 4.0
They’re also cannibals, more reason to love them. According to Rice University’s insect blog, some are even “Invasive, Sex-Crazed Cannibals.”
According to researchers at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK, Ladybugs (Adalia bipunctata), “commonly engage in cannibalistic behaviour.” They eat the eggs of other ladybugs because its “considered advantageous to the cannibal because it not only results in direct metabolic gain but also a reduction in potential competitors.”
It turns out that cannibalism (don’t try this at home) has important benefits. “Cannibalism accrues important fitness benefits to the individual because cannibals gain a superior balance of nutrients for growth and maintenance”
And not just those specific nutritional health perks. The researchers found that cannibal ladybugs matured faster. In a randomized study of eggs and larvae, cannibals “reached the adult stage 1.65 days ahead of the non-cannibals” leading to the obvious conclusion that some forms of cannibalism are “undoubtedly advantageous.”
Ladybugs also eat aphids.
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Then there’s deer. Deer as in Bambi (yes, back to Disney this time for petrifying lessons on grief, loss, and abandonment).
A scientific study (yes, you read the right) observed deer eating human remains. Forensic researchers with the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility (FARF) at Texas State University, a facility totally dedicated to study the decomposition of human bodies, were interested in how various scavengers affected human remains.
The researchers reported that “Ungulate gnawing on bone has been reported in the taphonomic and zooarchaeological literature, but there are no known reports of ungulates altering human remains.” This is the clarity of science-speak for “ZOMG WE SAW A DEER EATING DEAD PEOPLE.”
The researchers made the discovery during the winter season and noted that gnawing of bone by deer had been previously documented but only in nonhuman remains. The research discusses how to identify deer gnawing marks on human bone and distinguish it from other scavengers, adding, of course, to the body of literature on human skeletal remains.
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There’s actually a creature called the tongue-eating louse. It’s named that because it is exactly what it does. It would be like calling a cat the disinterested furry scratcher.
Cymothoa exigua, or the tongue-eating louse, a parasitic crustacean of the family Cymothoidae in the mouth of a Sand steenbras, (Lithognathus mormyrus) – Image credit: Marco Vinci – CC BY-SA 3.0
On October 19, 2021, the Galveston Island State Park shared a Facebook post reminding us all that things can be worse.
The post reads, “Inside this Atlantic Croaker’s mouth is a parasitic isopod called a tongue-eating louse. This parasite detaches the fish’s tongue, attaches itself to the fish’s mouth, and becomes its tongue.” Thanks.
The agency added, “The parasite then feeds on the fish’s mucus. It also happens to be the only known case where a parasite functionally replaces a host’s organ.”
Fish infected by these parasites have been given the cuddly name of “bug mouths.” It turns out the parasite is common in the mouths of fish like sea trout and several types of snappers, leaving, no doubt, a fresh sense of relief in non-pescatarians.
Mark Fisher, science director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s coastal fisheries division, told Texas TV station KSAT that, “These are isopod crustaceans and are related to the pill bugs, a.k.a. rolly-pollies, you can find in your yard.” It’s a statement that is at once both interesting and not re-assuring.
Texas Parks and Wildlife noted that the louse “does not kill the fish or affect humans.” A statement that cannot possibly be reassuring to fish.
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So ends this Halloween season’s trip through nature’s horrors. I leave you to explore the unexplored like zombie-fungus controlling Brazilian ants and National Geographic’s (Thanks Disney!) baby spiders eating their mom in a process that actually has a name – matriphagy.
Happy Halloween.
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