LICE

 <--- lookin good

This is the tongue-eating louse (Cymothoa exigua). They eat fish’s faces and they even inspired a horror movie, “Bay.”

Not watching that

They live in tropical seas and as you can sea (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA) they eat fish tongues. So do some people who like weird sushis

Said people also eat horses O_O

me --->

Bats aren’t the Animal of Dracula…

This picture just struck me as funny. Lol.

Okay, okay, I know I said that the Ifrita kowaldi bird was the most evil bird in the world (Evil Birds of Evilness, December 8, 2014), but I was wrong. Way wrong.

Meet the hood mockingbird (Mimus macdonaldi). Also known as the Española mockingbird or Macdonald’s mockingbird, this thing lives in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, and Española Island, and it is so terribly evil. It is similar to an equally evil finch (yep, FINCH) called a vampire finch (Geospiza difficilis septentrionalis) in that part of its diet consists of sucking the blood of wounded birds.

Wait. What? A finch does that?

The rest of its (grisly) diet includes…

• baby seabirds/eggs
• baby sea turtles/eggs
• random dead animals
• berries
• grass
• seeds
• leaves
• fruit
• all kinds of bugs
• blood (did I already say that?)

Not visiting the Galapagos any time soon. Or ever. :(

KoC Fact: Stings to the Brain Really Calm Bugs Down!

This beautiful creature is a jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa), aka an emerald cockroach wasp. It is so-called because it attacks insects—usually a type of cockroach called Pariplaneta americana— and stings their brains, then lays eggs inside the still-living cockroach. The young baby jewel wasps live inside the cockroach and control its brain and slowly eat the insides of the cockroach.

EWW! What?!?

I’m sorry you read that, and I’m shocked I was so…so calm about it.

Jewel wasps live all over Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific islands. The female is about 2.2 cm (22 mm) and the male is slightly smaller and lacks a stinger.

The whole “babies control bugs’ brains” thing reminds me a lot of a tropical fungus called Cordyceps, which does exactly the same thing, but it grows out of the insect (usually an ant)’s head. The weird part is that Cordyceps fungi are made into a Chinese soup called “silkie”, which also contains seahorses (Hippocampus).

Did you know there are 54 species of seahorses in the world? Find out more about the dwarf seahorses in the on December 12!

Evil Birds of Evilness

This is the blue-capped ifrit (Ifrita kowaldi), an absolutely EVIL bird that is endemic to the rainforests of New Guinea.

Wait. Why is it evil?

Because of the batrachotoxins it hides in its skin and feathers, that’s why! This causes tingling and numbness on the hand of the person holding it. The toxins are acquired from Choresine beetles which the species eats.

Yum!

They’re evaluated as “Least Concern” by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

These things are EVIL. 

The Turtle that Looks like a Torture Device! O_O

This odd turtle is called the St. Catherine’s wheel turtle (Heosemys spinosus), also known as the cogs-wheel turtle and the spiny turtle. The adult turtles don’t have the spines. (NO!) Why is it called a St. Catherine’s wheel turtle?

KINGDOM OF CREATURES STORY TIME!!

St. Catherine of Alexandria (282 – 305 AD) lived in Alexandria, Egypt. One of her acquaintences was the emperor of Rome, Maxentius, who was persecuting Catholics. She told him to stop at once, and you know what? He sentenced her to be tied to a wheel with knives on it, and have the wheel spun so she got cut up. It was a very sad death that she did not deserve at all, but thankfully she is a saint. Her feast day is November 25.

Her wheel looks kind of like this similar torture device at a museum:

Maxentius = Biggest jerk in history besides King Henry VIII.

Anyway, this turtle is an Asian species, ranging in Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

There have been three successful captive incubations of the St. Catherine’s wheel turtle’s eggs, taking up to 145 days to hatch. These bizarrely cute turtles are completely herbivorous in nature, though many captive species eat meat.

Scary Colorful Worms.

This slightly beautiful worm is a bearded fireworm (Hermodice carunculata). It’s so pretty, right? I agree. It’s a worm from the order Polychaeta that lives in Caribbean reefs across the Antilles, the Maltese archipelago, the Mediterranean, and the waters of Cyprus. Its habitat is mostly on reefs.

Now, what’s so horrible about that?

Look out, world—the bearded fireworm is DESTROYING REEFS!!

They eat all sorts of corals, and, to make it worse, they have a sting that—well…stings?

Bearded fireworms are very slow animals, but don’t be like, “Omg haha it #canthurtme.” A) Why are you doing hashtags?; and B) YOU IDIOT IF ITS BRISTLES TOUCH YOUR SKIN THEY INJECT A NEUROTOXIN INTO YOU WHICH CAUSES BURNING AND NAUSEA!

Here’s the nice, kawaii, awesome part. The sting symptoms clear up in just about thirty minutes, and, at worst, a few hours. AND, many fish are currently doing their part to control the bearded fireworm population. These include the creole fish (Clepticus parrae, which, as a bonus, is absolutely beautiful):

the pineapplefish (Cleidopus gloriamaris)—these things are adorable, by the way; “gloriamaris” means “glory of the sea”:

and the absolutely beautiful French angelfish (Pomacanthus paru):

By the way, young P. paru look way different. I’ll save that as a surprise in a later post…

Is this Thing Possessed…? (Answer: YES!!!!)

This demonic-looking creature is the bigear micronycteris (Micronycteris microtis). And, I swear, it looks possessed. Very, very possessed. I’m so freaked out by this creature that when I first saw it, I thought “AAAH! It’s a demon infecting my computer!” (And then I thought, “Aww, it’s kind of cute.” But you didn’t hear that from me.)

This bat’s species name, microtis, actually means “small ear,” which I think is a slight mistake on the describer’s part. Hear that, Miller? Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, TSK!

I love bats. They are so kawaii et dulcé. But not this one. (Yes, this one!)

PS: 30th post! :)

Happy Black Friday from the Magpie-Shrike!

These cute, very pretty little birds, magpie-shrikes (Urolestes melanoleucus), have a very scary and disturbing habit that I’m going to save for the end. For now, don’t hate these pretty little creatures.

Until the end. I’m going to stop being so repetitive now.

Magpie-shrikes are found chiefly in parts of Africa, such as Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana, and Kenya.

Now for the scary, gross, horrifying, disturbing part. What do magpie-shrikes eat?

Not scary, eh?

Eh?

Eh.

Animals impaled on thorns.

They impale them themselves, you see. First they kill it—it can be anything from a small bird, a grasshopper, a treefrog, or a mouse to SMALL KITTEN—and then impale it on a thorn to save for later.

And it does this ALL DAY.

Oh, yeah. Why “Black Friday”? Two reasons: A) Magpie-shrikes are black and B) it gets tons of animals, just like shoppers get tons of stuff.

I know. I’m so clever.