By: Sophia Braida
Fact Credits: Reader’s Digest
1. When food becomes hard to find, some female ladybugs such as the Harlequin ladybug may eat their own eggs before they hatch if they cannot locate enough small insects to survive.
2. To eat shellfish like mussels or clams, a Starfish pulls the shell slightly open and pushes its stomach out through its mouth into the shell. The prey is digested outside the body, and afterward the stomach is pulled back inside.
3. When it is hungry, the Margay can imitate the calls of its prey to attract them closer. National Geographic describes this as the first recorded example of a cat using vocal imitation while hunting.
4. Scientists have observed dolphins behaving in unexpectedly aggressive ways. In some cases, they have tossed baby sharks around like toys, and there has also been an incident where a group of dolphins attacked and killed porpoises for no apparent reason.
5. In certain spider species, the young eventually consume their own mother in a behavior known as matriphagy. After the mother spends most of her energy producing a nutritious fluid to feed her babies, the spiders climb onto her body and begin eating her.
