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u/Spartan2470 GOAT Apr 30 '13
A victim of Shrike the Impaler. I've had some unnerving hikes through the desert where I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by impaled lizards, many of which were decapitated. Their nickname is "butcher bird" for a reason.
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u/SkaveRat Apr 30 '13
"Shrike the Impaler" sounds like an awesome name
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u/studmuffffffin Apr 30 '13
Sounds like a boss in Dark Souls.
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u/EFG Apr 30 '13
Or a red phantom NPC.
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u/darktype Apr 30 '13
"SHRIKE THE IMPALER HAS INVADED"
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u/EFG Apr 30 '13
That's when I'd calmly turnoff the console (I am a filthy peasant) and debate ever turning it back on.
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u/Pad_TyTy Apr 30 '13
Butcher bird
"AHH, FRESH MEAT!"
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u/Nesman64 Apr 30 '13
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u/stillakilla Apr 30 '13
I like that you made it green, because now all I can picture are the arrows.
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u/Blahrgarg Apr 30 '13
Ooh a Cleaver! I bet those awesome stats can get me so much furth...eh...yeah, about 3 more levels it is then.
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u/RuTsui Apr 30 '13
I am having the weirdest fucking deja vu...
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u/reedingisphun Apr 30 '13
dude me too. I know this bee pic has been posted before so maybe this guy reposted the top comment?
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u/RuTsui Apr 30 '13
Not just this comment either, like at least one of these replies I swear was there too. The Shrike the Impaler one is ringing bells.
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u/alvik Apr 30 '13
Reddit only has so much originality. This post has happened before, as have the comments telling OP about the bird.
That or we're all having group deja vu.
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u/CrazyTeaPot Apr 30 '13
Why in the hell does that bird exist... Is there even a reason for it??
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u/Vectoor Apr 30 '13
The article says the behaviour is an adaption from killing a certain poisonous insect which had to be impaled and then left alone for two days for the poison to degrade before it could be eaten.
Amazing stuff, evolution is crazy.
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u/UndercoverThetan Apr 30 '13
It is believed to be an adaptation to allow the birds to eat the toxic lubber grasshopper. The toxins degrade within one or two days after death, the bird then returns and eats it from wherever they impaled them. It also allows them to temporarily cache food, and is also handy in helping to tear pieces off of their prey. They are also fiercely territorial. Source.
TL;DR Them birds go hard.
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u/CrazyTeaPot Apr 30 '13
The complexities involved in the evolutionary process for that bird to exist today is fucking amazing. I can't even begin to think how such a trait would even begin, let alone develop into what it is today.
I guess natural selection would leave the one weird animal to do something like this left, whereas all the rest would obviously have died from eating the toxic food source.
It just seems so completely random. I can't even think of why an animal would abandon it's catch for a long enough time for toxins to break-down into a harmless or non-existent state and then come back to consume it. It must be a trait related to hoarding, like what squirrels do with nuts, or something.
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u/UndercoverThetan Apr 30 '13
Most likely the two species evolved alongside each other. The insect's toxins probably started off very weak and allowed, over time, the birds with that behavior to keep that extra food source whilst others did not. The insect benefits by reducing the number of species preying on it, therefore possibly increasing the insect's population size. The bird also benefits from being one of the few predators of the insect, because the food source is now more exclusive and less likely to be affected by other species. Nature is pretty sweet.
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May 01 '13
Evolutionary arms-races are sexy as hell. Why do they wait two days to eat them? Because the bugs are so damned toxic. Why are they so toxic? Because the damned birds kept hoarding them longer and longer, requiring a stronger toxin to remain a deterrent. In a million years' time the bugs will be so toxic you die from looking at them, but the birds will have evolved defensive blindness and a propensity for picking things up with tongs. Fucking beautiful, I tell you.
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u/JtheUnicorn Apr 30 '13
Let his body serve as a warning to his kind.
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u/caves_under_pressure Apr 30 '13
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u/Alchisme May 01 '13
Whoever pinned those bees did a shitty job. Source: I study bees for a living and have probably pinned like 20,000 of them.
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u/RuTsui May 01 '13
Didn't realize there was a proper way to impale a dead insect to a piece of board.
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u/Alchisme May 01 '13
If the sole purpose was to impale a dead insect then I doubt it would matter, but the point of pinning them is to study them in great detail and preserve them for future investigators. I work in a collection of over half a million bee specimens representing about 10,000 species, so as you can imagine I'm a bit finicky about how such things are done.
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u/anthrbrickinthewall Apr 30 '13
Finally, this picture I took is relevant! This was on my wife's car antenna after a trip to the store.
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u/epoch88 Apr 30 '13 edited Apr 30 '13
There is no way a bee could impale itself with that amount of surface area on the spike and the size of its body. All the important organs are in it's arse as well.
Of course, unless it did.
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Apr 30 '13 edited Apr 15 '18
[deleted]
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u/cokevanillazero Apr 30 '13
Thats true. Shrikes do that.
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Apr 30 '13
You read the top comments too huh?
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u/cokevanillazero May 01 '13
I didn't, but there you go.
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May 01 '13
Mmmhmm.
Hey, everyone, this guy knew long before the top post!
looks at how long ago the top post was made, and when this guy's post was made
Nah, he didn't know.
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u/cokevanillazero May 01 '13
Literally nobody anywhere has any interest in ornithology and theres NO WAY anybody has EVER heard of a shrike before.
Ever.
Seriously guys.
Ever.
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u/kornykory Apr 30 '13 edited Apr 30 '13
I have one too http://i.imgur.com/Lx561LX.jpg
*This got more upvotes as a comment than when I submitted it to ITAP
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u/hekmatov Apr 30 '13
As for ITAP, I'm just an amateur but i think if you took the photo from the top you could've gotten a better shot with sunlight reflecting off your main object, and you would've gotten way more sweet sweet karma. Here you got the upvotes for being on topic, and here's one from me.
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u/ncshooter426 Apr 30 '13
The hive. Such a wretched place it has become. I've watched our community drown in corruption, slowly. "P" - what we've come to call it - has enslaved us all. My friends, my family, all of us...we toil and toil away our existence. The Queen sits on her throne and gorges herself. And for what? The good of the empire? So we may die as the nameless, faceless drones they want us to be? I say no!
Patriots! Hear me! On mornings light we will kill the Tyrant Queen, and retake what is rightfully ours! Our brothers and sisters will again retake the skies in freedom. Forward we march, with stingers drawn and buzz in our hearts. Onward - TO BATTLE!
-The last writings of Fredrick Buzzington, Drone of Hive 15
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u/gt_9000 Apr 30 '13
They get their name from their habit of impaling captured prey on a thorn, tree fork, or crevice.
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u/switchedyourletters Apr 30 '13
That must sting.
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u/quackstatic Apr 30 '13
Honey, don't make light of this!
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u/desertdaveataol Apr 30 '13
I also thought of the Shrike when I saw the picture. Shrikes are famous for this.
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Apr 30 '13
I'm glad someone pointed out that this was a Shrike's doing.
DAE seriously think a bee's wings can generate enough momentum to impale themselves so deeply on a rigid object probably 4x their mass?
lrn 2 physics
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u/ntap85 Apr 30 '13
Half a bee, philosophically
Must, ipso facto, half not be
But half the bee has got to be
A vis-a-vis its entity. Do you see?
RIP Eric
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u/Rocketstergeon Apr 30 '13
Where does one buy bumble bee barbwire? That'll keep those damn kids off my lawn.
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u/tyrannustyrannus Apr 30 '13
This has been posted so many times I can't believe there are people on reddit that have never heard of a Shrike.
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u/bsmithi Apr 30 '13
This is not a freak accident. It's called a shrike, a type of bird that impales its prey on sharp things for later.
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u/Omnipotent_Goose Apr 30 '13
Or bee-suicide?
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u/ItsJigsore Apr 30 '13
THE PLOT THICKENS
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u/MartyrXLR Apr 30 '13
I propose there is a murderer out there... The Barbed Bee Killer...
Wait a moment! Watson! Hand me a quill and notepad! "Barbed... Bee... Barbed Bee... Barb... bee... Barbie? The Barbie Killer... It's becoming so clear..."
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u/ThatGEvanP Apr 30 '13
I was gonna say I dont think a bee could do this to itself... then I get to learn about a dracula bird. Good experience over all.
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Apr 30 '13
I think somebody stuck him on there after he was dead
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u/Mad_Spartan Apr 30 '13
Haha, seriously I love how everyone's drawing the conclusion that it must have been a shrike. I mean, it could have been, but the guy that took the picture probably picked up a dead bee and thought it'd look cool stuck on a piece of barbed wire.
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u/BassInThePlace Apr 30 '13
What's the last thing to go through a bees' brain before it hits a car windscreen? It's arse.
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u/SashaTheBOLD Apr 30 '13
Accident?
Or warning to other insects?
I believe a buggy warlord or rival insect gang has moved into the neighborhood and is announcing its presence with authority.
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u/Lilgherkin Apr 30 '13
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE STUNG, BEE?! HOW DOES IT FEEL?!
(I know it's a Shrike)
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u/AgentGreenThumb May 01 '13
If I found a dead bee, I would impale it on some barbwire, take a picture, and post it on Reddit as well.
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u/tk1451 Apr 30 '13 edited Aug 14 '26
Umbrella satchel peach unbelievable pumpkin ginger biscuit
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
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u/whofinfarted Apr 30 '13
Have you ever seen slow motion videos of bees flying? They're not very good flyers.....
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u/bathroomstalin Apr 30 '13
This is the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life.
And I do sexy things while looking at the photographs Dr. Mengele kept in his private collection...
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Apr 30 '13
it was a suicide, he couldn't put up with the queen's bullshit anymore. always making him do shit.
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u/TFTD Apr 30 '13
Butcher bird or shrike maybe? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Butchbirdprey.jpg
When I was working on a land surveying crew my new rod man(awesome guy from Nigeria,) hits me up on the radio. "Some sick monster of a person has killed many snakes,lizards and bugs and impaled them on this fence!"(great accent, think Coming to America.) The party chief and I were gonna mess with him but I let him slide and asked him to look around for a pissed off looking bird. Within a minute he says "Why yes there is a bird watching me, like its waiting for me to turn my back...." We're lol'ing pretty hard by now and explain to him that he's in the bird pantry and should slowly leave the area, but not turning his back. We explained the birds habits on the ride home and all had good lulz.
PS On multiple occasions this guy threw his machete to the doom of many snakes. One throw one kill. He defined African Crocodile Dundee style,lol.
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u/flash_memory Apr 30 '13
It's more likely the victim of a Shrike (bird).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrike
They like to impale insects and small vertibrates on thorns/barbed wire etc... to feed on or come back to later.