5 Occasions When Nature Amazed Everyone In 2022

1. Fish with parasitic lice instead of tongue

Eventually, everything dies and becomes food for insects. But sometimes the parasites don't wait to die.

For example, this unfortunate Atlantic Croaker caught off the coast of Texas just before Halloween.

When fishermen opened the fish's mouth, they discovered that its tongue had been replaced by the parasitic isopod known as the "tongue-eating parasite".

Females of this species infiltrate the mouth of a fish, cling to the blood vessels under the tongue, then suck the dry organ until it rots.

The parasite receives a new comfortable home, where it continues to feed on blood and mucus throughout the life of the fish, which, surprisingly, is not very affected by the parasite in its mouth.

2. T-rex Dinosaur Fight Club

With banana-sized teeth and the force of a bite that could crush a car, T. rex and his cousins ​​were arguably the most brutal animals to ever live. But what did these killers do when there was no prey to sacrifice? Why they were fighting each other in so-called "fighting clubs," according to new research in the journal Paleobiology.

In their study, researchers analyzed 202 tyrannosaurus skulls and jaws that had a total of 324 scars. The team found that none of the young tyrannosaurs had any bite marks, while about half of the older specimens were scarred.

These experienced fighters "probably showed aggression and then tried to get their heads between their jaws," said study author Caleb Brown, curator at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada. Tyrannosaurus-tyranny disputes could have taken place over territory, partners, meals or just status, the researchers added.

3. The great "worm tornado" in Jersey

We can't be sure if the "tornado" of earthworms is an official sign of the apocalypse, but at least it is halfway to a biblical plague.

Residents of a New Jersey city encountered this strange scene while on the sidewalk after a spring rain in late March. Hundreds of earthworms scattered on the sidewalk, with even more twisted in a bizarre spiral shape, where the pavement meets the grass.

But what does this terrifying thing mean? Experts say the worms probably fled the ground en masse after heavy rains the night before, looking for air from above (they breathe through the skin). The spiral pattern may just be a coincidence or could indicate the direction of water flow, a researcher said, but no one has been able to accurately decode this dark sign.

4. Occasions that stunned everyone - the "space hurricane" above the North Pole

If the tornado worm wasn't impressive enough, we just have to look north at the 1,000-kilometer-wide plasma hurricane that swirled over the Earth's magnetic North Pole for nearly 8 hours.

The towering vortex was invisible to the naked eye, but it was clearly visible during the day by four meteorological satellites passing by. Like terrestrial hurricanes, the plasma cyclone had a quiet "eye," a funnel, and spiraling arms that rotated counterclockwise; but instead of raining water, the vortex threw noisy electrons into the upper atmosphere.

Although this so-called "space hurricane" caused a stir in 2014, scientists began studying it only this year, publishing its results in the February 22 issue of the journal Nature Communications.

The team hypothesized that the hurricane was the result of a complex interaction between the solar wind and the magnetic field above the North Pole. Scientists didn't even know that space hurricanes existed before that year; Now researchers suspect that there may be common phenomena on the planets with magnetic shield and plasma in

5. The killer turtle that hunts birds

Turtles are as cute as a grandmother with reptile wrinkles and are devoid of any evil thoughts, are they? Wrong, especially if you're a baby bird.

Shocking images published in the journal Current Biology in August show, for the first time, a killer turtle on the hunt. In the video, a female giant tortoise from the Seychelles moves on a log, moving resolutely towards a Chirighita chick.

The bird retaliates by pinching its beak while the tortoise springs, but the reptile is not discouraged; after a 90-second chase (this is a dizzying speed during the turtle's) the wrinkled hunter catches his serrated beak around the bird's head, killing it instantly.

This is the first photo evidence of a turtle hunting another animal, but it is almost certainly not the first victim of a turtle hunter, the study authors said. This reptile clearly had experience in hunting loggers; that makes this turtle a cold-blooded killer.