Category Archives: Critters

A deputy in Isanti County, MN, was responding to a report about a man with a gun at a restaurant in the early hours of last Saturday morning, reports local outlet Isanti County News. He was traveling down a dark road in the squad car with the lights and sirens on at 114 mph when, suddenly, a deer leapt out from the side of the road. There was no time to stop.

Miraculously, the deputy was able to walk away from the incident uninjured, despite both front airbags deploying and the hood going into the windshield. He was also able to keep the car in its lane during the crash.

Below, you can see the deputy’s dashcam footage, as well as some photos of the aftermath.

Micrathena sagittata

National Geographic Explorer Jonathan Kolby was in the jungle in Honduras researching amphibians when he spotted a spider with a spectacular rear end. The spider (Micrathena sagittata) is red, except for an abdomen that resembles the head of the Pokémon character Pikachu. It’s not a rare species, just tiny and hard to spot even if you’re looking for them. But why the coloring that acts like a safety vest? A 2002 experiment on similarly colored spider in Australia hints that standing out actually attracts prey.  

Using a black marker, the researchers “erased” the spiders’ bright yellow color. The spiders whose colors had been thus muted were on average less successful at catching prey. Like arrow-shaped micrathenas, the Australian spiders are “sit-and-wait” predators that ensnare prey in large webs.

Maybe when insects see this, they don’t think “Pikachu” as much as they think “flower.” Read more about the PIkachu spider at National Geographic News. 

When you hear animals creeping along your porch, you think stray dogs or cats are probably responsible — or maybe a bold raccoon. You don’t think it’s going to be a mother lynx and her family of seven kittens. But such was the case for Tim Newton when he awoke to the sound of paws on his deck Wednesday morning. The Anchorage man thought it was cats, but he didn’t think it would be, well, big cats.

19 new species of geckos discovered in tiny little area…

See the rest, and the article, here.

Nature Is Scary posted this video to Twitter showing what happens when the woodland ant perceives you as a threat:

They squirt formic acid from their abdomens, which smells like vinegar, to ward off hungry birds such as woodpeckers and jays.

They’re known as “ghost trees,” and for good reason: Albino redwoods are extremely rare and nearly impossible to spot. There may be as few as 25 of these trees in the world, yet eight of them are at Henry Cowell Redwood State Park in Northern California. They lack chlorophyll and suck energy from their parent tree.

Read the rest of the story on NPR.

CUMBERLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine lobstermen Alex Todd has hauled in blue lobsters and even some lobsters that were half blue, or half orange. But he says those don’t compare on the scale of weirdness to the translucent crustacean that he recently pulled up in a trap.

The lobster that Todd caught on Aug. 24 is a ghostly, pale blue. It almost looks to be transparent.

Todd, from Chebeague Island, said he knew when he saw the translucent lobster in his trap alongside mottled green and brown lobsters that this was “definitely weird.”

His photos have made the rounds on social media.

As for the lobster, he tossed it back into the ocean because its tail had been notched, flagging the lobster as an egg-bearing female. Those lobsters are off-limits for conservation reasons.