The University of Michigan calls its latest, unprecedented research the “stuff of nightmares” because it features insects, big and small, devouring wildlife.
Maggie and Michael Grundle’s video recording of a “dinner plate-sized” tarantula, or theraphosid, slowly eating a mouse opossum is a world-first and has been getting much of the attention.
“We were pretty ecstatic and shocked and we couldn’t really believe what we were seeing,” Michael said in a release. “We knew we were witnessing something pretty special but we weren’t aware that it was the first observation until after the fact.”
The Grundles stumbled upon the spider before midnight in November 2016. They reported that the opossum initially showed signs of life, which quickly diminished.
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The university claims that evolutionary biologist Daniel Rabosky annually takes a team of U-M researchers “on a month-long expedition to the Los Amigos Biological Station in the remote Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru.”
Their intent was to monitor the effect of arthropods and parasitoids on the population levels of small vertebrates. Their accumulative findings are what formed the study.
WATCH: Researchers record example of ‘flesh fly infection’
Another video from January 2017 in northern Peru provides an example of what is called a “flesh fly infection.” Put bluntly, it shows a maggot protruding from a lesion on the back of a poison dart frog called ranitomeya uakarii.
Researchers concluded: “Future studies aimed at quantifying the frequency of ecological interactions involving arthropods and small vertebrates across tropical and temperate forest habitats will shed light on patterns of commonness and rarity of these organisms among regions, and their effect on the structuring and functioning of food webs.”
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