From The Guardian:
It’s no secret that nature can be brutal and violent, but a new Queensland Museum report on the death of some snake eels reads more like the plot of a horror movie than a scientific paper.
Snake eels are a family of eel species that live most of their lives burrowed in the soft sand on the floor of the ocean.
When eaten alive by predators, they will use their hard pointed tail tip, which is for digging, to burst through the fish’s stomach in a bid to escape digestion.
But unfortunately, this isn’t enough to save them. Unable to burrow through a fish’s hard ribcage, they become trapped and die, their body slowly mummified in the gut cavity of their captor.
It’s said that the father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, quit believing in God after observing some of Nature’s more cruel ploys. I have no idea if it’s true, but I hope fish and eels are just as unthinking and unfeeling as they appear to be, because, just like parasitic wasps and their prey tarantulas, this is horrific. If there’s a God, he’s a sadist.
