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Halloween may be for the supernatural, but nature can be plenty scary, too! It's time for Natural History: Halloween Edition!
We begin with the Death's Head Hawkmoth. With a spooky scull print on its back, this moth features in Dracula, Silence of the Lambs, and works by Edgar Allen Poe, and is associated with death in folklore.
Death's Head Hawkmoth larvae eat potato plants, accumulating toxic chemicals to be poisonous to predators. The adult moth has evolved to suck honey, and it raids beehives, mimicking bee pheromones to sneak in undetected.
Did you know zombies ARE REAL? The fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis infects ant hosts in the tropics, causing them to totally change their behavior. If you've played The Last of Us, this is where the inspiration came from.
Once infected, ants leave their canopy nests and make their way to the dark, moist forest floor, which is a much better habitat for the fungus. After several days, they march to the underside of a leaf and die, and the fungus erupts from the ant's head and releases its spores.
Meet the aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur that dwells in Madagascar. It's got with rodent-like teeth and a very special thin middle finger, which it uses to pull out grubs from trees. Many Malagasy view it as a harbinger of evil and death.
Some say the aye-aye uses its bony finger to point at someone about to die, or to spreads a death curse. Others believe the aye-aye sneaks into houses through thatched roofs to murder sleepers by puncturing their aorta. It's often killed on sight, and is sadly endangered.
Did you know that there's an entire genus of orchids named after Dracula? Many are blood-red, and their sepals have a fang-like appearance. It grows in the cool shady forests of the Andes in Columbia & Ecuador, and does not drink blood.
(Master, your servant awaits you!)
(Master, your servant awaits you!)
You may know them as larder beetles, carpet beetles, or even. Dermestids are scavengers: eaters of the dead. Forensic scientists use the chemicals in their shed exoskeletons to screen for toxins in murder victims, and museums use them to clean bone specimens.
In mythology, hags were supernatural creatures that could cause sleep paralysis. In the oceans, hagfish are jawless fishes with primitive eyes that can only see light...they have NO BACKBONE -- and may represent a time before vertebrate evolved.
If so, they'd have been basically unchanged for the last 300 million years! Hagfish secrete a milky slime from small wholes across their body. When captured, the slime gunks up predators' gills, allowing them to escape. They then tie themselves in a knot to scrape the slime off!
But back to vampires -- vampire BATS, that is! There are three species of these sanguivorous bats, in Central and South America. Special receptors in their noses help them find warm bodies to feed on. They're the only bats that can walk, run, and jump.
Vampire bats have complex social structures, and will go around to their friends and family begging for blood meals if they weren't able to feed -- which is provided by a friendly regurgitation.
To circle back to SLIME for a moment, I present: rock snot! Didymo, as it's officially known, is a species of diatom, which is itself a kind of algae. This stuff lives in cold, freshwater streams and rivers.
In the Northern Hemisphere, where it's native, Didymo is just a regular part of the ecosystem. In the Southern Hemisphere, where it's invasive, it creates massive snotty clumps that can clog up streams.
I know you're quite terrified by now, so let's take a moment with this adorable, gentle, peaceful little bird. Hello, there, friend? What's your name? A shrike, you say? And what do cute little shrikes do?
"We impale our prey upon sharp branches, thorns, and barbed-wire fences and leave them to die. We decorate our homes with the bodies of our dead to impress and attract mates as powerful as ourselves. What do hoo-mans do?"
If Birb the Impaler isn't scary enough for try -BOO!- AH, A GHOST plant! Aka Monotropa, they're white instead of green, because they lack chlorophyll. That means the can't make their own food, so they steal it from other plants. I guess that makes them vampires, not ghosts?
