Elephants have
figured out how to use boxes to get food too high to reach on their own. Alligators are cooperating in fishing for
meals. Monkeys are using virtual
reality to distinguish between different textures. Frogs are growing teeth.
Wasps transport ants away from food sources. Cats imitate monkey calls in the forest. Goats are walking up the sides of dams in
Italy. Rocks are moving on their own
in Death Valley. And on top of all
this, zombie ants have been found in the jungle and scientists are creating
zombie caterpillars in the lab! That’s
it folks. Game over. You may just dismiss these events as strange
and weird articles to be found in National Geographic online but I say they’re
signs of the end. Time to board up the
windows, clear the fields of fire around your house, stack rifle magazines at
your sandbagged, upper story window, and wait for the inevitable zombie
apocalypse. This is the end.
Ok, ok, I can
see that some of these stories are just natural outcomes of normal
evolution. So I can see how margays in
the Amazon jungle imitating monkey calls to draw in food and alligators lining
up at bottlenecks in rivers to feast on fish passing through can be seen as
normal development; the cats have seen how making baby monkey calls will lure
in a curious adult monkey (George, perhaps?) and maybe they can make a quick
meal of it. And, alligators gathering
where there’s plenty of fish to eat… oh well, just nature taking its
course. But how do you explain an
elephant trying to reach some tasty fruit just out of reach of his trunk,
walking over to and then pushing a large box over to the out-of-reach branch,
and then stepping on said box to reach the tasty morsels? This is problem-solving intelligence, not
just “food there, go to food” instinct.
And, as I’ve pointed out in previous harrumphs, elephants in India will
go into villages and murder people who have offended them in some way (like
trying to kill them or chase them out of the area) by knocking on their doors
and then dragging them off into the jungle when the foolish person answers the
door. This is the end… beautiful
friend, the end.
Wasps have been
seen picking up ants that are swarming over a food item that they crave, flying
a distance away with the ants, and them dropping them back to the ground,
unharmed, and then flying back to the food, repeating this as necessary, until
they’ve got the food to themselves.
It’s not like the wasp gets in there and fights it out with ants, like
they did on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, back the 60’s. It’s almost as if they’ve discovered that
ants are an integral part of the food chain and they’re just pushing them aside,
with no ill effects, to maintain the balance of nature. Smart wasps? This is the end… my only friend, the end.
Now, as for the
next few things, I just have no clue.
Frogs growing teeth? Oh come on,
don’t you think we’ll have enough trouble with the wasps and elephants? Now we have to worry about frogs attacking
us? Brings a whole new meaning to frog
gigging when the frogs can fight back.
I’m sure it wont be long before they discover a 500 pound, six foot long
frog with saber-tooth like tusks in the swamps. And what the hell are goats doing walking up near vertical dam
faces for? Just so that we can put them
on the “watch list” too? Damn goats (or
is it “dam” goats? Whatever…) And monkeys playing with computers and virtual reality? C'mon scientists, knock it off! Oh yeah, better watch out for those moving
rocks in Death Valley too. It’s not
enough that we have to face off against the animal kingdom at like 10 trillion
to one odds, now we have to include rocks?
Oh well, 10 bazillion to one.
This is the end… of our elaborate plans, the end.
Ants in the
jungle are being taken over by a fungus that turns them into zombies. They are “digested” by the fungus, wander
off and eventually die, after which the fungus sprouts from their heads, ready
to attack a new host. Well, this might
be nature at work but deliberately infecting caterpillars with a zombie virus
in the lab at Penn State is just going too far. You know what’s coming next folks; the virus “jumps” to one of
the scientists late at night, the reports from Pennsylvania (interestingly,
where the original “Night of the Living Dead” movie was supposed to have taken
place,) of weird attacks where victims have been bitten by other people in
strange trances, and in some cases, unbelievable reports of cannibalism or
people being devoured on city streets by their attackers; hospitals being
overwhelmed; the National Guard, then the entire Army being mobilized;
worldwide epidemic; borders closed (finally!); tanks in the streets; napalmed
cities… and then the inevitable silence from the emergency broadcast
system. Haven’t we learned anything
from George Romero (besides knowing when you’ve finally “jumped the shark” in
zombie movies?) This is the end… of
everything that stands, the end.
 |
| Goodbye Mr. Bear... |
And
finally, have you seen the videos of these bears waving at people? I’m not talking about the usual “bear waves,
bear gets food treat” ones, I’m talking about the ones where they’re waving but
not getting any food snacks. It’s like
they’re enjoying waving. Enjoying
waving at us. Waving goodbye to us. This is the end… Harrumph…
