Bryan W. Alaspa 1The real horror of Mother Nature
November 16th 2009 21:46
It amazes me sometimes when you look at the world and, more importantly (at least for this blog), nature itself. People like me who create stories and who think they specialize in creating stories of horror and suspense think we are pretty good and pretty creative. We like to think that we can create things so horrific that people will be glad that they only exist between the covers of a book we happen to have written. Then, of course, you read about what happen in the world of the wild animals and insects and find out that nature has things that are so much worse than anything we could come up.
My thoughts on this were brought to the forefront of my brain after watching the classic 1970s horror movie “Kingdom of the Spiders.” I am sure you have seen this movie. It stars, of all people, William Shatner. Yes, Shatner in one of his few non-Star Trek roles as a farmer and veterinarian in a small town. The problem is that the town is soon invaded by these horrific tarantulas. Of course, in true movie fashion, these are not just normal tarantulas. No, humans have been spraying so many chemicals that we have killed off much of the natural prey of tarantulas and they have moved north and now group together to attack things like cows and horses and, of course, humans like William Shatner.
It’s a classic. The spider’s venom, it turns out, is 5 times more poisonous than an average tarantula. There are scenes of the entire town running around with tarantulas all over them. This is the kind of movie you could not make today the way it was made then because of how the live tarantulas are treated throughout. They are very obviously stomped on and there are scenes were cars are running over the things, squishing them left and right. You can’t do that anymore.
Anyway, it got me thinking about tarantulas. That’s what those kinds of movies do to people like me. It turns out most of them are very harmless and they would much rather a human just leave them alone than attack them. Their venom is harmless they are just very big and hairy and ugly. However, when reading about them I read about their natural predators and wondered, who the heck is hunting these big giant hairy monsters. This is where the horror of Mother Nature stepped in.
It turns out a tarantula’s primary enemy is something called the spider wasp. Yes, a wasp. These vicious little animals attack a spider and inject venom that paralyzes the eight-legged monster. It then carries the spider back to the place where it intends to build a nest. It then builds the nest around the paralyzed, but still alive, spider. It then deposits an egg on the abdomen of the spider and seals up the nest and goes off to find more spiders. Still paralyzed, but very alive, the egg eventually hatches and what do the little baby wasps do? Well, after hatching, they sure are a bit hungry and they immediately eat most of the spider. They leave just enough of him there so that when they mature a bit more they have more to eat before flying off to find their own spiders to torture.
So, see, the next time you think you’ve heard just the absolute worst thing a human can do, spend a little time studying Mother Nature. She’s probably got you beat by a country mile, or more.
My thoughts on this were brought to the forefront of my brain after watching the classic 1970s horror movie “Kingdom of the Spiders.” I am sure you have seen this movie. It stars, of all people, William Shatner. Yes, Shatner in one of his few non-Star Trek roles as a farmer and veterinarian in a small town. The problem is that the town is soon invaded by these horrific tarantulas. Of course, in true movie fashion, these are not just normal tarantulas. No, humans have been spraying so many chemicals that we have killed off much of the natural prey of tarantulas and they have moved north and now group together to attack things like cows and horses and, of course, humans like William Shatner.
It’s a classic. The spider’s venom, it turns out, is 5 times more poisonous than an average tarantula. There are scenes of the entire town running around with tarantulas all over them. This is the kind of movie you could not make today the way it was made then because of how the live tarantulas are treated throughout. They are very obviously stomped on and there are scenes were cars are running over the things, squishing them left and right. You can’t do that anymore.
Anyway, it got me thinking about tarantulas. That’s what those kinds of movies do to people like me. It turns out most of them are very harmless and they would much rather a human just leave them alone than attack them. Their venom is harmless they are just very big and hairy and ugly. However, when reading about them I read about their natural predators and wondered, who the heck is hunting these big giant hairy monsters. This is where the horror of Mother Nature stepped in.
It turns out a tarantula’s primary enemy is something called the spider wasp. Yes, a wasp. These vicious little animals attack a spider and inject venom that paralyzes the eight-legged monster. It then carries the spider back to the place where it intends to build a nest. It then builds the nest around the paralyzed, but still alive, spider. It then deposits an egg on the abdomen of the spider and seals up the nest and goes off to find more spiders. Still paralyzed, but very alive, the egg eventually hatches and what do the little baby wasps do? Well, after hatching, they sure are a bit hungry and they immediately eat most of the spider. They leave just enough of him there so that when they mature a bit more they have more to eat before flying off to find their own spiders to torture.
So, see, the next time you think you’ve heard just the absolute worst thing a human can do, spend a little time studying Mother Nature. She’s probably got you beat by a country mile, or more.
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