And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.

October 19, 2008 11:14 AM

Spider eating a snake

Squirrel eating a squirrel.

posted by Baby_Balrog (77 comments total)

That squirrel business is cree-pay.

Wow, it's been three years since Python v. Gator?!? Maybe I have been wasting my life after all.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:21 AM on October 19, 2008

Cannibal squirrels? Who knew!?

That spider business is pretty gruesome too. Anyone know what kind of spider that was?
posted by thebigdeadwaltz at 11:22 AM on October 19, 2008

Note to self: Never go to Australia ever.
posted by The Whelk at 11:25 AM on October 19, 2008

Cannibal squirrels? Who knew!?

I believe you're missing the obvious conclusion. Zombie Squirrels.
posted by The Whelk at 11:26 AM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

Anyone know what kind of spider that was?

Article said redback.

It really is a dog eat dog strange world, huh?.
posted by mandal at 11:29 AM on October 19, 2008

I think we have a new set of iconography for America's two political parties in the 21st Century.
posted by adipocere at 11:30 AM on October 19, 2008 [5 favorites]

~
posted by nickyskye at 11:35 AM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

A "Goliath Birdeater" spider...doing its thing, and for the sake of completing the thread,
here's a wolf spider consuming another spider.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:40 AM on October 19, 2008

I almost forgot - here's a calf eating a chick.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:43 AM on October 19, 2008

DO NOT WANT
posted by Caduceus at 11:46 AM on October 19, 2008

Why?

Fun toy that would probably drive my mother insane with fear.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:48 AM on October 19, 2008

Pelican eats pigeon.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:48 AM on October 19, 2008

Hamburger eats baby.
posted by washburn at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

cannibal squirrel not right...not right... hes just to hungry (no i did not make this video my friend did so get over urself fags)

I luv utube lol.
posted by ORthey at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2008

"If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings!"
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:53 AM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

Baby hamster eating broccoli.
posted by pracowity at 11:54 AM on October 19, 2008 [4 favorites]

Half Sharkalligator, half man.
posted by basicchannel at 11:56 AM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ronald McDonald eating a human.
posted by gman at 12:06 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

no no no no no no no
posted by lostburner at 12:07 PM on October 19, 2008

I'm very fond of unlikely relationships, usually of the benevolent variety,interspecies snorgling [warning, seriously cute, not for everybody] between squirrel and dog or crow and cat, I'm also interested in the unlikely relationships between predator and prey.

It's really quite incredible to see a spider snag a snake. Man, this is some Hercules of a spider just to get the snake up there in the web. Amazing. This is Spider, da Man.

Unlikely: on the darker side Hippo eats Buffalo

On the lighter: Horse nibbles cat, another horse nibbling a cat.

On preview, aww, I adore (for the hundredth time) that Mocha in "His First Broccoli!" vid.
posted by nickyskye at 12:09 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Not that I don't think a squirrel would eat a dead squirrel; but, honestly, it looks like he's attempting to clean him.
posted by vertigo25 at 12:10 PM on October 19, 2008

I think the squirrel was just licking the dead one - so no points for that. The spider though, wow - the Wikipedia article said that the largest they get is one centimeter - the snake was 14 times it's size! Really amazing.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:12 PM on October 19, 2008

I was hoping for a cow-eating chicken, not a cow eating a chiken.....
posted by podwarrior at 12:16 PM on October 19, 2008

stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it
posted by infinitywaltz at 12:19 PM on October 19, 2008

"This is a very tasty bandicoot."

"Very tasty, yes."

"Did you read in the paper about the gal what got the snake, then? I mean, a 14-cm snake? Is that all? Why, when I was a lass, I had a whole koala every day!"

"One koala, eh? That's a mere snack! My mum'd send me off to school with six emus and an ostrich for afters in my lunch pail."

"That's a tiny lunch pail, then! In my day I'd eat four kangas, two sheep, a platypus AND a dehydrated human what got lost in the bush. And that was just for elevenses!"

"Oh, I remember those days!"

"Yes. Hmm."

"But you tell kids that today and do they believe you? Noooooo...!"
posted by droplet at 12:24 PM on October 19, 2008 [4 favorites]

I feel kind of embarrassed for that snake.
posted by moonbiter at 12:26 PM on October 19, 2008 [7 favorites]

Awww. Now she'll have stories to tell ito the thousands of children she's been planting in your hair at night.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:27 PM on October 19, 2008 [6 favorites]

Otters holding hands.
posted by pracowity at 12:28 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Okay this genre of youtube videos got all PETA on me with some rats eating farmed ducks alive.

Poor little quacky ducks.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:29 PM on October 19, 2008

Oh, a squirrel will eat another squirrel, I bet.

Scene: Pet Shop.

AV: "Oh look! Baby hamsters!! Still all pink and blind! Awww! And what's that Mama Hamster is over here eating with her cute little teeth and teeny weeny paws??? OH LOOK. Baby hamsters!! Still all pink and blind! Ewww!"
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:33 PM on October 19, 2008

Adding to the Sunday weird sillibiz with amazing spider and unlikely prey: spider nails barn swallow in web

Adding to the amazing (really) bug factor: the Trilobite beetle of Laos

Adding to the weird eating aspect: Andy Warhol Eats a Hamburger
posted by nickyskye at 12:34 PM on October 19, 2008

The email accompanying the images claims a receptionist at an electrical firm came in to work on Tuesday to find the snake caught up in the web.

And that's when I would quit my job! And move out of my house! And go live somewhere in the frozen, barren north where spiders don't eat goddamned snakes!
posted by sugarfish at 12:48 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Squirrel's home.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:04 PM on October 19, 2008

I think the squirrel was probably eating maggots or something. Didn't seem to be really digging in, y'know?
posted by Sys Rq at 1:19 PM on October 19, 2008

eating maggots or something

Oh, okay then.
posted by lostburner at 1:39 PM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

It didn't really seem like the squirrel was ingesting the other squirrel.

This thread is amazing, and amazingly gross.
posted by paisley henosis at 1:40 PM on October 19, 2008

The horror! The horror!
posted by RussHy at 1:45 PM on October 19, 2008

how about a Mantis eating a Hummingbird?
posted by ArgentCorvid at 1:51 PM on October 19, 2008

Gosh I have way serious arachnophobia. Bad. A big time irrational fear, and this is coming from someone who spent several years of his life working down in Sub Saharan Africa, both the cities as well as the remote bush.

They got spiders in those parts of the world. Lordy mercy do they have spiders.

I was working in Lagos and got caught up in a traffic jam. Back then gasoline only cost $0.05 a gallon down there so everyone, absolutely everyone who could had a vehicle of some sort.

Be it a rickety old private car, a yellow van (when it's that colour you can pick up passengers and make a little cash on the side), a filthy pickup truck or even a motorcycle, everyone who could drove.

Now Lagos has these wonderful four lane main roads that are hopelessly blocked with what at times appear to be perpetual traffic jams. I was being driven home one afternoon when we got stuck in one of these legendary blockades. I was iPoding, bored, and just happened to look towards the sidewalk which was dense with folks making their way home on foot.

Perhaps two fee above their heads I saw the shadow of an outline of a non moving creature. It appeared to be a spider. Although it was much, much larger than any spider had the right to be.

I watched a little while longer, transfixed by what seemed to be the creature twitching two of it's front legs, almost feeling the wall in front of it. I still wasn't sure if this was a painting on the wall, or a genuine spider when I saw it suddenly - and rapidly! - scuttle across the wall, moving perhaps two feet in a brief flash of motion. It froze, paused, and once again blended into the pattern on the wall.

Nobody walking on the sidewalk below took notice of or appeared to know there was this furry dark eight legged monster perched just inches above it's head.

Even though separated by three lanes of traffic, sitting there in a car with the windows closed, my arachnophobia grabbed hold, I started to sweat and was absolutely terrified. This spider was far, far larger than any eight legged creature had the right to be.

Now we always went with a driver and security guy while working in Lagos. They were sitting in the front and I was so so fucking nervous about the size of that creature that I was looking for reassurance.

"Hey uhhh, Jim?" I nudged the back of the front seat. The driver, a great young guy I was pretty friendly with turned off that raucous music both of them had been grooving to.

"Uuuhhh?" he inquired in a basal grunt.

"Yeh, uh that uhh thu thu THING over there" I motioned toward the sidewalk. "On the wall over there, I uh, well, that isn't a spider is it?"

I was desperately hoping Jimmy would say it wasn't a spider, that my eyes were playing tricks on me, but the answer I was dreading came back.

"Spider"

He answered confidently, authoritatively, affirmatively, but still had barely given it a glance, like this was something he saw every day.

Oh god. That wasn't the kind of shit I wanted to hear.

"Uhh, that's pretty big isn't it?"

This time he took a good long look, going so far as to temporarily remove his dark sunglasses and confer with the security guy in the front seat, who grunted something at the driver.

That spider was the biggest creature with more than four legs that I'd ever seen. I was dearly hoping he and the security guy were gonna immediately leap from that car wielding the Uzis they both carried and trot in an aggressive military manner right across the road and spray that oversized arachnid all over the wall. Bipedal justice to deal with an unnaturally sized spider.

"Not big" came Jimmy's calm and stoic response.

A hole in the traffic opened up and we drove on without another word. They weren't fussed by the sight of that spider. At all.

They dropped me off at my hotel maybe thirty minutes later.

That night I checked my hotel room for spiders several times before falling asleep. Then I'd wake up and check again. I checked several times that evening, and I've never felt comfortable working in Lagos since.
posted by Mutant at 1:54 PM on October 19, 2008 [15 favorites]

Note to self: Never go to Australia ever.

Aw, it's okay. Just don't go in the(ir) summer.
-no snakes
-no jellyfish
-no wildfires
-hotels are dirt cheap
-you have the beaches to yourself because Aussies freeze solid at 25°C

The drawback is that, while there won't be as many spiders outside, that's only because they've moved inside.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:56 PM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

could it be that the squirrel was trying to wake the other squirrel up?
posted by kliuless at 2:28 PM on October 19, 2008

or like grooming it (for death ;) or something!
posted by kliuless at 2:30 PM on October 19, 2008

or eating something stuck in its fur, i thought
posted by NikitaNikita at 2:42 PM on October 19, 2008

Neat. I've also seen pictures of an Achaearanea eating a garter snake. Except it looks like the genus name has been changed. Bother. Anyway, little nondescript spider you find in and near houses all over the place, usually eating insects. But not that day.
posted by Tehanu at 3:41 PM on October 19, 2008

I will not be watching any of your nightmare fuel, thank you. Like Mutant, I have a terrible fear of spiders, but somewhere down the line, I've realized that, much like most things, if I don't do something about it, no one will. My friends claim that my ability to kill spiders (with my bare hands if need be) is a sign that I don't have a phobia. I disagree. It is a sign that I'm so terrified, I'll do things that I would very, very much rather not do, just to make the bad thing go away.

Then again, spiders are good in a way. Sufficiently large spiders, I believe, are proof that either god does not exist, or is not benevolent, because no loving god could make something soooooo evil.

And no, I'm still not over the roughly face-sized spider I had to kill in my apartment, alone, at about 3am in my second week of living in Japan. Body the size of a quarter, legs as long and thick as pipe-cleaners. I could hear it running along the wall, it sounded like a mouse. I broke a dust pan killing it. It didn't squish, it crunched.

Just remember, either there is no god, or god has a strong dislike for us.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:50 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

I once saw a spider eat a lizard. The small lizard got caught in the web and the spider just waited for it tire itself out struggling to get free. The spider began to slowly wrap lizard in web. If the lizard began to struggle, the spider would just back off and wait. Eventually the whole lizard was wrapped up like a mummy.

I watched this scene over a period of two or three days. The lizard was still alive, but wrapped up and the spider would occasionally crawl over to it and suck on it. Too bad I didn't have a video camera.
posted by cropshy at 3:53 PM on October 19, 2008

I don't like spiders and snakes.
posted by WolfDaddy at 3:59 PM on October 19, 2008

spider nails barn swallow in web

Nothing in that video could show a more unnatural horror than this phrasing suggests.

I like spiders, really. They're industrious, they want to stay in one spot, and they clean up some bugs that cause real annoyance. They aren't rooting through your cabinets or your garbage and tracking bacteria everywhere.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:01 PM on October 19, 2008

"Come to Australia
You might accidentally get killed
Your blood is bound to be spilled
With fear your pants will be filled
Because you might accidentally get killed" - Scared Weird Little Guys
posted by tommasz at 4:33 PM on October 19, 2008

Not news - snake kills mouse.
News - mouse kills snake.
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:00 PM on October 19, 2008

Centipede eating a bat
posted by Artw at 5:05 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is the right place to post these links:
Cow eats baby chicken.
Giant centipede eats mouse.
Fish eats baby gator.
Praying mantis eats praying mantis.
Also, python vs. tiger for good measure.
posted by parudox at 5:27 PM on October 19, 2008

Nematode Trapping Fungi -- movie.
Yes. It turns out some fungi are predators on worms. Note that the common and tasty oyster mushroom is one of them.
posted by R343L at 5:33 PM on October 19, 2008

Really ugly giant spider eating lizard pic.

Arachnophobes' nightmare, giant spider gives birth to dozens of babies pic.

Wondering if the giant spider in Mutant's experience was either a camel spider or a whip scorpion?
posted by nickyskye at 6:13 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Just remember, either there is no god, or god has a strong dislike for us.

Bathtub. Middle of the morning. Reading a book, maybe a collected Shirley Jackson, sitting back in the warm water when I moved the book and noticed a roach the size of my hand on the tub.

I screamed like a girl and flew out of the tub, wet and loud. I PUNCHED it while draining the tub and, still screaming, grabbed the bleach spray and plunger and forced it into the drain.

I ruined the book.

And I want to move someplace colder.
posted by The Whelk at 6:24 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Tastes like chicken!
posted by Wet Spot at 6:42 PM on October 19, 2008

Redbacks are nasty. Not as bad as Funnel Web Spiders, mind you, but nasty none the less.

I'm not Australian by birth, and it always amuses me that locals say things like "Nah mate... Redback won't kill you. No one's died of a Redback bite in years. Pass the beer..." They're right of course. Redback would only really kill you if you were an infant, elderly or rather sick. If you're a healthy male, they'd just really fuck you up.

Ermmm.... thanks. I'm so reassured now.


What's worse is that I have two young daughters (God bless their Aussie souls), and I regularly find these little buggers in our garage or shed; the spiders... not the girls! Freaks me out. And secondly, there was a HUGE one living in my postbox last summer. I only discovered it late in the season, after months of sticking my hand in there and grabbing my post... all the time ticklingly it's long fore-arms no doubt. I can just imagine the bastard, perched in there in its web, coldly waiting for me each morning, its cold black arachnid eyes glistening in the darkness, waiting.... waiting... thinking to itself "This time... I'm going to pounce this time...."


Stupid Australia. I wish my wife hadn't been born here. We should have stayed in Ireland where the most dangerous thing is the price of Guinness.
posted by Mephisto at 7:05 PM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

Dog eats corn on the cob
posted by Daddy-O at 7:14 PM on October 19, 2008

Unless that spider is eating a snake on a motherfucking plane, I'm not impressed.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:22 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Personal anecdote.

My dome-mate and I once found a black widow living between our stereo components, the receiver and the multi-disc player, to be specific. On finding it, we said, 'Hm, guess we can never move the stereo again,' and went on our merry way for a couple of months thereafter until one of our girlfriends found out about it and we were forced into action. I put on some thick ski gloves and carefully moved the receiver, revealing the black widow and - behold! - a fatty egg sack attached to the bottom of the receiver. So I got a jar and caught the spider and destroyed the eggsack.

We put the jar behind the front door in a bit of a nook next to some books. I named the spider Nancy, after Nancy Reagan, and every couple of months we would feed her a bug. We fed her a wasp (found sluggishly crawling across the dome floor in the dead of winter), a cricket, and some other random insects, all of which she ate with great gusto and spectacle. Nancy was a great pet.

Until she laid another egg sack anyway. Which eventually (following a long period of not doing anything about it) hatched a whole shite-ton of little black widow spiders. Then I was kind of afraid to feed her for fear of letting any of the little ones out. But she only needed fed every few months, so I wasn't too worried. Until she laid another egg sack. Then I put the jar far out in the far fields, releasing Nancy and her multitudinous children into the wild.

Here's the lesson I learned from all this: It turns out black widows only really need to mate once; they can hold the sperm for years, according to my sources in the entomology department. The more you know, right?
posted by kaibutsu at 7:33 PM on October 19, 2008 [3 favorites]

That calf eating a chick video of Smart Dalek's is really ... I don't know. There's something really subtle, sad, slight and profound about it. For some reason it makes me think of W H Auden's Musee des Beaux Arts. Or Gummo. Poor chick, poor calf, poor kids.
posted by Auden at 7:35 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

dome-mate?
posted by Auden at 7:37 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Cat eating lollypop.
posted by Artw at 7:46 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Reading the fun comments in the bottom of the article led me, eventually, to this site which explains this picture:

Although some have questioned the authenticity of the photographs, they are in fact genuine. The description of the incident in the message is an abridged version of an article first published by South African online news outlet, News24 in February 2004. The article notes:

Bloemfontein - An office receptionist got the shock of her life earlier this week when she found a 14cm long Aurora house snake entangled in the web of a deadly spider.

Tania Robertson, a receptionist at an electrical firm in Bloemfontein, came in to work on Tuesday and spotted the strange sight next to a desk in her office.

The snake, which had obviously died from the spider's poisonous bite, was off the ground and caught up in the web.

Leon Lotz of the arachnology department at the National Museum immediately identified the spider as a female brown button spider

The version of the story that is currently circulating omits location information along with identification details about the creatures shown in the photographs and these omissions have caused some confusion. Africa's Brown Button spider is related to Australia's Redback spider and America's Black Widow spider. All three have distinctive red markings on their bodies and are similar in shape. Thus, some commentators have misidentified the spider in the photographs as a Redback and therefore falsely assumed that the snake's demise occurred in Australia. Others wrongly believe the spider is a Black Widow and relocate the action to the United States.
posted by Chuffy at 9:45 PM on October 19, 2008

Dog eats corn on the cob
posted by Daddy-O at 10:14 PM on October 19 [+] [!]

My parents' dog eats corn on the cob, just like the dog in this video. Peels his little lips back and goes to town. He's a Yorkie, but he's a horse of a Yorkie, not one of those little teacup dealies; he's a scrapper. He also likes watermelon a lot. Crunches it up. So far as I know he hasn't eaten any improbable members of kingdom Animalia, and either way I don't have any videos of it.
posted by penduluum at 10:15 PM on October 19, 2008

Cat eats blueberries and fingers
posted by louche mustachio at 4:22 AM on October 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I don't like spiders and snakes.

And that ain't what it takes to love me...
posted by pracowity at 6:21 AM on October 20, 2008

heh. I went to australia for the spiders!
posted by dhruva at 11:33 AM on October 20, 2008

I’m having Fritz Lieber flashbacks.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:51 PM on October 20, 2008

Huge-ass hornet eating bees.
posted by ignignokt at 5:35 PM on October 20, 2008

Fat cat sat at table contemplating eating sushi meal
posted by Artw at 7:43 PM on October 20, 2008

obviously we've hit the big time
posted by kliuless at 7:55 PM on October 20, 2008

BARON HARKOKITTEN IS DISPLEASED
posted by The Whelk at 7:55 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Bring me the floating fat cats!
posted by Artw at 8:07 AM on October 21, 2008

OH HAI!
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:39 PM on October 22, 2008

Well now that I'm totally paranoid and creeped out....
posted by dasheekeejones at 12:21 PM on October 23, 2008

how about a Mantis eating a Hummingbird?

Notice how this is reported in Bird Watcher's Digest? Hee.
posted by Blackadder at 1:18 PM on October 25, 2008