Horned Lizards fend off predators by shooting blood out of their eyes. They shoot the blood into a predator’s mouth to freak it out. Since it looks and tastes disgusting, predators usually flee.
Nature is both fascinating and terrifying. There is such beauty in the creatures that roam our planet and yet some of those critters tend to give us the heebie-jeebies. For instance, there is a parasite that completely destroys the tongue of a fish and uses it’s own body to become a new tongue. It swims in through the gills of a fish, attaches to the tongue, severs the blood vessels and then attaches itself to the stump left behind. It does this in order to feed on all of the food and nutrients that come in. While utterly horrifying to most of us, this isopod is simply a creature doing what it knows best in order to live. Cue up the fish dismay.
Mother Nature is beautiful and each member serves a unique purpose in the delicate webs she spins, no matter how much some of it grosses us out. Every creature on the planet does what it can to survive and how can we blame them? Do we not do the same thing? Well, minus the severing of an organ and assuming that organ’s job functions, of course.
Conversation Ice Breaker Factoid: Despite what bottled water companies tell you, water itself is not fresh. It has been around for millions of years being recycled through precipitation and bodily waste. So, yep, in every glass you drink is water that already went into a dinosaurs mouth and come out the other end.
