This morning we’ll skip the “readers’ wildlife photos” post in favor of a few striking animal pictures and videos that readers sent me. The first four items are either scary or gruesome, but, you know, that’s nature.
I’ve seen a lot of animal photos in my time, but the first one in the series below takes the cake. I was loath to publish it yesterday as I wasn’t sure if I’d have to get permission, but now it’s everywhere, including PuffHo UK (which includes the story), and so I feel no compunction about putting up the series. The photos were taken by Martin Le-May, a “hobby photographer” from London, and shows a stunning encounter between a European green woodpecker (Picus viridis) and a weasel, probably the least weasel (Musetla nivalis)—in all likelihood a juvenile.
The whole story:
[Le-May] told Huffington Post UK: “It was a sunny afternoon, with the occasional cloud making the Hornchurch Country Park seem that grey brown dull winter colour even though it was the 2nd March.
“My wife, Ann, and I had gone for a walk. I had hoped that she might see a green woodpecker as she has not really seen one before.
“As we walked we heard a distressed squawking and I saw that flash of green. So hurriedly I pointed out to Ann the bird and it settled into the grass behind a couple of small silver birch trees.
“Both of us trained our binoculars and it occurred that the woodpecker was unnaturally hopping about like it was treading on a hot surface. Lots of wing flapping showing that gloriously yellow/white colour interspersed with the flash of red head feathers. Just after I switched from my binoculars to my camera the bird flew across us and slightly in our direction; suddenly it was obvious it had a small mammal on its back and this was a struggle for life.
“The woodpecker landed in front of us and I feared the worst. I guess though our presence, maybe 25 metres away, momentarily distracted the weasel. The woodpecker seized the opportunity and flew up and away into some bushes away to our left. Quickly the bird gathered its self respect and flew up into the trees and away from our sight.
“The woodpecker left with its life, the weasel just disappeared into the long grass, hungry.”
Diane G. (who sent the elephant link below) calls these photos “Woodpecker airlines”:
Given its size, I suspect this was not a full-grown adult. Also, if it had been a full grown adult, I doubt the bird would have survived. Young ‘uns haven’t yet mastered the fatal bite to the neck. It could, however, be a small adult female, which can weigh as little as 55 grams (2 ounces).
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From Condé Nast Traveller last August, we have a series of photos in which an African elephant decides to rub itself on a car. All photos by Armand Grobler / Barcroft Media.
The story from the site:
The incredible images were taken by Armand Grobler, 21, a field guide and lodge manager, in Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa. He said, “I was doing ethology—the study of animal behaviour—at the time, so I had a basic understanding of what was going on.
The elephant was presumably on Musth, which is a time that an elephant male has an excess amount of testosterone, turning even the calmest Dumbo into a raging bull. “Yet even though it was in this condition, it displayed no signs of aggression or frustration and was in a more playful mood.”
Elephants frequently use logs, small trees and rocks to relieve an itch or remove parasites—but with the car so close to hand, it was a chance too good for the ellie to pass up. Armand added: “We were unsure of what to do in the situation when the elephant made contact with the car, and when the car was being crushed, we feared for the lives of the driver and passenger but our efforts were very limited as to what we could do. The all-round emotion that was within our vehicle, as we watched in horror, was that we were rushed with adrenaline yet terrified and helpless”
The two passengers in the car, male and female, both in late 20s or early 30s, were not harmed, only badly shaken up. They were both in shock but happy to be alive. “The car was not so lucky. All four tyres had been blown and the chassis broken.”
*******
From the Daily Mail (h/t Melissa), we have the story (and a video on YouTube) of a snake vs. spider battle:
A Victorian farmer was astonished to find an enormous red-back spider [Latrodectus hasseltii, related to the black widow] had lifted an eastern brown snake off the ground and ‘hurled it’ into its web under one of the family’s car at the weekend.
‘It’s just mindboggling,’ said Neale Postlethwaite, a farmer of 20 years from Gooroc, north of Melbourne.
‘I can’t believe it was actually able to stop it and then hurl it up backwards into its nest.’
Mr Postlethwaite found the baby snake suspended off the ground on Saturday evening, the large spider sitting on top.
To his surprise, the snake was still alive at the time, with the farmer daring to place his finger nearby.
‘I thought the snake was dead and went to put my finger there and the snake was still alive at the time,’ Mr Postlethwaite said.
The eastern brown snake is known for its potent venom, which can cause sudden death, neurotoxity, coagulation disturbances and nephrotoxicity, according to researchers.
But this baby snake was presumably a victim of the spider’s poison.
The snake died overnight, with Mr Postlethwaite finding its corpse being devoured by ants in the dust the next day.
Mr Postlethwaite told Daily Mail Australia his family often found redbacks on their property.
This particular creature had been living under his wife’s car. She is a little reticent about getting back behind the wheel, the farmer said.
‘My wife doesn’t want to drive her car until she can get an underbody car wash,’ he joked.
The video:
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A gazillion readers sent me links to this video, which is everywhere, so I decided—as part of today’s theme of “animal horrors”—that I should post it. The video shows how far a hungry cephalopod will go to get noms.
The story from Business Insider (!):
Porsche Indrisie was relaxing and shooting some video on the beach in Yallingup, Western Australia, when she captured an incredible unexpected moment.
The cephalopod launches itself out of the water onto the crab. And even though the crab tries to make its escape across land into a different pool, the octopus doesn’t give up then.
It follows then drags the crab back across land into its hidden lair.
“I didn’t know why i chose to film this crab, but thought i would try and get closer to it but something else beat me to it,” she comments on her video.
There, it most likely punctured the crustacean with its beak, allowing it access to the tender morsels inside.
*******
As a palliative to all this natural horror (which proves there’s no God, since God could have created herbivorous octopuses), here’s a photo from the Telegraph’s “Pictures of the day” (h/t: Roo). I have a draft post on the Cat Island of Japan, and will try to post it soon.
The caption:
Cats crowd the harbour on Aoshima Island in the Ehime prefecture in southern Japan. An army of cats rules the remote island in southern Japan, curling up in abandoned houses or strutting about in a fishing village that is overrun with felines outnumbering humans six to one. Picture: REUTERS/Thomas Peter
You can get an idea of the gene frequencies on this island from the picture above: a prevalence of tabby and orange genes.
Did it weasily get air miles?
Could be an adult least weasel (or as we call them in the UK, “the weasel” – Mustela nivalis). They’re approx that size.
Seconded: green woodpeckers are quite large, to 30 cm long or more, so that weasel could easily be an adult. I was watching one in my garden a few days ago, and it looked about the size of the one in the photpgraph. It probably did not bite because it was afraid of flying. 🙂
Airline meals can put anyone off, even a voracious predator.
Those are all amazing. I would not not to fly ‘woodpecker airlines’.
From the posture of the spider, I would say that it was biting the snake at the time. Black widow spiders have very strong silk, and so I would expect that the silk of the related red back spider would also be very strong.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
Tt should be noted that I agree with Mrs. Postlethwaite. Further, I do not want to visit Australia until she gets the underside of her car washed.
Nice pic of the blue and black cats. 😉
+1
😀
Those of the woodpecker/weasel and the elephant are amazing. Wow.
Right place, right time, and prepared!
Embedded in Haruki Murakami’s novel “1Q84” is a story called “The Town of Cats,” which the character Tengo reads on a train journey to visit his father. The story is reproduced in an issue of “The New Yorker,” and a link can be found on the Wikipedia page for 1Q84. Here’s a paragraph:
“In fact, this is a town of cats. When the sun starts to go down, many cats come trooping across the bridge—cats of all different kinds and colors. They are much larger than ordinary cats, but they are still cats. The young man is shocked by this sight. He rushes into the bell tower in the center of town and climbs to the top to hide. The cats go about their business, raising the shop shutters or seating themselves at their desks to start their day’s work. Soon, more cats come, crossing the bridge into town like the others. They enter the shops to buy things or go to the town hall to handle administrative matters or eat a meal at the hotel restaurant or drink beer at the tavern and sing lively cat songs. Because cats can see in the dark, they need almost no lights, but that particular night the glow of the full moon floods the town, enabling the young man to see every detail from his perch in the bell tower. When dawn approaches, the cats finish their work, close up the shops, and swarm back across the bridge.”
Can’t help but wonder whether Murakami was inspired by the RL fishing village on Aoshima Island.
What did you think of IQ84?
Long, but well worth reading – I loved it. My sister loved it so much that she read it twice (possibly thrice by now).
Thank you!
I realized that I neglected to tell you why I loved 1Q84 – I could go on and on, but I’ll just summarize my reasons very briefly. I enjoyed the magical realism of the novel, which is very different from that genre in Latin-American literature (which I also love). More importantly, though, I think Murakami has a unique way of portraying the inner lives and personal histories of his characters. Whether you love or detest the particular character, they almost always have fascinating and compelling narratives.
The weasel/woodpecker pics are amazing and remind me of the frog and the scorpion fable – if the weasel bites through the woodpecker’s neck they will crash and both die.
Having an elephant use ones car as a scratching post must be a distinctly underwear filling experience.
Methinks it is like a weasel.
It is backed like a weasel.
“There’s a mention of EcksEcksEcksEcks in Wrencher’s Snakes of All Nations,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. It says the continent has very few poisonous snakes . . . Oh, there’s a footnote.’ His finger went down the page. ‘It says, “Most of them have been killed by the spiders.” How very odd.’
Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent
I’ve lamented the lack of a nice green woodpecker in the US in the past. Now I can see there would be more than an aesthetic value to having some. They might be particularly useful around Chopra’s compound.
A few years ago I was lucky enough to be staff to 4 cats, a mother and her three kittens. One of the latter, Hannibal, grew to be an excellent hunter.
One day I was working upstairs in my home office when I heard a horrible shrieking sound from the floor below. When I went down, I found that Hannibal had managed to get a weasel into the house, and there was a sort of very noisy stand-off going on, like two elite fencers waiting for an opening.
After some to-ing and fro-ing, they took their fight into the garden, where I followed them with a video camera. After a small further engagement, the weasel was lying motionless on the grass. Hannibal approached it cautiously, gave it a tap with his paw, as cats do, and it promptly came back to life with a lunge for his nose.
The final engagement I can only follow by running the film (and it is magnetic film) on super slow mode. As the weasel came for its final attack, Hannibal’s broke its neck with a single swipe of his right front paw. Even domestic cats can be pretty formidable.
Wow, go Hannibal!
Think of the weasel, going after something that weighs 100X its own weight.
Weasels (in all their forms) are amazing.
“I love you Volkswagen. You’re the only one who understands me.”
That elephant doesn’t seem to have the dark patches between its eyes and ears that would indicate Musth.
I agree – I doubt he’s in musth. I lived and worked in southern Africa for years, know P’berg well and elephants are sometimes just arses. He’s having fun and having a scratch, he looks chilled and happy.
Yeah so when a giant poisonous spider drags a baby snake into its web on the underside of your car, be sure to poke the snake with a stick.
Hey, wake up, snake! You gotta see this!
Redbacks (not particularly big, for spiders) catch baby snakes quite often, I’ve seen a small python killed that way (and mentioned it on a previous WEIT thread). There was another example reported just yesterday from the other side of the country.
Actually, I think it may be happening much more often as a result of climate change; until a few years ago I only knew of one case reported in a journal. It must be becoming more frequent, I can’t think of any other reason that it would be documented so many times in the last few years…
Maybe the ease of use of camera equipment coupled with internet/web dispersement of the videos?
My son and I were once privileged to witness a short-tailed weasel carrying a vole/mouse in its jaws as it ran across the trail we were on, about 4 feet from our feet. It even stopped for a moment just in front of us so we got a fine look at them. I’m sure the vole weighed what the weasel did and that weasel was head-up, running off with it. Talk about strength!
It seemed to take no notice of us whatsoever — it was intent on delivering/hiding that food.
Yes, I think that oz for oz the weasels are the most fearsome of predators.
WoW, wow, WOW! Can’t wait to share these with my children.
Alas no further information (or links provided on the Pilanesburg National Park!
Most famous for being home to the Gambling Mecca of Sun City it is less well known as a treasure-trove of wildlife and geology.
The reserve is actually an extinct volcano long eroded down to a hilly circular area rising above an otherwise flat plain.
If you ever go to South Africa, which you most definitely should, try to pass by. It’s a wonder to behold.
Here’s a link to google maps: https://www.google.es/maps/place/Pilanesberg+National+Park/@-25.2825177,27.0650974,47291m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xa2556e990fe47531
And to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilanesberg_Game_Reserve
All those cats looking at me would be a bit worrisome but at least they look like they are in a good mood!
I used the third photo of the elephant in a lecture about the vestibular system. Of course the elephant is deliberately leaning on the car, but if you don’t know the back story, it looks on the surface as if the pachyderm might have a disturbance of balance and equilibrium.
The woodpecker was probably digging an ant nest, to get the wintering insects.
These little weasels are absolutely fearless – I remember at least two times I was attacked by one caught in a Longworth mousetrap (I was studying small mammals). When released (with caution, they have sharp teeth), they were so outraged to have been locked in a dark box that they followed me on tens of meters, insulting me and biting my boots.
I was also told (in Norway) that they are able to jump on the neck of a reindeer in late autumn. The poor animal runs away, but is unable to get rid of the weasel, which gnaws through the fur and skin to the carotid – and of course the reindeer dies and freeze. The weasel then digs a hole in the carcass and spends the winter happily using it both as a larder and a shelter.
But that is perhaps a tundra legend.
The larger weasel’s prey I have seen myself was a rabbit – it was strange to see a rabbit crossing the road, apparently crawling on the back. The weasel towing it was so small that I didn’t notice it at first view.
I’ve heard other stories of weasels doing the eat/live in carcass thing. I think that part is probably true, though I’m a bit skeptical that they would kill a reindeer; more likely the stories arose after some weasel found a dead one and moved in.
These photos / videos and your mention of reindeer brought another amazing story to mind.
I recall a documentary a few years ago about researchers studying reindeer in, I can’t remember, either Norway, Sweden or Finland. They were making new observations themselves and also using older data. They noticed that there were a certain percentage of deaths, low but significant, the causes of which were unknown and that all shared a certain signature.
They spent quite some time trying to figure out these deaths until one day an observer caught one on camera. The mystery deaths were caused by Golden Eagles. An eagle was seen to observe a herd for some time, apparently select a target (I recall it was an adult, but not much else), and then attack the reindeer by striking it in a rather precise spot on its side. It did this several times. Gain altitude, stoop and then strike, with talons extended, at the same spot. The eagle then followed the reindeer, orbiting leisurely, for some time until it collapsed.
Later, when the body of the reindeer was examined it was found to fit the same signature as the mystery deaths. The way the eagles were killing the reindeer were by piercing something vital internally, can’t remember, perhaps the heart. In that one particular spot, on the side of the reindeer, somewhat behind the shoulder, the eagles talons could reach deep enough. The eagle then waits for the reindeer to succumb to blood loss, then eats.
OMG that is behavior on par with her honey badger! I have more respect for these creatures now!
And weasels and honey badgers are relatives…
Anybody else notice the collar on the one cat?
b&
Yes. The Collar of Shame? Maybe its a tracking collar put on by some intrepid wildlife biologists.
Yes, my curiousity has been piqued.
I did notice that; also the hindfoot sticking up at the left of the pic, which I suppose means somebody has their head down having a wash.
Also noticed a somewhat limited palette of colours and expressions: I wonder how many individuals founded that population? Technically it must have been at least two, but I’d be surprised if it was much higher than three.
Fantastic. I will stare at these photos all day.
Dan Graur is skeptical of the woodpecker/weasel pic’s realness.
https://twitter.com/DanGraur/status/572521153132023808
https://twitter.com/DanGraur/status/572738670983172097
Hmm, the 2nd picture should look much more acceptable to Dan, and the bird wings are in a different position.
I do not see a problem with the background in the 1st one. With the subject in focus of course the background will not be in focus in a ‘zoomed’ shot.
Hmmm. The woodpecker does look a little strange to me, particularly its eye.
But.
The blurred background, not buying it. I’ve seen background blur just like that in countless real photos.
Also, it doesn’t seem like a taxidermied woodpecker would have particularly flexible wings, and the wings in the photos are in several different positions.
Dan Graur might be correct, but I am not convinced by either of those two points.
Oh, and regarding the woodpecker’s eye I meant to say, if I had a weasal of corresponding size riding my back my eyes might well look similar to this woodpecker’s eyes.
I think it is important to consider Dan’s point. Looking at pictures of the bird shows the eye is pretty distinct, but not not as bugged out as the 1st picture. Of course having a weasel on the back might also be the cause…
Is the weasel “taxidermied” as well then? Someone must have inserted pipe cleaners into their wings and limbs to pose them for all the photos. The European Green Woodpecker has white eyes, and the bird was photographed in sun/bright light, so the more constricted pupil (compared to other photos online where the bird is in the shade of a tree) is consistent.
An adult Green Woodpecker is about 20 cm in length, which, though no giant like a Pileated Woodpecker, is still a pretty good-sized bird.
I suspect Graur is wrong here, but time will tell. Other birders disagree with him.
The eyes can be pretty wide when in flight.
Even if the background was blurred in Photoshop, it doesn’t mean the photo is fake. I also think the other shots that are entirely blurry lend credit to the photo’s authenticity.
The background clearly features a kind of spruce, what suggest the camera was aimed horizontaly or slightly up – contrary to the two other pictures aimed at the soil. Quite compatible with three pictures taken hastily with a medium sized teleobjective.
Other point: I have never seen a stuffed woodpecker with an open beak, additionally dirty with earth, what’s to be expected if the real one was actually digging an ant hill.
This seems relevant to today’s post.
Zappa is like…a god to me.
Yes! My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama!
OMG, that is soooo relevant. I am just waiting for the woodpecker jokes…
Now this post is chock full of fine entertainment!
Many of the Japanese cats have stubby tails too.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-31708544
If haven’t seen them I recommend checking out the videos of Ozzy the Weasel on YouTube.
For more Japanese cat islands, check out http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/04/05/the-11-cat-islands-of-japan-%E3%80%90photos%E3%80%91/
I believe there’s another one up near Sendai/Matsushima, too.
It’s Tashirojima, in Miyagi Prefecture. http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5031.html gives location, pictures, etc.; and http://metro.co.uk/2014/07/30/japanese-cat-island-has-more-cats-than-humans-and-its-utterly-amazing-4815069/ has more photos (including of the cat-shaped cottages). Tashirojima actually has some businesses, and apparently a population of about 100, unlike the 15 of Aoshima.
I’d like to have been at the car rental place when they returned the VW to listen to the explanation for how the car was destroyed It looks like those VW Polos would be good in a rollover, having passed the elephant test
For the first time, I think I understand what they mean at FTB when they go on about “doucheweasels”!
The island of cats seemed so romantically idyllic, until I went to the other website, saw more pictures, and realized there are no kittens in site, the cats are hungry and dirty, and they’re not neutered or spayed. They need a trap/neuter/release program, there, badly!