Is it wrong for a toad to eat a bat? Does it subvert the Great Chain of Being? This is a question we must consider as a group, before it is too late. A cane toad in Peru has very nearly swallowed a bat whole and entire:
This greedy critter was busted mid-meal snacking on a hapless bat he’d plucked out of the air just seconds earlier.
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Peruvian park ranger Yufani Olaya spotted the ravenous cane toad feasting on the tiny beast in Cerros de Amotape national park.Looking like a bizarre animal hybrid, the toad appeared to have a lengthy tongue and giant ears coming out of his head.
Olaya snapped the pic just before the toad gave up on trying to swallow the critter whole and let it fly free.
Charles Linkem, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, said that as cane toads don’t have teeth then it would have tried to crush and swallow its prey
I have written extensively on this topic in the past and will now quote myself at length:
Last month I received a tip that promised video footage of a pelican eating a pigeon; the source was reliable and the footage was produced. Upon further investigation, I discovered an entire series of videos on YouTube dedicated exclusively to documenting the pigeon-consumption process (it is horrifying and borderline unwatchable, but also incredible). This is at least understandable. Large birds can and do eat other birds; they are both denizens of the sky. It is right and natural that they should inhabit different rungs on the same food chain. But for a fish to seek to prey above its rightful station bodes ill. At the time, I did not believe that a video of a bird being eaten, however bizarrely, to be newsworthy; how innocent I was then.
It is decisively and definitively wrong for a fish to eat a bird. It is unsettling and cannibalistic for a pelican to eat another bird, although perhaps not wrong in the strictest sense of the term. But how do the toad and the bat relate to one another? Which should be the predator and which the prey?
Normally, this question could be resolved simply by asking which one of them is capable of flight. Creatures that are capable of flight may eat things that swim on the sea or writhe on the dirt; this is their right as our betters. But a bat does not fly, exactly. A bat wobbles. A bat flings itself from place to place. A bat sleeps in a cave, rather than in a tree. A bat cannot be said to soar majestically. No one finds a bat’s nest and takes photos of the pale blue eggs inside. The bat does not toil during the day; as a creature of the night we can perhaps be said to have no loyalty to it. A bat, like a toad, is a villain. Yet bats are mammals like ourselves. Surely we cannot allow a reptile or an amphibian to harm a mammal.
Not to go on all fours. Are we not Men?
But a toad is a sneak and a liar. A toad hides in the mud. A toad pretends to be mud, in order to commit murder on unsuspecting beasts. A toad has no teeth and cannot chew like an honest killer; a toad crushes its victims like the evil car-smasher in The Brave Little Toaster. Does the toad have the right to snatch even a bat from its rightful place in the sky? What would come next? The chicks of a flightless bird?
This particular bat escaped its particular death. This time. But it will happen again. No toad is content to return to grubs and fish-eggs after it realizes it can hunt the beasts of the air. The question must be answered, and soon.
[Image via Flickr Creative Commons]
Tags: bats, dr. moreau, eating, ethical quandaries, peru, science, toads
hooray science wooooooo
Toads are evil, and as an Aussie I have a fondness for bats (of the fruit bat variety) – check out this guy: http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/imgx/1/3/2/0/3/0/3/…
Once I accidentally ran over a toad with our barrel-of-blades manual lawnmower. The toad merely looked up at me balefully and sort of oozed a bit, then hopped off. I presumed it was to die, but now I’m not so sure.
Dunno if any of you guys tried listening to Haim while watching the moon earlier, but I recommend listening to the Migos track they just posted on the Awl and watching this GIF instead.
There’s that part in Charlotte’s Web where a spider snares a fish. Except, Charlotte’s Web is fiction. Allegedly.
Is the toad a prince in disguise? Because then he would be at the top of the Great Chain of Being, and might eat whatever s/he chose.
Unless the bat was a king or queen in disguise. Then the toad might still be in trouble.
BY FAR THE WORST SUBGENRE OF THIS IS THE SCOLOPENDRA-EATING-A-MOUSE OEUVRE GO GOOGLE IT ALSO I’M SORRY.
I googled scolopendra to find out what it was and that was as far as I got. I remember those long-ago days of blissful innocence when I didn’t know that giant mouse-eating centipedes were a thing that existed upon this earth…
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo a thousand times noooooooooooooooooo D:
One of my friends is an ecologist who specialises in bats – I have sought her professional opinion!
If airborne-ness makes one superior, should we not take umbrage at reptiles and amphibians that eat flying insects? Or are insects inherently other, despite their flightedness, and therefore acceptable consumption for the land-dwelling cold-blooded cohort?
Is there any sea creature that is allowed to eat landed animals? May architeuthis, for instance, eat a cow, should it somehow happen upon one?
Sharks are allowed to eat people, and that is entirely legitimate.
Insects definitely do not count. Anything that wants to can eat an insect.
I saw a video on youtube once titled “CENTIPEDE VS SNAKE” and because it was maybe 3am I clicked through, thinking, “yes, centipedes are the worst, I am totally down to see some righteous centipede-eating snake action”
The centipede won.
I don’t go on youtube anymore.
Okay, I’m kind of mixed on bats. They are totally adorable and cute, but they’re frightening when they’re somewhere they shouldn’t be (in your apartment at 3am) and can give you/your loved ones rabies.
I am fortunate to live on a rabies-free island nation, and therefore have nothing but good things to say about our noble bat allies.
Oh, those battitos and their sweet little squeaks! <3
What about PREYING MANTIS VS HUMMINGBIRD??
http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/learn/h…
noooooooooooooooooooo not even gonna click.
A praying mantis used to hang out under my hummingbird feeder and try to grab the hummingbirds. But she would always lose her nerve at the last minute and run away. This mantis would be her hero.
OH! also, this Annie Dillard excerpt about a waterbug eating a frog haha I didn’t know I had such strong feelings about noncanonical animal-eating-animal pairings.
“noncanonical ” <3
OMG BAT AND TEDDY BEAR
Okay, I love bats (I’m a South Texas girl. It’s a good time to hang out in the Macy’s parking lot at sundown and wait for the bats to fly out for the night. They fly so close you can see their little fuzzy bodies) but I have to give respect to the toad.
Anything trying to climb the foodchain is okay by me. If a cricket wants to try and eat a cow I will cheer it on. That toad saw a flying meal and went for it. He took a chance when other toads did not.
Also, do cats eat bats? Do bats eat cats?
Cats eat _everything_ but leave whatever parts will upset you most, IE: the shrieks from the rabbit, the identifiable bits of robin, the wriggle of the centipede, the entirety of the bat where did you get that why why why