Animals That Horrify Me

Animals can be pretty damn scary things. To illustrate this, here is my personal list of seven animals that could destroy and/or control the world, if they so desired, in order from least to most horrifying. (This entry brought to you by a classroom discussion on appropriate uses of obscenities in writing. Things are--gosh!--a little foul-mouthed.)

1. Aphids. Now, even in terms of garden pests, aphids aren't as bad as you get. I mean, squirrels are more of a problem and they're, well, squirrels. So why single them out as having the potential to be destructive beyond all means?

Aphids control the ants. And ants are, bar no other living creature, the scariest fucking creatures on the face of the planet. They can get into almost any building, exist all over the world, are sometimes poisonous, are slavishly devoted to the good of their queen and hive to the point where they have no self-interest whatsoever, and they're incredibly numerous. Most horrifying? The mega-colony of ants located in Europe, which is like a whole bunch of different anthills, only instead of fighting each other, they cooperate. This is the most horrific thing I have ever heard.

To return to aphids, they have a pretty nice set-up going with the ants. Ants will protect, feed and even place aphids in opportune places, "farming" them, in return for the honeydew (or sweet, sugary piss) of aphids--the aphids lose nothing, since it's a natural waste product anyway, and in return, they control the most frightening insect on the planet.

Not so harmless now, are they?

2. Octopodes. (Before anyone gets me started on the name... Yes, I know, octopi. That's lovely and all, but that's a Latin plural ending on a Greek word. Either call them octopusses (my usual choice) or use the right plural form--just don't mix and match, especially if you then proceed to correct people smugly. "It's octopi," you may say, raising one brow with a superior sneer on your face. Yeah, shut up, bitch--it isn't.)

So what's so horrifying about the octopus? Well, for one, they're incredibly intelligent. They break locks. Sometimes they choose not to break locks, because it's easier for them to just break the locked box into pieces and get their fishy reward that way. They solve simple puzzles, they observe humans--there was an octopus that was being trained to do simple tasks for treats, which were stored in a cupboard. After a while, the scientists noticed that the treats were disappearing very quickly--reviewing the cameras in the lab showed that the octopus was escaping its cage (something they didn't even know it could do), climbing over to the cabinet where the treats were stored, opening it, and then eating its fill every night. Oh my fucking God. There are registered voters who couldn't do that shit.

The one thing holding the octopus back is its slightly less effective copper-based blood. Soon, they will find a way around this. And then--well, then the world will fall. With other cephalopodian shock troops, like the demonic Humboldt Squid, which hunts in voracious packs of up to 1200 individuals, devouring whatever crosses its path, working cooperatively and dragging humans down to be consumed in the darkest depths of the ocean, nothing will stand in their way--as soon as they find a way to subsist for long periods of time on the surface of the water, we're all doomed.

3. Canadian geese. They are some nasty motherfuckers, let me tell you. And adult geese are strong--they can knock you around pretty bad. Mostly, though, these are the most ruthless and aggressive birds on the planet: looking like a Canadian goose is the avian equivalent of being 6'5", made of muscle, wearing black leather, being heavily tattooed, twitching sporadically and generally giving the impression that you're about to snap and go for their throat, and probably wearing the caked-on blood of the multitudes of dead men, women, children, kittens and other innocents that they've killed. And, unlike many other types of birds, they're hideous rapists with an insatiable sexual appetite, to the point where birds sometimes drown because they have been fucked into the water, after a particularly enthusiastic drake landed on them while they were floating.

You probably think this is hyperbole. It's not. The invasion has already begun--notice how the geese no longer fly south for winter everywhere? They're planning their attack. They already have us feeding them bread--soon, our every goal will be to serve our feathered overlords.

Canadian geese will take a break from raping, murdering and eating your lawn, and then laugh and laugh, honking wildly as they chew on the severed fingers of your children. Not even the adorable goslings will make up for that. The cuteness is a lie.

4. Chinese giant salamanders. They get six feet long. They are a six-foot-long amphibian. One that can live for hundreds of years. Six-foot-long incredibly long-lived predatory amphibians. The only reason that they don't have human deaths attributed to them is because they're very obscure and unstudied, living high in the Chinese mountains. Nobody knows how intelligent they are. Nobody knows much of anything, in fact--and they like it that way.

5. Infectious dog cancer. "Infectious cancer?" you may say. "Don't be ridiculous!" But it is, in fact, the truth--another infectious cancer is behind Devil Facial Tumor Disease, which causes cancerous growths on the faces of Tasmanian devils, swelling until they're so large that the animal is unable to feed and starves to death.

The cancer dogs get is a little more benign: it's usually not fatal. Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) is passed from dog-to-dog by sexual contact or by fighting--and unlike the cervical cancer caused by HPV, it's truly an infectious cancer. That means that every cell in every tumor in every dog who has this disease--and it's found across all five continents, commonly--is genetically identical, and that it all comes from one animal, a dog or wolf, who lived approximately 150-1000 years ago.

Which means that that dog, in essence, has never died. Instead it lives on, a few of its cells--mutated until they no longer follow the rules of genetics and the body as we know them--buried inside hundreds of thousands of dogs, all across the planet. Waiting.

6. Cordyceps fungi. Now, fungus usually aren't all that scary--maybe if you're immunologically depressed you might get certain species growing in you (like Schizophyllum commune, a known cause of "human mycosis," settling in the lungs and sinuses, among other organs, and causing things like brain abscesses) but mostly they stick to dead stuff, right? Or plants at the very least--although there is that fungus that grows on hibernating bats, causing erratic behavior, physical problems and eventually death--really, not a threat to humans or the greater part of the animal world.

Well, the Cordyceps fungus infects living insects. It moves slowly through the insect, consuming the most vital systems last and entwining with the insects nervous system. Now, let's say that the infected species was an ant: as it grows sicker and sicker, dying as more and more essential systems are confused by the parasite growing inside its body, it starts to exhibit erratic, abnormal behaviors. (This still isn't very scary, is it? Just wait.) It starts washing compulsively, for example--more to the point, it starts climbing up towards the canopy of the tropical rain forests it's found in. Why up? Because there's more air flow up there. Why? Because the Cordyceps fungus makes it. How can you tell? It's totally abnormal behavior for the ants.

As the ant moves upwards, it eventually dies. As it passes away, it grips its jaws into the wood beneath it, clinging to the tree even as death sets in, followed by rigor mortis. And, finally, the fungus shows itself: it begins to fruit, a long spike emerging from the body to spread its spores. The increased breeze at the tops of the trees helps the plant spread, to infect another ant.

No scientist really knows how it causes behavioral changes like that. It already effects hundreds, possibly thousands, of insect species...

7. Hairworms. This is another mind-control parasite, like the Cordyceps in some ways: it changes the behavior of the host, to its detriment and eventual death. It even infects insects--although the hairworm in question infects grasshoppers exclusively. (For the moment, at least. And as far as we know.) It was discovered when scientists noticed grasshoppers jumping directly into ponds--not normal behavior for them. It appeared that they were committing suicide, which they were, in many ways.

It was eventually discovered to be caused by a parasite. Somehow, it alters grasshopper behavior; for a while it lives relatively quietly within its host, consuming the flesh and vitality of the grasshopper like any normal parasite. Then things change. In the end, the grasshopper ends up plunging helplessly into the pond, where it drowns, leaving the worm free to leave its host and find a mate, finishing its complex life-cycle.

Essentially--somehow--this parasite makes the grasshopper kill itself so that it can continue to finish its disgusting life cycle. (To illustrate just how disgusting: the worms writhe themselves into hideous balls and clumps, earning their other name--Gordian worms, after Gordian knots.) How? Again, nobody knows--but I'd look really carefully at the number of human suicides-by-water in regions where this thing is found.

(Sources: Chinese Giant Salamanders, and the same again, hairworms, Humboldt squid, Tasmanian devils, Cordyceps fungus, and infectious dog cancer.)

Anothropomorphism

As humans, we try to apply human values to the natural world. This is wrong. Evolution, for example isn't purposeful, it's just a series of happy accidents. Rabbits don't hate wolves, and chickens don't hate raccoons, and no animal hates humans. There's fear, of course, but that's an instinct bred into us through natural selection: the fight-or-flight instinct is part of our genetic code, not a learned behavior, just like the broken wing display of killdeer, a type of long-legged wading bird. When killdeer build their nests, which are flush to the ground and almost invisible, if a predator approaches they hold one wing out like it's broken and make high-pitched, panicked piping noises, trying to draw the threat away from their eggs, since they look like an injured and therefore easy target. Again, this isn't a learned behavior: it's instinctive, and it only happens around the breeding season.

As humans, we see a killdeer try and draw away a predator, and we see maternal love. The killdeer is only interested in the continuation of its genes, which isn't even a selfish urge, because selfishness requires the need to know better. Nature is purposeless. The urge to see your genes continue is selected for because it means that more of the offspring survive--it's not even a conscious decision for animals. That's where humanity differs: what we show over an infant is maternal love because it's more than the genetic drive to ensure survival--although that, of course, counts for a lot as well.

Not every animal displays behaviors that we would call "mothering." Many species don't parent at all, instead just releasing their eggs and sperm, or pollen and seeds. Again, this is just how things are: it's a reproductive strategy that has worked at least marginally functionally, and therefore ensured the continuation of the species--at least while conditions remain stable. Most birds species (around 90%, far more than mammals because both a male and female bird are able to equally care for the young, unlike mammals, for example) form monogamous pair bonds that raise young cooperatively. This is not an "admirable" trait, because it's simply something that worked from a genetic standpoint--because birds aren't human, we can't apply moral standards to them, even if we apply them to our own society, wrongly or rightfully. Almost every species of bird that has social monogamy also has considerable amounts of extra-pair copulation--cheating, if you want to use our anthropocentric and anthropomorphic term. Almost all of them exhibit intraspecific brood parasitism, where a bird places one of their eggs in the nest of another couple, causing them to raise the genetic inheritor of the other bird. It's not an "evil" or "amoral" act, because the birds don't have the intelligence or awareness to be doing it for any other reason than that it works and that it is an inherited, genetic trait.

So when a cat washes itself or a kitten, it's not an inherent value for cleanliness, it's an instinct that comes from a genetic urge. It probably keeps or kept the cats healthier by washing away parasites and preventing infection. Similarly, when a cat kills far more birds and rodents than it could possibly eat, it's not a sign of greed or avaricious malice, it's something that was bred into the cat by humans: cats were domesticated to keep rats and other pests out of stored grain. When your dog waits for you by the door, it's because of ingrained instincts about social hierarchies. Wolves aren't "noble," and neither is any other animal. Weasels aren't tricky and devious. It's all just illusions, cast by society and human perception and misconceptions--anthropomorphism, just another reflection of anthropocentrism.

Natural History

The osage orange is a tree with a shrubby growth habit and tough, burnished leaves. It's not prone to insect depredation because the leaves and stems contain latex, a sticky and distasteful sap that makes it difficult to eat. This latex is also present in the knobbly green fruit it produces.

The fruit is actually composite, made up of a million small flowers gone to seed and grown together. It's the size of a large softball and heavy. It is inedible to humans, and sometimes eaten by squirrels or other animals, but only rarely. The skin is very tough, and it's too big for even deer to eat easily.

This is curious, since fruit is meant to spread seeds, to increase a plant's range, and the osage orange fruit is rarely consumed by animals, especially not in any great quantity. Since it's never eaten, consumption won't spread its seeds, the way other fruiting plants spread. In Indiana it's considered an invasive pest, but not because of how it travels without human involvement: instead, the issue lies with how humans plant it. The plant exerts great energy every year to produce the essentially useless fruit, which will fall near the base of the tree or maybe roll down a nearby hill, pulled by gravity. Nothing more.

There's a certain understanding that nature produces no dead ends, because natural selection and the process of evolution ensure that only the most fit pass on their genes. Part of the problem is that evolution is not driven solely by natural selection. Partially, also, there is a misunderstanding of the word "fit": it can be solely related to terms of survival, how long an organism lives, or it can be more indirect--for example, how effectively an organism reproduces, so that even a tree or a fish that dies earlier on in its life can pass on its genes to future generations. There's also sexual pressures; for example, there's a species of bird where the male's tail grows to such ridiculous lengths during the breeding season that it can no longer fly. The male with the longest tail (assuming he can survive the treacherous period where he's at much greater risk for predation) will attract the most females, and have the most offspring. It's a huge waste of energy and a danger to all the male birds, but it's been effectively selected for by countless generations, because it's pretty.

But still, there's no obvious, modern explanation for the osage orange's fruits. It wastes nutrients and other resources on what's essentially a useless gesture towards reproduction, in a way that won't increase its range, spread its seed. The answer, instead, lies in the past.

Ten to twelve thousand years ago, during the Wisconsin era of the Pleistocene epoch, before the end of the Ice Age and the introduction of humans to North America (these two events combining to reshape North American fauna drastically), Indiana was populated with creatures like the mastodon, the dire wolf and the ancient bison. There were species related to ones we know today, but exaggeratedly larger: the giant beaver and the stag-moose, and the teratorn, a bird with a twenty-six foot wingspan. It was also an unfamiliar landscape, with glaciers retreating and then advancing in cycles, flattening the land, but most strikingly different were the animals, who seem almost unbelievably ridiculous, almost fake, today. For example, there was the giant sloth.

The giant sloth stood at a comparable height with a mammoth, although it was less massive. It was an herbivore, but armed with heavy claws, and many times the size of the modern sloths. With the introduction of humans to North America, as they crossed the Bering Land Bridge, it was hunted into extinction, along with all its relatives. Some of them--the antique bison, the stag-moose, the sabre-toothed tiger--developed into smaller species; others were simply lost. Among them the giant sloth.

The osage orange had evolved to have its seeds spread by the giant sloth. It was a big enough animal to eat the fruits, as hard and solid and heavy as they were, in one bite; and it traveled, spreading the seeds away from the plant as it went. An animal that big ate a lot of vegetation, and it enabled the osage orange to spread across a considerable stretch of North America, perfectly adapted to coattail onto this animal's travels.

But change happened. Giant sloths were wiped out, unable to stand up to the introduction of a new biological factor--humans. Not fit to deal with this new type of predator, the megafauna were lost. The environment shifted, climate change happened, and the osage orange did not find a new niche to inhabit. Its territory slowly retreated, until it was limited to only the Ozark mountains, a relic of a long-gone epoch remembered only in fossilized skeletons, tar pits and ice-mummified mammoths.

Currently, osage orange is found throughout the East coast and the Midwest. It was re-introduced by humans: it is unable to spread quickly or efficiently without an herbivore big enough to consume its fruit. Instead, its fast-growing habit and the way it forms thorns on bruised branches made it a desirable hedge-plant for fencing in fields and properties. It was one of many opportunist species, and it persists, once more spreading across the country. But it is reliant on this conscious aid.

The osage orange may evolve another reproductive trait. Maybe the seeds will shrink back down to something smaller, splitting up into individual fruits instead of massive compound balls, or there will be a random mutation that encourages aggressive suckering and asexual reproduction. Maybe another animal will start to take advantage of osage orange fruit, filling the gap left by the giant sloth ten million years ago--at least in part. Maybe it will eventually be rendered extinct, except for a few specimens kept somewhere for study.

Right now, it's a plant that's almost irrelevant. Nobody plants hedgerows anymore. The osage orange grows too big, too fast and too messy, and pruning it makes it grow sharp thorns, only desirable when you want to keep someone out. Humans can't eat the fruit. Nothing eats the fruit--except for sometimes a hungry squirrel who will gnaw through the tough skin to the seeds and bitter flesh. It's been rendered irrelevant by the evolutionary niche that made it successful before collapsing. Human activity opened its range back up, but it's temporary or it will be an ever-present crutch. It has no independence; but then, it never really did. It was reliant on the sloth, and then it was reliant on humanity.

None of us are truly independent.

But humanity is not slowly fading out of the world because it doesn't fit anymore. Humanity is not--as of now--growing increasingly marginalized.

It's a little sad to think of something that was once successful, in every sense of the word, biologically and evolutionarily and otherwise, even a plant that's well-known and well-recognized for its fruit--the osage orange is a relic. It's a scientific term, one that matches the common definition in many ways: something no longer important, dead and gone and buried. An evolutionary trait that has been rendered irrelevant, even if the organism still persists. For now.