Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s previous World of Wonder columns for The Butter can be found here.
I’ve just returned from taking my kids on a surprise visit to Disney World’s Animal Kingdom (cue “The Circle of Life” here). And as such, have been thinking about hearts and blood and valves and hearts and thumps and extremes in the animal world—the biggest ______, the fastest_______, the smallest ______. But I wasn’t always like this—my seven year-old, who adores all manner of animals, thinks and questions me like this—in extremes: Mommy—what is the largest jellyfish? The tiniest reptile? What has the biggest teeth on this planet? You name it, I’ve probably daydreamed about it, all because of his incessant questions.
Which brings me to the answer of one of his recent queries—what animal has the smallest heart? My friends, I give you the fairyfly, of the family Mymaridae:
Photo by Duncan Hill, via Flickr
You can find this tiny wasp (varying in size from .5 to 1 millimeter) on every continent except for Antarctica, making the most of its less-than-a-week-long life on this blue planet. The fairyfly’s wings beat full of fringe and fervor, all the while pumping its tiny heart full of a blood-like substance called hemolynth throughout its entire crispy body—no arteries or veins needed. But I do adore that there could be a swarm of tiny “heartbeats” flying right by us, virtually invisible to the eye and ear.
Here’s a particular type of fairyfly named after one of the most famous fairies of all, Tinkerbell:
Photo via Wikimedia
But don’t let the sweet name fool you. Fairyflies have a unique trait that could make even the cheeriest little entymologist turn saturnine: fairyflies are parasitoid. That’s right—when rummaging around a stem or tree bark for a nice, safe place to lay her eggs—she’s really not looking for a place, but for an actual clutch of eggs itself! The more insect eggs, the better, as she then pierces each egg she finds with her ovipositor and lays one of her own eggs INSIDE another insect’s egg. Whaaaat? Que horror, no? And, oh, in just a few hours(!!), the fairyfly egg can then hatch and gobble up its first meal (how thoughtful, Mama Fairyfly!): fresh insect embryo, already conveniently waiting right there for him. *shudder* See? I bet your face is pretty saturnine now, right? Right?!
And now it’s your turn, Wonder-ful Ones: POP QUIZ! Anyone know which animal has the largest heart on this planet? I mean, we’re talking LARGE—humans can walk through it. Any other weird and wild hearts or heart systems you know about? Anyone have some cute puppy or kitten videos to share so that I don’t have nightmares tonight? Please share any of the above in the comments below!
Tags: aimee nezhukumatathil, the butter, world of wonder
What care I for human hearts? Soft and spiritless as porridge! A fairy’s heart beats FIERCE AND FREE!
I’m glad you didn’t make me end up liking an insect.
Also here’s a surfing pug http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/brandy-the-pug…
(Oh and how’s Everest? I haven’t gotten to Animal Kingdom yet)
THE BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. ALL TIME. TIM CURRY AS A SEXY DEVIL. TOM CRUISE’S UPPER THIGHS. UNICORNS. HER FLUFFY FAIRY HAIR. DANCING MANNEQUINS.
But only if your love is strong enough.
Blue whales!
I second this.
Another question (I am a 7-year-old when it comes to this stuff): which animals have the smallest and largest hearts relative to total body size? I do not know the answer; this is not a quiz.
Love this column!
I’m getting hummingbird as the largest relative heart. Can’t find smallest yet.
Apparently fish hearts are the smallest percentage of body weight in vertebrates at least.
Definitely blue whale with the largest heart. But I’m pretty sure you mean HEMOLYMPH, not hemolynth.
But only if your love is strong enough.
Blue whale! I hear its heart is the size of a VW Beetle.
If I say blue whale for largest and I’m wrong can you tell Alan Davies so he can come and bask in the klaxon with me?
<3
Thank you! I was trying to figure out how to make the reference and then you did! <3 <3 <3
If I say blue whale for largest and I'm wrong can you tell Alan Davies so he can come and bask in the klaxon with me?
The animal with the largest heart on the planet is any animal infected with the parasitic spores of the Night-Blooming Heartichoke (Cardiofloriscens mactabilis). Once inhaled, the spores lodge in the lungs and send out microfilaria to pierce the heart of the victim, be it chipmunk, caribou, or human. The victim’s heart grows three sizes that day, and three sizes more every day thereafter until it ruptures the ribcage entirely, then continues to swell like a hideous pulsating tumor. By this time the victim is reduced to a mere scattered collection of organs stuck to the side of their own colossal heart. At this point the heart begins to sculpt itself into a vast acoustic resonating chamber, modulating the heartbeat to generate pulses of approximately 2 megahertz, an ultrasonic frequency that travels over long distances and induces a sensation of calm and well-being. Animals and people are drawn for miles, heeding a call they cannot consciously hear nor understand, oddly comfortable in each others’ presence; humans, deer, foxes, bears, all swaying slightly to the rhythm, wandering together as if in Eden through the womblike pulsing corridors of this strange fleshy cathedral. Roughly 40% of those passing through the atrial corridors will in turn be infected by the spores of the weird blood-red flowers studding the vein-roped walls. Once the pollinating season is over, the infected heart-castle slowly dies, decaying and sagging from within like a giant rotting pumpkin, until all that is left is a vast pool of black ichor and a noisome stench. The stain on the landscape will never fully heal, although strangely it is often paved over and used as the site of a children’s pizza restaurant franchise featuring animatronic singing animal characters.
awesome post! May I share on my FB author page, with attribution of course? If so, how would you like it to be attributed?
Opps, sorry, sometimes I do not look at replies to my posts for years, if ever. Attention span of a hummingbird, me. By all means, share away. Attribution probably most accurate as: “some freak who wrote a really long post in the middle of the night and probably thought they were being funny at the time,” but damanoid is fine too. Or were you being sarcastic? Sometimes I can’t tell.
Well! Holy monkeys, I took a peek at your website there and you are a goddamn creativity dynamo, all right. I’d be happy to be mentioned on your Facebook page, even in a passing “this is what happens when you post on drugs, kids” context. I should perhaps mention that the remark about the pizza restaurant is a throwaway allusion to “Five NIghts at Freddy’s,” a series of horror video games, a pop culture reference which has become dated and stale within the few weeks since I posted it, or possibly even while I was in the act of typing it.
9th wave feminism, before we awaken Andrew Dworkin from hotsleep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicopomorpha_echmep…
It's not as if they're paying you to do the swimming yourself, it's not as if it's fun, it's time to take a break.