PECULIAR ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR

ANIMAL TORTURE

Ichneumon wasps find a victim (usually a caterpillar), inject their

eggs into the victim’s body, paralyze the victim, and then eat

it while it is still alive. The worst part, however, is that the wasp

consumes the fatty deposits and digestive organs first.

This keeps the caterpillar alive for as long as possible.

FAECAL ATTRACTION

Hippos attract their mates by urinating and defecating simultaneously.

CREATING A HUSBAND

Histiostoma murchiei, a female mite, lays eggs without needing

fertilization. When her sons grow up she copulates with them and

the sons die shortly thereafter.

ALCOHOLIC MONKEYS

In St. Kitts, the vervet monkeys developed a taste for alcohol over

the course of the past few centuries by eating fermented sugar cane.

Recently they even started stealing alcohol from local resorts.

HANDSTANDS

The spotted skunk does handstands to scare off predators.

SUICIDAL COWS

Although scientists have a hard time establishing that animals

might be suicidal, recently in Switzerland dozens of cows

mysteriously plunged to their deaths over the side of a cliff.

DEATH CIRCLE

Army ants are blind and therefore will follow the smell of their

neighbour in order to reach the nest. Sometimes the chemical

trails of a large group of army ants can get looped around into

a circle. The ants will therefore continue walking around and

around until they drop dead from exhaustion.

THE SUPER SNAP

The pistol shrimp has been dubbed the loudest animal in the sea.

In order to stun its prey it snaps its claw at supersonic speed.

The resulting sound is actually a sonic boom and the shockwave

that the snap creates is powerful enough to stun its prey.

To make things really mind blowing, the temperatures of the

resulting shockwave momentarily gets as hot as the

surface of the sun.