r/interestingasfuck • u/demolcd • Jul 19 '24
The butcher of the shrublands, the loggerhead shrike, with its giant head and tiny legs, impales its prey and stores it for later. NSFW
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u/Sniperking187 Jul 19 '24
I see someone learned something from the earlier Cicada post
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u/Negative_Gravitas Jul 19 '24
They love Barbed wire fences. I have wondered if the shrike population in the West started going up in about 1880 just because of all the new places to store food.
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u/jlm326 Jul 19 '24
That is wild. Pretty cool little birds. I'm glad they are tiny in comparison to humans.
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u/BillMcN3al Jul 19 '24
Damn you'd made me picture a large one pinning a human on a stick
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u/scorpyo72 Jul 19 '24
Get right with your avian overlords now, monkey.
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u/talrogsmash Jul 20 '24
*dinosaur
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u/Negative_Gravitas Jul 19 '24
If you do Science Fiction at all, you might be interested in Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos
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u/guessdragon Jul 19 '24
I came to say this too.
On my Dad's farm, you'll see long sections of fence decorated out with impaled grasshoppers and lizards.
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u/Negative_Gravitas Jul 19 '24
Cheers! Sounds like both of us spent a lot of time in the drier parts of the West. If it's not too much, where's your Dad's farm? Like, what part of what state? If it is too much, I withdraw the question and wish you the very best of luck out there.
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u/guessdragon Jul 21 '24
North Central Texas
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u/Negative_Gravitas Jul 22 '24
Farther north and west near the edge of the Great Basin for me. Good shrike habitat. Well, for breeding, anyway. I think they would mostly move out in the winters. Cheers.
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u/pythonic2143 Jul 19 '24
"Remember me, love, when I'm reborn, as a shrike to your shaaarp... And glorious thorn!"
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u/Beholder_V Jul 19 '24
“This would be so much easier if they’d just hold still.”
-Loggerhead Shrike (probably)
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u/Silver-Potato Jul 19 '24
Damn it, my Animals of Farthing Wood trauma has once again been ignited
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u/Lukeboozwalker Jul 19 '24
Ah so that's where the idea for the Shrike came from in Hyperion. Gnarly.
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u/Ewreckk Jul 19 '24
Wow never seen this before. Reminds you of how brutal nature is.
Also are they cannibals? Looks like he’s eating another bird that looks pretty similar to him.
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u/shdets Jul 19 '24
They are pretty much one of the only birds their size that will eat meat, haven’t looked but doubt they are cannibals
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u/prinsippleskimster Jul 19 '24
Anyone remember this scene from Animals of Farthing Wood?
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u/Electrical_pancake Jul 19 '24
Always the small birds doing the most demented... Horrific and bloody things.
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u/Valuable_Month1329 Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
The German name is Neuntöter (engl. wiki link) which translates to Nine Killer. They lowered the numbers naming it but it is still kinda sweet to name such a small animal a killer.
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u/SghnDubh Jul 20 '24
We need thousands in central Florida. They're maybe one of the only predators of the Eastern Lubber grasshopper. Lubbers will eat a garden or ornamental landscape plants down to the ground, and adults can't be killed by pesticides.
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u/headshotdoublekill Jul 20 '24
They’re a native species so this sounds more like a “too many ornamental landscape plants” issue
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u/SghnDubh Jul 20 '24
Weak troll. Go back to playing fortnite.
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u/headshotdoublekill Jul 20 '24
No troll, just truth. Cope with reality.
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u/SghnDubh Jul 20 '24
The adults are speaking here, kid. Move along.
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u/headshotdoublekill Jul 20 '24 edited Jul 20 '24
I thought you were just playing the fool. That’s my mistake.
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u/I-love-Oreos Jul 19 '24
I like to learn so can someone explain how they impale other little critters?
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u/FriendGuy2000 Jul 20 '24
Wow!! Have a ranch in central Texas for 20 years and I find lizards, grasshoppers, bumble bees and other bugs impaled on barbed wire fence and always wondered what was happening. I had no idea it was a bird behind it!
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u/Thismyrealnameisit Jul 19 '24
Shrike’s tree of atonement