Gordon Grice's Blog, page 50

Raccoons Attack Woman

According to this report from the Seattle area, the victim suffered more than 100 wounds. In a previous attack I've read of, the group of coons turned out to be a mother and her nearly grown offspring. 


Pack of raccoons attacks woman in Lakewood - Seattle News - MyNorthwest.com: ""She took off running for her residence," Lawler said. "Five or six raccoons chased her, eventually knocked her down and attacked her."


Lawler said a neighbor heard the commotion and witnessed at least three large raccoons maul the woman for 15 to 20 seconds. "

Thanks to Bob Haynie for the news tip.

Teen Loses Part of Arm in Alligator Attack

Moore Haven teen loses part of arm in alligator attack | firstcoastnews.com: "As Fred was being rushed to Lee Memorial Hospital, a frantic search began for the gator - and the arm inside the creature's belly."


Thanks to Dee for the news tip. 

Monster Crocodiles, Part 3: Crocodile vs. Dinosaur

by guest writer and artist Hodari Nundu
Kaprosuchus sizing up their prey
Most books tell us that dinosaurs dominated the world with an iron claw during 160 million years or so. They were so big, so fierce and so powerful that all other animals had to flee from them (becoming flyers, like pterosaurs, or aquatic like crocodiles) or become so small and insignificant that dinosaurs wouldn´t even pay any attention to them (like mammals).
Kaprosuchus, the Boar Croc, is only one of many newly discovered creatures that seem to challenge this idea. Here we have a dinosaur-eating, sabertoothed crocodile that coexisted and probably competed with some of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs known.
And that's not all; the remains of a similarly-sized land crocodile, Pissarrachampsa, were found in Brazil in 2011, suggesting that this lineage of dinosaur-eaters may have been more widely distributed than previously thought.
Some scientists have even noted that where land crocodiles were abundant, meat-eating dinosaurs were scarce.
Not all land crocodiles were big game hunters, however. In 2010, the fossils of a strange little land crocodile were found. It had a short snout, long slender legs, and teeth incredibly similar to those of a mammal.
In fact, it looked a lot like the reptilian version of a small feline, hence the name it was given: Pakasuchus, the cat-croc.
At 50 cm long, it was certainly the size of a house cat and probably behaved in a similar way. It may have been nocturnal, hunting for small mammals, reptiles and baby dinosaurs and killing them with its canine-like front teeth. In order to become more agile, it had lost most of its body armor, but it retained it on its tail. It is possible that its heavy armored tail was its main defense against predators.
Even stranger was Simosuchus, whose remains were found in Madagascar. This creature measured less than one meter long, had a short tail and a blunt snout, and its maple-leaf-shaped teeth suggest it was herbivorous.
Its robust, erect limbs suggest it didn´t swim, and it may instead have been a burrower. Simosuchus is therefore the most extreme example of crocodylomorph diversification; it would never be mistaken for a crocodile in our times.


Other Cretaceous crocs were more typical in appearance. Perhaps the most famous of all is Deinosuchus, which many of us knew first as Phobosuchus in popular books. Either way, the name means "frightening" or "terrifying" crocodile, and the name fits it perfectly.
Although technically an alligator relative, Deinosuchus looked like a scaled up crocodile, measuring at least 12 meters long.
It lived in what is today North America, including Mexico, where scutes from its armor have been found, as well as bite marks in the bones of its dinosaur prey.
Deinosuchus is often depicted as coexisting with Tyrannosaurus rex; this, however, is inaccurate, as the giant crocodilian disappeared millions of years before the rise of the "king of dinosaurs". In fact, for as long as Deinosuchus existed, no carnivorous dinosaur grew to particularly large size. The monstrous crocodilian had monopolized the top of the food chain.
Not satisfied with ruling the swamps and rivers of its time, Deinosuchus, like modern day saltwater crocodiles, seems to have lived in marine habitats as well, and there's good evidence that it swam across the Western Interior Sea, the shallow body of water that divided North America in half.


***


At the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, a series of catastrophic events caused a great number of species to die out. The most famous casualties of this mass extinction were of course dinosaurs (except for birds and perhaps a few large species that faded into oblivion over the course of the next millennia).
Many unique crocodiles, like the aforementioned Simosuchus, disappeared as well. Some, however, survived, and found themselves in a silent world in which large meat eating dinosaurs were gone. Without competitors, crocodilians quickly started to diversify again, ready to take over the vacant niches left by their distant cousins.
If it hadn´t been for mammals, which also diversified at the time, it is possible that crocodiles would've given rise to the dominant lineages of future times. They were certainly adaptable enough.
Mammals, however, had some advantages over them. One of them was warm-bloodedness, which allowed mammals to conquer habitats and regions that crocodiles could not. Eventually, mammals secured their place as the dinosaur's successors. But even then, they had to be alert; crocodilians started evolving into monstrous and deadly forms. One of them, the three meter long Pristichampsus, had large, blunt toenails, more like hooves than claws, and was able to run at high speed. Not even early horses were safe from this land crocodile, able to walk either bipedally or on all fours.

Barinasuchus
Even more formidable were the sebecids, a group of short snouted land crocodiles with blade-like, flesh-slicing teeth like carnivorous dinosaurs. The largest sebecid, Barinasuchus, was a nine meter long monster that roamed the forests of what would become South America.
It was not only the largest land crocodile of all times, but also the largest post-Cretaceous land predator known. To the hapless mammals that lived in these Eocene forests, it was as if dinosaurs had never disappeared.


As time went on, mammals became more and more successful. Many forests disappeared, and many herbivores became adapted to open plains. Being cold blooded, crocodiles, even the land-based ones, were limited as to how fast they could run, and for how long. When the warm-blooded mammals evolved into lightning fast runners, only other mammals (and the legendary, towering “terror birds”) could keep up with them. Felines, canines and other carnivorans appeared, and land crocodiles started to become a thing of the past.
By the Middle Miocene, the sebecids (the lineage of land crocodiles to which Barinasuchus belonged), had disappeared. Crocodiles simply couldn´t compete with the warm-blooded killers that were evolving-- bears, sabertoothed tigers, giant hyenas. In most of the world, crocodiles became restricted to the habitats we relate them to nowadays: rivers, lakes, swamps.
The very last land crocodiles survived as relicts in Australia and nearby islands, where the most formidable predatory mammals were absent. Early aborigines probably encountered one of the most formidable when they arrived to Australia 40,000 years ago: Quinkana was the size of the largest saltwater crocodiles and had dinosaur-like flesh-slicing teeth. It probably tore a few humans apart before being exterminated itself.
Australia had also been home to a strange, probably tree-dwelling crocodilian named Trilophosuchus during the Miocene epoch. This creature measured about 1.5 meters long and held its head high when walking, like a monitor lizard and unlike most crocodilians today.


The Miocene also saw some of the most terrifyingly large crocodilians ever to have evolved.
8 million years ago, the region known today as the Amazon basin was a huge inland sea, the Pebas sea.
Purussaurus meets its prehistoric rivals
All sorts of strange creatures, from cetaceans to gharials to giant turtles lived in this sea, and all of them were food for the monstrous reptile that sat at the top of the food chain: Purussaurus, a giant caiman measuring up to 13 meters long, perhaps more. Unlike the long, slender snout of Sarcosuchus or Machimosaurus, the skull of Purussaurus was broad and massive, like that of the modern day broad-snouted caiman. Its teeth were small and blunt, especially adapted to crush any unfortunate animal it could catch, including turtles the size of dining room tables, whose fossil skeletons show proof of the caiman's terrible appetite; many of them lack huge portions of their shell or even entire limbs due to Purussaurus' attentions.


Also from the Miocene, the enormous Rhamphosuchus looked a lot like a gharial, although its closest living relative is actually the false gharial. Its fossilized remains, found in India, suggest a length of at least 11 meters long, although some estimates have suggested a much larger size. If, as some believe, Rhamphosuchus could grow up to 18 meters long, it would be as long as the longest carnivorous dinosaur, and likely much heavier. Unfortunately, since its remains are not complete, it is impossible to know if this colossal fish-eater is, as has been suggested, the largest crocodilian of all time.

Spinosaurus meets Stomatosuchus

Ironically, it is possible that in the end this title will be claimed by a docile creature, a monster only in size but not in temperament. Just as crocodiles gave rise to ferocious dinosaur hunters and sea monsters, they also produced some species that, although gigantic, would probably pose no threat to humans if they existed today. These animals are the stomatosuchids and the aegyptosuchids.
Found mostly in Africa, these Cretaceous crocodiles had flat heads with diminutive teeth, and large gular sacs. Some scientists believe they were filter-feeders that spent most, if not all of their time in the water, feeding on very small fish and other similar prey.
Some of them, like Stomatosuchus, grew to 12 meters long, being as large as the fearsome Sarcosuchus. Others, like the recently discovered Aegisuchus, may have been even larger. With an estimate length of 22 meters, Aegisuchus may have been the crocodilian equivalent of a whale- proving that the history of crocodilians was every bit as complex, fantastic and successful as that of dinosaurs or mammals.
That crocodiles today are all similar in shape and behavior may suggest to some that their lineage is finally over, and that eventually, these last remnants of a once glorious dynasty will fall into darkness.
But let's not underestimate them. Remember that all crocodylomorphs evolved from a few small, agile terrestrial hunters that also looked very similar to each other. Who knows what modern day crocs may give rise to one day, provided they survive past the age of men.

Monster Crocodiles, Part 2: Primeval

by guest writer and artist Hodari Nundu
Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni seizes its prey
The reason why crocodiles are more dangerous than sharks is that we are much more likely to meet them, and when we do, the crocodile is more likely to see us as prey than the shark.
According to many shark experts, these fish bite people for a variety of reasons but many attacks seem triggered by curiosity rather than actual predatory urges. Sharks lack hands and fingers to examine new, unknown objects. They often explore things by biting them. This is why, even if a great white shark does not necessarily want to kill a human being, an innocent exploratory bite can spell doom for its victim.
Crocodiles, on the other hand, have always seen us as prey. Unlike sharks, they coexisted with us from the very beginning. When our primate ancestors abandoned the jungle and became savannah-dwellers, crocodiles of immense size populated rivers. The fossilized remains of one of these crocodiles were found recently in Tanzania.
They came from a monster up to 7.5 meters long- larger than the largest Nile or Saltwater crocodiles recorded for our times. The beast had a huge, heavy skull adorned with a pair of crests or "horns" which revealed it to be a different species from today's Nile crocodile. Scientists named it Crocodylus anthropophagus, the "man-eating crocodile", as bite marks that matched its teeth perfectly had been found in the bones of our hominin ancestors. An even larger species, Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni, lived at about the same time in Kenya. This one was 8.2 meters long, or as the press put it, “big enough to star in Lake Placid”. 
Because crocodiles lived in rivers, which were vital to the survival of humans, there was simply no way of escaping them. Other predators, like big cats, wolves and hyenas, could be frightened with fire and other weapons. Crocodiles were different. Like sharks in horror movies, they waited under the surface, invisible, and attacked by surprise; and once they had you in their clutches, they were simply too powerful to be fought.
Even the arrival of civilization couldn´t stop crocodile attacks. In Ancient Egypt, land predators such as lions and leopards were slowly exterminated, and attacks became a rarity. Crocodiles, on the other hand, were an ever present threat along the edges of the Nile. The Egyptians even had a special god, the crocodile-headed Sobek, to protect them from the voracious reptiles. There's even a legend from more recent times about an archaeologist in Egypt who found a statue of Sobek by the river; removing it, however, was a mistake, as crocodile attacks became incredibly frequent, and eventually, he was forced to put Sobek back in his place; only then did the attacks stop.
To the Greeks and other Europeans, the crocodile was a most fascinating beast. Absent in Europe, it was therefore little understood, and in Medieval bestiaries, it is often shown with a wolf or lion-like appearance, sometimes with spikes on its back, and more often than not, weeping over the body of a human victim. For according to many authors of the time, "if the crocodile findeth a man by the brim of the water or by the cliff, he slayeth him if he may, and then he weepeth upon him, and swalloweth him at the last".
This tendency to shed tears during a meal eventually would make the crocodile a symbol of hypocrisy, of false remorse. The expression "crocodile tears" is a legacy of this legend, which has indeed a real life basis. Crocodiles do shed tears while feeding. But these are not tears of remorse, false or otherwise. It is simply the crocodile's way of keeping its eyes moist while out of the water, for it cannot swallow under the surface, and its eyes easily dry out in the air.


In Roman times, crocodiles were sometimes seen at the Coliseum. The amphitheater was flooded and epic naval battles were recreated. Crocodiles were released into the water to devour any hapless gladiator or slave that fell from the ships.
Other than this, however, the crocodile remained more or less a fantastic animal in Europe for a long time. Unable to survive for long in cold climate, the crocodile was restricted to tropical regions. But wherever it was found, it was a constant danger along waterways, a dreaded and often revered force of nature.
To the Aztec and many other Mesoamerican cultures, the Universe itself rested on the back of a gigantic crocodile-like beast. The souls of the departed had to face a terrible crocodile god during their journey towards Paradise.
But although modern day crocodiles are big, scary and deadly enough to inspire legends, nightmares and B movies, the truth is we only have to deal with a shadow of what was once a frightening menagerie of monster crocodilians.
We often think of crocodiles as "living fossils"; many people, including crocodile experts, will tell you that they haven´t changed much in millions of years.
This is only half true. The basic design of all modern crocodiles- the low body, short legs, long flattened tail and deadly jaws that make them such perfect ambush predators- has indeed existed for millions of years. It has even been "used" by non-crocodilian predators, including early whales and gigantic amphibians from pre-dinosaur times.
But crocodiles themselves are of rather recent origins, and they are only one of many branches of crocodylomorphs, as scientists call them. Some of these branches were truly the stuff of nightmares.


***


Like their cousins the dinosaurs, crocodylomorphs started out small. The first ones appeared in the Late Triassic, over 200 million years ago, and they coexisted with the very first dinosaurs.
They were small, agile and completely land-based. Rivers were already occupied by other sorts of predators—giant amphibians resembling large-headed salamanders, and the fearsome phytosaurs, which looked quite a lot like crocodiles themselves. Crocodylomorphs would have to wait until these rivals disappeared to fill the niche of the freshwater predator themselves. Meanwhile, they diversified into plenty of different and often bizarre breeds.
This diversification became most extreme during the Jurassic period. To avoid competition with dinosaurs, many became aquatic. The most extraordinary ones were the sea crocodiles.
Today, the saltwater crocodile often lives in coastal waters and may even swim long distances from island to island. They have been seen fighting- and devouring- sharks in the sea. But they are still amphibious animals, and must return to land to rest and to lay their eggs.
The sea crocodiles of the Jurassic were different. They became so well adapted to the ocean that if one of them appeared today, we would probably mistake it for some sort of bizarre mutation- a cross between a crocodile and a fish. Many of them lost their body armor; their webbed feet turned into actual flippers, and their tails turned into caudal fins, very reminiscent of a shark's.
They probably gave birth to live young, like many other sea reptiles of the time. Free from the need of returning to land, they spent their lives in open waters. Many, like Metriorhynchus, had long, slender snouts that would resemble some living crocodilians, like the gharial; they were superbly adapted to capture fish. Usually, they measured about three meters long-- smallish compared to our largest crocodiles-- but they were far better swimmers.

Dakosaurus vs. the predatory marine reptiles known as Eurhinosaurs

Not all of them were fish eaters, however. In 1987, the remains of an unusual (well, especially unusual) four or five meter long sea crocodile were found in Argentina. Instead of a long gharial-like snout, it had a short and deep skull, very reminiscent of a carnivorous dinosaur's. The scientists nicknamed it Godzilla for this reason.
A later study found that this sea crocodile, formally known as Dakosaurus, could slice its prey into smaller chunks with its large, blade-like serrated teeth. This is completely different to the teeth of modern crocodiles which are conical and blunt, meant to pierce and hold but completely unable to slice.
Indeed, Dakosaurus was a crocodile turned by evolution into the Jurassic equivalent of a great white shark. It didn´t chase after small fish like its cousins; it went for the giant ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs of the time, even those larger than itself, and bit off huge chunks of their flesh, killing them via blood loss. With monsters like Dakosaurus roaming the seas, it is little wonder that, to our knowledge, no dinosaurs ever managed to conquer the Jurassic oceans.

Machimosaurus attacks Dakosaurus, to the alarm of a dinosaur called Eustreptospondylus

As if Dakosaurus wasn´t scary enough, the Jurassic sea would give rise to even larger crocodylomorphs. The largest we know of was Machimosaurus, found in Europe in 1837. Unlike Dakosaurus, it had a crocodile-like body and blunt, conical crocodile teeth. However, it was big enough to make a meal out of Dakosaurus- at least 9 meters long, making it not only the largest of its kind, but also one of the top predators of its days.
Although its snout was long and slender, there's good evidence that Machimosaurus, being so large, could feed on anything it wanted and not just fish. Its bite marks have been found in the fossilized shells of sea turtles and even in the bones of a giant long-necked dinosaur.
Scientists believe Machimosaurus swam long distances in the open sea, but probably hunted near coasts, snatching any unfortunate animal that got too close.
Machimosaurus was only the first in a long line of crocodylomorphs (from different families) that achieved monstrous sizes.
During the Cretaceous, both dinosaurs and crocs would reach their greatest diversity. The largest carnivorous dinosaurs, such as Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Giganotosaurus and of course, the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex were all from the Cretaceous. The biggest of them all, Spinosaurus, could weigh up to 9 tons. But the largest Cretaceous crocodiles dwarfed even this monster.
Sarcosuchus puts a dinosaur to flight
In 1966, two paleontologists named a new species of Cretaceous crocodile as Sarcosuchus imperator, the flesh-eating emperor croc. Despite its awesome name, this beast remained obscure until 1997, when American paleontologist Paul Sereno found additional remains in Niger.
These new finds were widely publicized and Sarcosuchus finally became famous under the nickname of Super Croc. It was its monstrous size that captured the public's imagination; at 12 meters long, with an almost 2 meter skull and probably up to 10 tons, it was claimed to be the largest crocodile of all times.
Sarcosuchus coexisted with large carnivorous dinosaurs such as Suchomimus, but the general consensus is that it was the dinosaurs, rather than the crocodile, who were in constant danger of being eaten. After all, dinosaurs had to drink, and an adult Sarcosuchus was too big to survive solely on fish.
As if this wasn´t bad enough for the hapless dinosaurs, they had another crocodilian enemy on land.
The remains of this creature were also found by Paul Sereno, and described in 2009. It was obviously a crocodile, but unlike any other crocodile ever found. It had a pair of horn-like crests on its head, and some of its teeth jutted out of the mouth like enormous tusks. The creature received the nickname of Boar Croc, and was described as "a sabertooth tiger clad on armor". It was not a water-based ambush hunter. It was a land-dwelling predator able to walk and run at high speed, and its enormous teeth were probably an adaptation to deal with large, thick skinned prey; a six meter long dinosaur hunter.
Next: Crocodile vs. Dinosaur. . . and Beyond

Monster Crocodiles, Part 1: The Death Aquatic

American Crocodiles (Tomas Castelazo/Creative Commons)
by guest writer Hodari Nundu

Within the horror movie subgenre of animal attacks, two creatures rest on top of all others.
The ever vilified shark has been the star of countless terrible flicks, most of them involving stupid teenagers, mutilated limbs and unexplainable grudges and growls on the part of the sharks. Most of these movies have lousy special effects and present sharks as either mindless killing machines or super intelligent serial killers that can only be stopped with some sort of explosive trap. There's no question that when it comes to "real life monsters", sharks are at the top of the list for filmmakers. The great white shark remains Hollywood's favorite, of course, but some have tried to be original and use the tiger, bull or mako sharks as alternative monsters. Some have even gone as far as to present harmless shark species- such as the deep-sea goblin shark- as man-eaters.
Some movies intentionally modify their sharks to make them scarier. In Deep Blue Sea, for example, scientists use genetic engineering to produce giant mako sharks with human-like intelligence. This is something many animal attack movies do in order to explain the unusual, murderous behavior of their stars. But a vast majority of shark movies don´t even bother with this. Real life sharks are frightening enough.
There's no question that sharks can be dangerous under the right circumstances. Some of them are very frightening-looking. And there's of course the fact that they live in the depths of the sea. While swimming, surfing or helplessly floating on the surface after shipwrecking, we are completely at their mercy, and we can never know for sure where the shark is, and when it will attack. That's why the shark is such an effective horror movie monster.
Ironically, the second place in the list of "real life monsters" would likely be occupied by a creature that probably kills more people every year, than have sharks in all of recorded history.
This creature is the crocodile.


***


I've been both a crocodile keeper and a filmmaking student, so I am probably well qualified to say this; the crocodile is a superb "real life monster". Sure, when you see them at the zoo they seem sluggish, sometimes even lifeless as they bask in the sun completely motionless. During my times at the zoo I was asked often if the crocodiles in the exhibit were real of it they were "stuffed", or even if they were statues.
Some people even threw small stones or other objects to the reptiles to find out by themselves. This enraged me every time, but the crocodiles didn´t seem to care, deeply immersed in their cold blooded slumber as they were.
But underestimating a crocodile can be a deadly mistake. They can move with incredible speed, snap their jaws in a fraction of a second, and drag a hapless keeper to a watery grave without warning. A co-worker of mine almost lost a foot when a three-meter long American crocodile that seemed asleep suddenly turned around and caught his leg with its teeth. He was lucky; he was rescued by the other keepers before the crocodile could drag him to the water.
American crocodiles, like the one who attacked my co-worker, are the most widespread in Mexico. They can grow up to 6 or perhaps even 7 meters long, being among the largest crocodilians in the world. Due to their rather slender body, however, they are usually not as heavy as the largest Nile or saltwater crocodiles. According to most experts, the saltwater crocodile (native of Southern Asia and northern Australia, and formerly also found in eastern Africa), which reaches lengths comparable to those of the American croc, is the largest reptile in the world, weighing up to 1000 kg or more. There’s been many rumors and unconfirmed reports of larger salties, however; some crocodiles shot in Orissa, India (a place famous for its giant salties) were said to be 8 or even 10 meters long, a size that could be best described as “dinosaur-like”. However, when the skulls of these monsters were examined, there was no reason to assume they were longer than 6 to 7 meters.
The largest verified saltwater crocodile alive today is Lolong, an enormous male (said to have eaten people) captured in the Philippines; at 6.17 meters long, he is not only the largest crocodile reliably measured, but also the largest in captivity.
Interestingly, claims of crocodiles as large as Lolong have been made in my own country. One of Mexico’s most respected zoologists, Miguel Alvarez del Toro, claimed to have seen a crocodile in the Cañon del Sumidero, Chiapas, measuring at least eight meters long. Closer to my home, in Colima, a crocodile park kept the skull of an enormous male which according to the park rangers measured six meters and a half before he wandered out of the park’s limits and was shot to death by some idiot with a gun. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to photograph the skull and so I cannot verify these claims.
The truth is, crocodiles probably grow larger than we think, but we rarely give them the chance to. Like many other animals, including snakes, sharks and tigers, they may be shrinking due to human pressure; there’s less food for them, and people shoot them before they can reach their full physical potential.
Even so, the largest crocodilian species still reach impressive sizes. Nile, Saltwater, American and Orinoco crocodiles all reach 6 meters long or more, as does the fish-eating gharial. The American alligator and the Indian mugger can both grow to over 5 meters long. The black caiman, considered the largest predator in the Amazon basin, probably reaches over 6 meters as well, although due to its scarcity and remote habitat, little is known about it. Except for the gharial, all of these crocodilians have been known to eat people, and two of them- the Nile and Saltwater crocodiles- kill more people annually than any other wild predator.
They will eat anything they can capture. Lion claws have been found in the stomach of Nile crocodiles, and they are known to attack even rhinos and elephants (although attacks on the latter are usually unsuccessful). Gustave, the famous man-eating crocodile of Burundi, is said to have killed and eaten an adult male hippopotamus- a beast most crocodiles wisely avoid.
Saltwater crocodiles have an even wider menu, ranging from water buffaloes to sharks, and in 2011, one of them killed and ate an adult male tiger in the Sundarbans- an impressive feat, as tigers often fare well against crocodiles, even in the water.
The other crocodilian species tend to be much smaller and less ambitious when it comes to their menu. All of them can deliver a nasty and dangerous bite, but most of them avoid people and they rarely attack.  
False Gharial (Fritz Geller-Grimm/Creative Commons)
The endangered false gharial is a special case. Rarely mentioned in books as one of the large crocodilians, it is now known to reach 6 meters long or more, and in 2008, one of them shocked the world when it killed and ate a man in Malaysia. Before this, the false gharial was thought to be mostly a fish-eater.

Next: Primeval

Ball Python Attacks Baby

WingedWolfPsion/Creative Commons
An odd story from Illinois: a ball python attacked a baby in his crib, inflicting minor injuries before his father could rescue him. Although captive constrictors have attacked people before, even killing them on occasion, I've never heard of such an attack from a ball python. Ball pythons are considered good pets because they are so safe. The father describes the python as slimy, which, despite the stereotype, is not the way snakes usually feel. The video part of this report shows the snake, which is definitely a ball python, and gives its length as two feet. 

Snake attacks baby sleeping in crib - WTXL ABC 27: 
"Devin Winans says he was awoken around 11 p.m. Monday by noises coming from his one-year-old son's crib. So, Winans says he felt around the crib.

"When I felt it it was slimy and I knew that wasn't normal," said Winans said. "When it turned on the light, I saw a ball python wrapped around his foot constructing, trying to eat his foot.""

I assume from the bloodshed that the snake had actually bitten the child. That, with the constriction, suggests that this was a predatory attack, not a case of heat-induced crankiness as suggested in the report. As predatory attacks, go, however, this one seems pretty incompetent. A snake this small is unlikely to have killed the child even if no one had been present to rescue him. 


Related Post: Hairless

Brown Widows Displacing Black Widows

Brown widows are the subject of all kinds of mythology. It is said that their venom digests human flesh, that they are more dangerous the black widows and bent on conquering the US. Most of that is false--but they are crowding out my old friend the Western black widow in some locales. 

Black Widow Spiders May Have Met Their Match - Yahoo! News:


""There may be some competition where brown widows are displacing black widows because there is some habitat overlap. There are also places where only brown widows were able to make homes, but in other habitats the black widows still predominate."


At 72 sites, the researchers found 20 times as many brown widow spiders as black widows."

World's Tiniest Fly May Decapitate Ants, Live in Their Heads

Steve V. sent me this article about a newly discovered species of fly, the smallest known. Researchers think it lives by parasitizing ants. Steve was more impressed with the headline than with the general caliber of Fox News. In this case, we can probably trust Fox; it borrowed both the headline and the article from the excellent LiveScience. 


World's Tiniest Fly May Decapitate Ants, Live in Their Heads | LiveScience: "The flies lay their eggs in the body of the ant; the eggs develop and migrate to the ant's head where they feed on the huge muscles used to open and close the ant's mouthparts. They eventually devour the ant's brain as well, causing it to wander aimlessly for two weeks. The head then falls off after the fly larva dissolve the membrane that keeps it attached.


The fly then takes up residence in the decapitated ant head for another two weeks, before hatching out as a full-grown adult. "

Animal Attack Movies: Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)


Two soldiers are chatting (about meat, appropriately) when the jungle goes still. They know they’re being watched. They get their guns ready—and suddenly a tiger bursts from the greenery. For horror, it hardly compares to all the human violence in this movie. But it is, according to the hunter and writer Peter Hathaway Capstick, the most realistic depiction on film of what it’s like to be attacked by a big cat.

More Details in South African Chimpanzee Attack

Recent reports are giving more (and sometimes different) details about the US grad student attacked at a primate sanctuary in South Africa. One source quotes the student's sister as saying he lost an arm in the attack, but his uncle denies this. 


American student has surgery after savage attack by chimps - CNN.com: 


"Two male chimps grabbed Oberle and tried to drag him under the fence, but were not able to yank him into their enclosure.


Cussons said he estimates the attack lasted 15 minutes.


At some point, people tried to stop the chimps, and Cussons shot two rounds in the air to see if that might get them to retreat, he said. One of the chimps then charged at Cussons, he said. Cussons shot that chimp in the abdomen"