It probably wasn’t a snake.

October 7, 2016 7:47 PM

As you may know, a couple weeks ago an unidentified woodland creature ate our internet.
posted by matrixclown (24 comments total)

Could it be a shark?
posted by MrGuilt at 8:01 PM on October 7, 2016

This was delightful! Thanks for posting this!
posted by hippybear at 8:01 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't know, but it was probably a spider that was responsible for restoring their web.
posted by biogeo at 8:05 PM on October 7, 2016 [15 favorites]

Verdict: It was probably not a blue heron.

But if it was, it probably would egret doing it.
posted by not_the_water at 8:09 PM on October 7, 2016 [34 favorites]

No test for the most dastardly of creatures...man??? /Vincent Price voice
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:18 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Bears love plastic and will chew the shit out of cables. They do not care about Netflix at all. I would not rule out the bear so easily.
posted by fshgrl at 8:32 PM on October 7, 2016

I agree with his conclusion about the ramifications of communications-controlling hornets.


They do not care about Netflix at all.

I believe they prefer Amazon Prime.

Coincidentally, one of my cats really did eat the power cord to my internet router last week. My students seemed strangely unimpressed when I explained why I would be temporarily unable to respond to emails outside of my regular campus hours.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:33 PM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Squirrels ate my internet a couple of years back. But probably not guilty in this case, unless the folks down in NC have rodents of unusual size.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 8:46 PM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

CyberSquirrel 1 disavows any knowledge of this operation.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:58 PM on October 7, 2016

Verdict: It was probably not a blue heron.

But if it was, it probably would egret doing it.

Yeah, I bet it would be a bittern memory for a long time to come.
posted by teponaztli at 10:00 PM on October 7, 2016 [8 favorites]

I agree with his conclusion about the ramifications

Unlikely, as wild sheep are not found in North Carolina
posted by clorox at 11:29 PM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Pleistocene Horse

I think they may want to check this again. On TV, the suspects with the really iron clad alibis usually turn out to be the villains. A fast horse could run from the Pleistocene and back, for example, if it turns out that they had a key to the gate in the fence....
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:36 AM on October 8, 2016 [7 favorites]

If it was a snake, it would more likely be foreplay than appetite. The option of making Internet less sexy for reptiles is a puzzlement.
posted by arzakh at 4:34 AM on October 8, 2016

They should be glad is was just the Internet cable. My beagle chewed through an HVAC cable, causing a short that resulted in a $2000 bill for a new compressor.
posted by COD at 6:41 AM on October 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

To be fair, I've never met a beagle that enjoyed being compressed.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:31 AM on October 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gil Grissom still has some questions for the ant and the hornet.
posted by lagomorphius at 8:05 AM on October 8, 2016

While working for large unnamed Internet Behemoth, we once lost a data center for a day because of a curious racoon. Redundancy only works if it comes from multiple channels and directions, kids!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:22 AM on October 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Was it lupus?
posted by beerperson at 9:21 AM on October 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Based on experiences we've had inside our house, he should be looking at a rabbit. Ours once bit the phone cord into three pieces. Plastic insulation is like candy to him. Just because the internet cable was severed in two places 2" apart does not mean it was one bite that did it. Also, as mentioned, squirrels.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 9:40 AM on October 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Bears love plastic and will chew the shit out of cables. They do not care about Netflix at all. I would not rule out the bear so easily.

So, no Netflix and hibernate for them then?
posted by littlesq at 10:27 AM on October 8, 2016

This was adorable, thank you
posted by FirstMateKate at 12:15 PM on October 8, 2016

Another vote for a rabbit. Rabbits love to chew anything that resembles a vine or plant stem. House rabbits are death to computer cabling.

MeFi covered this in 2003. Astonishingly, the link is still good. Photos tell the sad story.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 1:41 PM on October 8, 2016

The option of making Internet less sexy for reptiles is a puzzlement.

I am reasonably confident that nobody in human history has uttered this sentence before.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:37 PM on October 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Historians take note. You'll want that on your timelines.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 2:03 PM on October 9, 2016