When lizard meets groin

This video may reduce you to tears. Of laughter! I wonder if I should say 'elevate to tears'?

Anyway, I was all on my own *sniff :(* watching it and it made me cry with laughter. This is quite an accolade because I usually need other people around to get into that state.

My only regret is that this thing has been up for over 4 years and has had over 3 million views, so I'm really late to the party. Still, it really ought to have around 18 or 21 billion views minimum. That's at least 3 for each person on the planet.

Contemplating all the things the poor guy was trying to do and trying not to do is a real delight!

Skeleton Shrimp

Image: Gail Ashton

I'm really loving crustaceans! They're so much more interesting and diverse than I had ever imagined. I now realise that I knew almost nothing about them at all!

This little chap is the Skeleton Shrimp, thus named because he looks a tad skeletal. As is so often the case, it's not an actual shrimp at all, but an amphipod.

Less common is that they are an utterly wonderful blend of the sweetly delightful and the scandalously monstrous.

Short-tailed Whip Scorpion

Image: Wikipedia

Oh dear. Scorpion. Whip Scorpion. Short-tailed Whip Scorpion. Once again the paucity of imagination when coming up with names for arachnids is shockingly evinced.

Sea Anemone

Image: Rosario Beach Marine Laboratory

Sea Anemones are named after the flowers due to their wonderful, vibrant colours. The fact that one is a predatory, stinging animal and the other is mainly just pretty serves as no bar to this whimsy.

It'a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a... Frog?

Image source

It's not just birds, bats and insects that can take to the air and soar, flitter or buzz to their heart's content. Powered flight is a wonderful achievement, and we humans have spent a huge amount of time and resources to be able to partake in its delights.

There are many other animals in the world who give flight a go. Most only reach gliding, allowing them to extend jumping distance and avoid the usual "plummet to your untimely death" consequence.

Triton vs. Crown of Thorns Starfish

Image: Jonathan Lavan, Underwater Pressure World

We looked at the vicious Crown of Thorns Starfish and its arch nemesis the Triton snail a while ago. Here we see them in battle and to make it clear, the Triton will kill and eat the starfish. In fact, that process appears to be well under way.