We’ve shown you islands of cats and bunnies. We shared the island of lost dolls. Now it’s time to stir up the nightmares with a trip to Snake Island. Ilha da Queimada Grande, in Brazil, is home to thousands of Golden Lancehead Viper, one of the most venomous snakes in the world. Thousands of these snakes inhabit the island, climbing trees to hunt birds that are migrating through the area. The local birds are too savvy to the snakes’ technique, which consist of gently wiggling the end of their tail, like a grub, as they lie otherwise still and ready to strike.
The venom is very strong and can melt human flesh! Even with treatment, someone bitten by a Golden Lancehead Viper has a 3% chance of dying!
Travel to the island is illegal without permission from the government, which is obtained by some researchers and other special visitors. A military team also goes to the island periodically to service the automated lighthouse which sits on the island. This island was once manned and there is a tale of a keeper and his family who were killed when they left a window opened and let in a dozen of the vipers while they slept.
This video shows a visit to the island by an ABC news reporter.
Did you see that snake strike the camera at about 1:52? We like lizards and snakes, but we’re perfectly happy to leave Ilha da Queimada Grande to be ruled by the serpents.
We really don’t mean to pick on our arachnophobes. Personally, we love spiders. Harry, our own tarantula, is a beloved part of the Museum and we respect the spider’s amazing place in the food chain (especially considering all the trouble they seem to have from wasps here and here). Creepy as some people find them, they do some amazing things.
We showed you amazing video of a spider migration a while back. This time it’s a mass web, created by a group of spiders in Rowlett, Texas. ABC affiliate, WFAA, reported Thousands of spiders have spun a massive communal web at Rowlett’s Lakeside Park South. As this video shows, the trees are literally draped in webs spun by spiders who have banded together to take advantage of all of the insect life in the region.
Spiders are normally pretty solitary creatures. But under certain conditions they will spin these amazing communal webs which blanket an area. Wired had a report in 2010 about an amazing 4-acre web that occurred in a Baltimore, Maryland water treatment plant. The original report was written by Albert Greene, Jonathan A. Coddington, Nancy L. Breisch, Dana M. De Roche, and Benedict B. Pagac Jr. for the Entomological Society of America. It contains amazing photographs and detailed data of the infestation.
Several weeks ago we had a story about legendary monster, Godzilla, receiving official citizenship from Japan. That’s odd, since he spent a lot of time destroying Tokyo. That’s what monsters do, though. They attack, and not only in the movies. Here are a few real-world encounters with monsters from the news.
Giant Raccoon
Photo from World News Daily Report shows the horrific damage to the Bakers’ SUV caused by what they describe as a giant raccoon.
This article by the Weekly World News Report describes a bizarre incident in which a Montana couple is attacked by what they described as a giant raccoon about eight feet tall. Arthur and Helen Baker say they were driving on the highway when the creature appeared in front of them. It attacked their vehicle, smashing the windows and flipping the vehicle several times. It continued to attack until it injured itself on the broken windows.
Raccoons can get large, but none have been recorded to get that large, leading authorities to suggest that this encounter may have been with a bear. Even if that was the case, something that will attack and beat up a vehicle to that extent and go after the people inside is the stuff of which nightmares are made!
According to this article at rt.com, a mysterious creature has been killing hundreds of chickens in the Russian village of Davydovka in a methodical and, perhaps, intelligent fashion. Very little blood is found at the scene, putting it in line with Chupacabra legends. This is not the first time that attacks like this have been seen in Russia. A couple of years ago similar attacks happened in the Voronezh Region in April and two years prior.
Tracks discovered at the scene are similar to a canine, but the methodology is very unlike what would be expected from a dog, wolf, or other similar predator.
Is it possible that this creature has somehow hitched a ride from Latin America to find new prey in Russia?
Giant Squid Attacks Russian Vessel
What gods did the Russians anger? Not only are the chickens suffering, but here is footage of a fishing vessel attacked by a giant squid. This looks like something from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea! Can you imagine that just a few years the idea of a giant squid was considered myth and now we have this! Attracted by their catch the monster squid forced the crew to fight hard to drive it away.
https://youtu.be/fIKgNqlLU6c
Hopefully, most of us will never encounter a real-life monster. They will remain the stuff of nightmares and scary stories. These tales are a reminder, though, that any of us, at any time, may cross the threshold where the nightmare becomes real. Pleasant dreams!
A while back we told you about the tarantula hawk, the most painful wasp in the world, that hunts tarantulas. Apparently spiders and wasps have a rivalry as big as cats and dogs because here is another spider-hunting wasp, but this one is just weird!
Japanese scientists reported in the Journal of Experimental Biology have observed that the wasp known as the reclinervellus nielseni somehow manipulates a spider to build a special web for its young. In return for this kindness the spider is devoured by the young as they come of age. Here is disturbing video of what happens.
https://youtu.be/ggk2qwOwDRA
No one is sure how the wasp and its young manipulate the spider. Perhaps it injects a hormone that confuses the spider’s normal behavior. If you’d like to dig into the the scientific data is available.
In my experiments with people I do influence minds, but it’s nothing at all like this! Some of the things that happen in the animal kingdom, particularly with insects, is just plain unpleasant! I’m starting to actually feel sorry for spiders. The wasps are giving them a really hard time.
You may have heard reports of the Texas man injured by a ricochet while shooting an armadillo. Some outlets reported that the bullet actually ricocheted off of the hard armor of the creature, but this Huffington Post article denies that claim. They report that Chief Deputy Roy Barker, with the Cass County Sheriff’s department, was by the man that the bullet from his .38 caliber pistol ricocheted off a rock and struck him in the jaw, grazing him. The injuries were not life threatening.
However, there is another report of armadillo payback from April of this year.
https://youtu.be/4mSvg0QtKGo
You would not imagine that the shell of such a little creature could protect against a bullet, but, apparently, this sort of thing happens from time to time. While their armor may do them good in some of these cases any drive down a Texas highway will show that it’s not invulnerable.
Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the armadillo it could be done.
After nearly a quarter of a century, Steve Feltham is still on the hunt for Nessie, the mysterious creature reported to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. A July 16 article in The Times newspaper claimed that Feltham was giving up the search because he had concluded that Nessie is a catfish. (This New York Post version of the story doesn’t require a subscription.)
Steve Feltham suggests that the Loch Ness Monster may be a misidentified Wels Catfish, which can grow to 13 ft. (Photo by Dieter Florian tauchshop-florian.de [CC BY-SA 3.0])However, the rumors of the end of his quest are exaggerated. When Fletham spoke to Reuters he said “It’s still a massive world-class mystery. It’s been a life-long passion for me and I’m dedicated to being here and being fully involved in this whole hunt. I couldn’t be more content doing anything else.”
When asked about his catfish theory Feltham replied “At the moment, a Wels catfish ticks more of the boxes than any of the other contenders for the explanation. I would like it to be something new and undiscovered rather than something a little bit mundane. People do report four- or five-feet long necks sticking up out of Loch Ness. That’s not going to be a Wels catfish.”
Steve Feltham walked away from his home, his job and his girlfriend in 1991 to take up residence in a little trailer next to Loch Ness. He keeps watch with a set of powerful binoculars and sells little Nessie sculptures to tourists. What caused him to take such a huge leap in his life? This video from his Nessie Hunter web site tells the story best.
Feltham is the best kind of monster hunter. His dedication and even-headedness on this search is admirable and gives us hope that he will find the truth. Watch how he handles this news reporter.
We’ve talked about Feltham before in these articles from June and July of 2011.
Glad to have you out there, Steve Feltham. Best of luck on your quest!
A swarm of locusts heading from Texas to Oklahoma was so large that it was detected on Doppler RADAR.
In the Bible book of Exodus, chapter 10, Egypt is struck by a plague of locusts as Moses demands that the Pharaoh let his people go! What did Oklahoma do?
According to National Geographic, locusts, which are normally more solitary insects, will band together into a ravenous group when conditions are lush. This group will move over the land, devouring everything it can. Swarms can be up to 460 square miles (1,200 square kilometers), containing 40 to 80 million locusts in less than half a square mile (one square kilometer).
Here is video of a swarm in progress.
This is worse than the rain of spider we reported a while back! At least they weren’t destructive.
Nature is always weirder and more powerful than we imagine.
By Davehood at en.wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia) [Public domain], from Wikimedia CommonsIf you don’t like bugs, this one may not be for you. Have you ever been stung by a wasp? Painful? It’s not nearly the pain you’d experience if you’d been stung by the Tarantula Hawk. This ginormous wasp has the most painful sting on the planet, according to the Schmidt pain index.
What in the world requires this insect to be so bad-assed? It hunts tarantulas! This wasp attacks tarantulas and lays eggs inside, which grow in the host, eventually emerging and devouring it. Ain’t nature beautiful? Here is video of a battle between a Tarantula Hawk and its prey. These are tough little things!
Japan is a wonderfully weird place. Just the other day we shared how Godzilla received Japanese citizenship. A while back we shared information about the mysterious Suicide Forest, where hundreds of individuals go to end their life.
Now we have a couple of other bizarre things to share: two islands.
The first is Aoshima (青島), which has gained the name Cat Island (キャット島Kyattoshima). Located in Ehime Prefecture, Japan, it is a place where there are approximately 6 cats for every 1 human. (Did you know we sell the Crazy Cat Lady game at the Lucky Lizard?) Only about a mile long, cats first arrived on ship and reproduced unchecked. Even if you’re a cat person it’s a little eerie. See the video.
Meanwhile, the island of Ōkunoshima (大久野島) has gained the title Usagi Jima (うさぎ島, “Rabbit Island”) because of a large population of feral rabbits. They are not afraid of humans, as you can see in this video.
Too much of a good thing? Are there other mysteriously populated islands that we should know about? Share it with us and we may feature it (and you) on a future blog.
We’re a little early for Shark Week (Who knew this would become a thing?), and we’re past some of the buzz from Jurassic World, so maybe this is the perfect place to mash up the two. On land, most Jurassic creatures—the ones with massive size and sharp knife-like teeth—have become mostly fossils.
The ocean is a different case. Some creatures from the age of dinosaurs still exist down there. Prepare yourself for one of the most bizarre creatures you’ll ever see: the frilled shark.
These creatures are extremely uncommon, which is probably good, because this looks way scarier than a Great White. However, they have been recorded in a variety of locations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Map of Frilled Shark sightings
For something that’s rare, these are pretty widely spread.
In truth, the frilled shark is not actually a Jurassic creature, but a more modern one that has only been dated back to the early Pleistocene epoch. Its traits are very similar to its older ancestors, giving us a good taste of what it would be like to encounter such a beast.
We love monsters! You can see our life-sized King Kong at the Museum of the Weird on 6th street and visit all of our others in the Sfanthor House of Wax on South Congress. Get a combo pass and see both museums for one great price.
