US media inventory of the top ten strangest animal stories of 2019: clams use stones as "breakfast"

The American fun science website published an article titled "Top Ten Strangest Animal Stories of 2019" on December 25, saying that the animal kingdom may be really wild. This year, scientists stumbled upon a variety of creatures with weird and fascinating behavior. Here are the 10 weirdest animal stories I've heard this year.

A study published in November reported that ants trapped in an abandoned nuclear bunker in western Poland had eaten the bodies of their own kind in order to survive. In 2015, in a bunker near the German border, researchers first bumped into this colony of eating the same kind of ants running around on the ground. Thousands of worker ants fell from a tube on the roof of the bunker and could no longer climb out. When examining ant carcasses found on the floor, scientists found that many of the ant's abdomen was covered with bite marks. But the gruesome story did have a somewhat happy ending: The researchers installed an escape ramp for the ants, and by the time the team returned there a year later, most of the ants had already left the bunker.

Don't like seagulls that are being stared at

How can tourists on the beach prevent pesky seagulls from stealing their snacks? According to a study published in August, it's clear that just staring at the birds is enough. On the Cornwall waterfront, researchers used french fries to attract silver gulls, testing how they behaved when they were being stared at and not being stared at. When under human surveillance, seagulls are more careful to check their food, and many simply lose interest in food. In contrast, when the team didn't look at the seagulls, they pecked at those delicious fries every time.

Zombie ants

According to a study published in July, ants infected with a certain fungus can begin to wander aimlessly and eventually crawl up the bushes to die — all apparently under thought control. Nematodyceps fungi are able to control unlucky ants, somehow directing them to bite the surface of nearby objects— usually the tip of the plant. The ant will remain stiff after death, while the fungus will emerge from its lifeless body in search of a new host. The scientists didn't find evidence that the fungus interfered with ant brain cells, but they did find mysterious particles that could cause muscle contractions in the ant's mouth.

Tardigrades may eat their own mouths

The cute tardigrade worm has six legs and is an invertebrate that can almost be seen with a microscope. They may be able to swallow their own mouths. This year, biologist Rafael Martin-Ledo dug up a tardigrade from the Saha River in northern Spain and found strange crystals in its stomach. Martin Ledo suspected that the gleaming pieces might be fragments of the aragonite. Aragonite is a mineral made up of carbon and calcium that makes up the stinging needles that penetrate food on either side of the tardigrade's mouth. Such tiny animals sometimes molt and re-grow their stinging needles, so it's not hard to imagine that fragments of the corners of their mouths sometimes fall into their chubby stomachs.

Cockatoo shaking its head

A sunflower cockatoo called "Snowball" sparked a scientific study of bird dance. "Snowball" quickly became popular online because it would improvise to a song by the backstreet boys. A group of curious scientists played other songs to the cockatoo and found that it was always able to step on the beat. Snowball even came up with entirely new dance moves, improvising different moves to match specific tunes. The researchers believe that the dance moves of the "snowball" suggest that humans and birds may have some kind of musical, social, and cognitive abilities in common.

I was insane by a fungal infection

The knowledge of a particular fungus will be as excited as if they had been poisoned, and then lose their ass – really lose their own ass. A recent study showed that this tycosporidium fungus contains a variety of chemicals, including trace amounts of amphetamines and hallucinogens, that can cause people to fall into sexual revelry. Under the influence of fungi, the male knows and even tries to mate with the male and imitates the female's knowing behavior to attract a mate. The fungus spreads through these mating behaviors, and the infected part of the body will also decompose and spray and release, infecting others.

Clams that use stones for breakfast

This year, scientists discovered a strange-looking clam known as a "ship maggot." Its "relatives" would often encroach on the hulls of wooden boats. But the research team was surprised to find that the strange maggot's favorite snack was different, and that was stone. This newly discovered clam cannot burrow into wood like other ship maggots, but instead uses shovel-like clam teeth to dig holes in the stone. It crushes and swallows the stone with its own shell, and then excretes the digested minerals like fine sand. Researchers believe that the clam doesn't get any nutrients from it, and it eats stones just to make the hole bigger.

One python spits out another

When an Australian man removed a giant python that had come into his home, the python spat out its last meal— another python. The eaten python looks fatter than the python that eats it, but both snakes are about 11.5 to 13 feet (about 3.5 to 4 meters) long. One of the pythons was able to swallow the other because it forced the spine of its prey to fold into a wavy shape. It is this "folding" action that stuffs prey into a predator's stomach, just as humans stuff large pieces of clothing into tiny suitcases.

Rats attack adult albatrosses

On the World Heritage-listed island of Gough in the South Atlantic, invasive species rats attack an adult albatross. These rodents often kill juvenile seabirds and eat them alive, but no one has ever seen rats attack adult albatrosses before. Albatrosses only lay one egg every other year, so every loss of an egg, a young bird or an adult bird is a matter of great importance to the population. To protect the island's albatrosses and other birds, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is working with the government of the British Tristan da Cunha Islands to eradicate invasive rodents.

Komodo dragons did not need males to breed

Scientists discovered this year that female Komodo dragons were able to give birth to babies without being inseminated by a male. At London's Chester Zoo, a Komodo dragon named Flora laid eight eggs this year through "parthenogenesis." This breeding form has been found in 70 species of vertebrates, including snakes and lizards, but has never been seen in Komodo dragons. Unfertilized eggs laid by parthenogenesis mature and hatch male offspring. This means that a lone female Komodo dragon could theoretically also create a new population of her own.