Tongue-eating Parasite, 10 Weird and Disgusting Things From Animals Discovered in 2021

6. Organ Flavoring

Asian knife-toothed kukri snakes know what they like, and what they love are frog organs, which are best eaten while their prey is still alive. The researchers looked at several examples of snakes eating organs from frogs in Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

Kukri snakes usually use their dagger-like teeth to slice open eggs, but their teeth are just as effective when used as slashing weapons to expose frog viscera. Two snakes were seen swallowing their frog whole – but only after eating the organs first, scientists report.

7. Share Vomit to Socialize

Social networks for humans may be a bit less popular if people have to build their connection with gag. But the system seems to work well for the ants, which bond by spewing into each other’s mouths. Known as trophalaxis, this practice allows ants to share proteins, nutrients, and hormones, and strengthens connections between colony members.

An ant colony can contain thousands of individuals divided into groups, each performing a specific task that can affect their gut contents. But when the ingredients are passed on by word of mouth, the entire colony can share the individual nutritional and hormonal benefits.

8. Caterpillar Drinkers

Of course, 2021 will be the year scientists tell us about a butterfly slashing at a caterpillar to drink its guts. Researchers in Indonesia witnessed seven species of milkweed butterflies drinking from “wounded and oozing caterpillars”, in a gruesome meal that sometimes lasted hours. Using the tiny claws on their feet, the butterflies carve wounds on the caterpillar’s body to expose the fluid inside; Since caterpillars feed on the milkweed plant, their bodily fluids are full of chemicals from the chewed leaves.

This makes caterpillars an easy target for male butterflies, which use milkweed compounds to help them attract females.

9. Carcass Crusher

It’s not every day marine biologists get to observe (and film) a group of hungry great white sharks tearing a humpback whale carcass into tiny pieces. A research team in Massachusetts began a tagging mission in August and were looking for basking sharks when they spotted a shark “eating madness” around the floating carcass of a young humpback whale at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

Scientists took photos and videos of the slaughter and were even able to attach acoustic sensors to some great white sharks while they were feeding; That way, they can later track the movements and behavior of these deep-sea predators.

10. Butt-busting Mushroom

During the spring and summer of 2021, black-bodied red-eyed crickets appear in the northeastern United States in the billions. This mass emergence occurs every 17 years, and a deadly fungus called Massospora cicadina, which is only parasitic on crickets, follows the same 17-year schedule.

Fungal spores in the soil attach to the cricket nymph’s exoskeleton after it has dug its way out of the soil; The spores then penetrate the cricket’s body and reproduce as the nymph metamorphoses into an adult.

Eventually, the fungus becomes so densely packed inside the living insect that it replaces the back of the cricket with a dense mass of yellow spores that are visible when parts of the cricket’s exoskeleton crack and fall off. The fungus also changes the behavior of the crickets, making the insects mate more often — and thereby infecting more crickets.

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