r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/EvaRaw666 • Mar 22 '23
š„ Warthogs in Uganda rid themselves of annoying ticks by a group of mongooses
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u/Tru-Queer Mar 22 '23
Warthog brought down by hungry pack of bloodthirsty mongeese
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Mar 22 '23
Graphic footage of a helpless warthog being torn to pieces by vicious mongeese (NSFL)
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Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 25 '23
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u/Kiriyama-Art Mar 22 '23
This is such a disturbing comment to me.
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Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 25 '23
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u/MikeySpags Mar 22 '23
That is disgusting but seems accurate. Makes me wonder which animal is having a better day. The one at the spa or the others at the buffet? Tuff call.
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u/PyroAvok Mar 22 '23
I can tell you who's having the worst day; the ticks.
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u/lacheur42 Mar 23 '23
Good.
One of those fuckers latched onto my ballsack once.
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u/ItalnStalln Mar 23 '23
We would use a flame to get them to release themselves so as not to break off the head in your skin. No real burns but it hurt a bit in the moment and maybe stung for a bit. I might have to figure out a different solution for ball ticks
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u/FriedeOfAriandel Mar 22 '23
Idk, if the world goes dark and I get instantly crushed by something 1000x my size, that doesn't sound like such a bad death. Unless they're swallowed whole of course. Suffocating or being dissolved in stomach acid doesn't sound fun
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u/Calypsosin Mar 22 '23
warthog covered in blood gushers with hard shells is not the nightmare fuel I wanted today
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u/doegrey Mar 22 '23
Speaking of a gushy pop, how many mongoose (geese/ gooses?? š¤) did he land on when he flipped over?
(*Mongooses!)
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u/Forgot_my_un Mar 22 '23
Watching very carefully, it appears to be zero. They're fast little buggers.
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u/naricstar Mar 22 '23
Mongoosen
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u/orthopod Mar 22 '23
That warthog looks like he's getting a great massage from all those little mongoose feet running over him. They put him right to sleep.
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u/Rimbob_job Mar 22 '23
The plural is, in fact, mongooses
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u/bowtothehypnotoad Mar 22 '23
What about mongooses? Thatās a good team name, the fighting mongooses
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u/Free-oppossums Mar 22 '23
Rule1: Don't sqish your groomers.
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u/Green1up Mar 22 '23
if they can dodge a cobra they can dodge a falling warthog
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u/plumbthumbs Mar 22 '23
but can they doge a wrench?
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u/VinceVino70 Mar 22 '23
Duck. Dodge.Dip.Dive. And Dodge.
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u/Chainsaw_Viking Mar 23 '23
Brought to you by Uber-American Instructional Films
- Teaching Americaās Youth Since 1938
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u/scotthop Mar 22 '23
āIf you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a warthogā - Patches O'Houlihan
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u/scriptmonkey420 Mar 22 '23
What?
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u/the_honest_liar Mar 22 '23
Rebel warthog doesn't care about your rules.
I worry there were casualties.
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u/StoopidestManOnEarth Mar 22 '23
There were many casualties, but all of them were in the arachnid army.
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u/ModsAreN0tGoodPeople Mar 22 '23
Once the ticks were gone he needed a way to rid himself of annoying mongooses
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u/koolaidisthestuff Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
I knew a big ass dog who thought he was tony and heād do this one you.. felt like getting punched or kicked everytime.. and he thought it was a game lol. Miss that big fucker.
Edit: tony it is.
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u/thanatossassin Mar 22 '23
Hey, hey guys. Did- did we lose Jesse? I think we lost Jesse. Yeah? Yeah we lost Jesse. ... Ticks? Oh, okay. Right below? Yeah let me get some of those.
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u/ronchee1 Mar 22 '23
When I was a young warthog...
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u/FloweringSkull67 Mar 22 '23 •
When he was a young WARTHOGGG!
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u/Abalisk Mar 22 '23
Very nice.
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u/Playful_Sector Mar 22 '23
Thanks.
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u/Face88888888 Mar 22 '23
He found his aroma lacked a certain appeal
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u/SlawpySausage Mar 22 '23
He could clear the savanna after every meal
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u/D_EndroPhile Mar 22 '23
I'm a sensitive man...though I seem thick skinned...
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u/SnailsInWigs Mar 22 '23
A mongoose, took my ticks off and ate them. And then went marching back. He said, "All oth-er mongoose, pick ticks off. And eat all of those insects. The eaten and the damned."
I know it's not perfect but I was trying to keep it as close to the original as possible while still making sense.
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u/Yurrrr__Brooklyn347 Mar 22 '23
When it feels so good u just let your body give up
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u/theepi_pillodu Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
Just like going to a salon to get a hair cut on a sunny afternoon. It's hot out there and cool inside the salon, as soon as the barber touches my hair with his scissors and comb, I started to doze off.
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u/craftworkbench Mar 22 '23
I dunno. At my saloon, if someone breaks out a blade we all start smashing beer bottles on peoples heads and throwing people through windows.
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u/Equivalent-Visual-49 Mar 22 '23
Cute little mongoose-mongeese-mongidae-mongids-mongooses-mongeeses-mong-forget about it.
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u/RedButterfree1 Mar 22 '23
Amongoose
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u/paulinaiml Mar 22 '23
ą¶ą¶ą¶
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u/JoJoMemes Mar 22 '23
The internet broke my brain, I hear the song every time I see this emoji
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u/Enlightened-Beaver Mar 22 '23
Emoji lol. Thatās the Sinhalese letter for į¹ a (velar nasal āngā sound equivalent in English)
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u/JoJoMemes Mar 22 '23
Yeah, obviously
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u/Enlightened-Beaver Mar 22 '23
not super obvious that itās Sinhalese. But itās clearly not an emoji. This is an emoji šæ
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u/RustliefLameMane Mar 22 '23
Should have made the plural of mongoose, mongeese, or mongeezers
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u/markofcontroversy Mar 22 '23
Mongeezers are geriatric mongeese.
Mongeezers primary cause of death is being crushed under warthogs who've lost consciousness after being drained of blood by ticks.
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u/MoarSilverware Mar 22 '23
So thatās why Timon and Pumba are friends!
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u/Sammolaw1985 Mar 22 '23
Timon's a meerkat
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u/cr_y Mar 22 '23
meerkats are mongooses.
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u/RedtailGT Mar 22 '23
Mongeese
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u/AutisticHistoryLover Mar 22 '23
The plural is actually moongooses. No, English does not make much sense.
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u/ClubSundown Mar 22 '23
Timon had such a big personality. Imagine seeing the Lion King with 10 Timons talking to Pumba
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Mar 22 '23
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Spacemanspalds Mar 22 '23
That was all I saw, too.
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u/TrippyReality Mar 22 '23
āYou and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channelā
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u/GodsGiftToNothing
Mar 22 '23
edited Mar 23 '23
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The ticks actually cause quite a bit of pain for the warthog, especially when you consider how many are on its body. Both soft and hard ticks cause skin irritation and inflammation, with is painful for the warthog. Aside from this, hard ticks, especially in abundance, cause anemia in the animal they are feeding on, and blood loss, not to mention tick bourn diseases such as ASF. It seems to have collapsed, just from finally having that pain (specifically skin irritation), subside. Just my speculation, as animals were not my specialty, but still rather fascinating creatures. Really interesting example of mutualism, that I rarely see discussed.
The mongoose is such a fascinating little creature too! Clever, quick, and fearless. Their bodies naturally have a mutation that protects them against venom. They arenāt infrequently kept as pets, because they are so good at dealing with everything from venomous snakes to scorpions. Seeing this video has made me want to read Rikki-Tikki-Tavi again.
Edit: Thereās a lot of lovely people here, but since posting this message Iāve been receiving a lot of hate mail. As a survivor of a hate crime, this is making me very uncomfortable (specifically the dmās Iām receiving) and so I am going to just disengage here. I have edited for clarification. To those of you who are lovely, kind people here, stay safe, and I am glad to hear so many of you have loved the book Rikki-Tikki-Tavi!
Take care of each other!
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u/jstiegle Mar 22 '23
Seeing this video has made me want to read Rikki-Tikki-Tavi again.
I haven't thought about Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in so long! Thank you for the awesome nostalgia dive I'm about to take!
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u/FlowSoSlow Mar 22 '23
Man I read that book so often as a child the pages started coming apart lol.
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u/apathy-sofa Mar 22 '23
When I was a child I had a friend with a pet mongoose. That bastard would not hesitate to bite you (the mongoose, not the friend, he was cool).
Any exposed skin was fair game and that animal moved so suddenly and so fast that you couldn't react in time unless there was a good gap between you and it. I hated it.
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u/TheLordofAskReddit Mar 22 '23
I wonder how these two animals figured out this symbiotic relationship. As a mongoose Iād be worried about being eaten
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u/pneuma8828 Mar 22 '23
Mongoose take on cobras. A warthog moves in slow motion by comparison. They are no more worried about being eaten by a warthog than you are worried about sloth attacks.
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u/SlothFactsBot Mar 22 '23
Did someone mention sloths? Here's a random fact!
Sloths can swim! They have been known to swim up to 15 feet under water while holding their breath for up to 40 seconds.
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u/TheLordofAskReddit Mar 22 '23
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the time dilation perspective.
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u/Endulos Mar 22 '23 •
Really interesting example of mutualism, that I rarely see discussed.
My favorite example of this is in the ocean.
There's a bunch of different species of small shrimp and fish that will effectively set up a "salon", where fish will stop by and said fish/shrimp will dart out and clean the fish of any dead skin, and parasites.
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u/ghengiscostanza Mar 22 '23
The ticks actually cause quite a bit of pain for the warthog, especially when you consider how many are on its body. It seems to have collapsed, just from finally having that pain subside.
At the risk of being argumentative over something insignificant, what makes you think that? It sounds like a pretty big and off-base assumption tbh. Tick bites arenāt painful, even to human skin which is extraordinarily sensitive compared to the hide of warthog. Theyāve evolved to not cause pain, it would be disadvantageous to hurt and urgently alert the host, they have anesthetic secretions.
My guess would be some itching rather than pain, and that heās just lazily flopping down to rest while being groomed.
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u/GodsGiftToNothing Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
My Dad once made the exceptionally poor decision to go hiking, in shorts, no shirt, and had not used any insect repellentā¦He ended up in the ER, with 262 ticks attached to his body. He said it was agony.
Although a warthog is different from a human, considering they both have nervous systems, and experience pain, I canāt imagine it would be much different pain wise, especially when considering pigs are frequently used in lab models. There have also been instances where ticks have caused severe anemia in animals. Whether this warthog was struggling with that, I donāt know, but as someone with anemia, I can say it isnāt pleasant. The pain ticks cause, tends to be due to the long term problems any parasite would create. Itās still pain nonetheless.
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u/GeoffreyDay Mar 22 '23
Dear lord where was that so I can avoid it
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u/SalzigHund Mar 22 '23
Donāt hike in Tallahassee because I had a similar run in there. Absolutely horrible. Never wanted to set myself on fire more. I felt dirty for a month and was constantly panicking and checking for others.
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u/Scorpress77 Mar 22 '23
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4774835/ "During feeding, ticks can lead to several deleterious effects on the host such as traumatic action by tick bites determining a dermatoid process with direct damage to the skin and other subcutaneous tissues, inflammation and significant blood loss by hematophagism. It can be observed compression and laceration of cells and tissues, generally associated with pruritis, edema, erythema, excoriation, papules, lichenification, scaling and ulceration by self-trauma. Predisposition to secundary process for bacterial infection can stimulate immune responses in some individuals leading to hypersensitivity. Apart from causing diseases, the behavior of ticks also may cause indirectly harm, causing disturbance, increasing levels of stress and in cattle, for example, leather depreciation, being economically the most important ectoparasites of cattle. Direct effects of tick infestation on cattle include the sucking of blood which causes anaemia and damage to the skin or hide, with downstream effects resulting in substantial losses in terms of reductions in productivity and fertility, body weight, and milk production, and in toxicoses, paralysis, and mortality [35].
Furthermore, ticks can induce a motor illness causing an acute, ascending flaccid paralysis with a rapid clinical evolution and lethal if not immediately treated both in humans and in animals. "
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u/tripwire7 Mar 23 '23
It seems to have collapsed, just from finally having that pain subside
Nah, pigs collapse exactly like this when theyāre relaxed.
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u/Amdogdunmind Mar 23 '23 •
People sending hate mail to the beat comment on the thread? Sad pathetic people.
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u/isurvivedrabies Mar 22 '23
it looks more like it got tired of being in a half stand. i doubt it collapsed from having tick pain subside. that doesn't make sense, and it's an example of emotional projection where you assume the mental state of something else based on a narrative of your own fabrication.
happens a lot in social media, and then misinformation can follow. like reposts titling the submission "š„š„WARTHOG'S BLISSFUL RETURN TO PAIN-FREE LIFE", or some other nonsense that prompts people to feel and think a certain way about what's happening, and it mushrooms from there.
i think most people see this behavior as harmless, but it's problematic. we need more education and knowledge instead of people self-taught through emotional assumptions, and then passing those assumptions down as facts. that leads to combative, uncooperative division, and it happens across the board-- not just for warthog trivia.
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u/GodsGiftToNothing Mar 22 '23
Pain may have not been the right word, but rather it was probably suffering from anemia.
Pigs are frequently used in models because they are so much like humans. I am not placing an emotion on the animal, but rather a statement of fact. Animals experience painful long term health conditions from ticks, mainly due to disease, and severe anemia. This isnāt anthropomorphizing, it is well accepted scientific knowledge. We wouldnāt be using pigs in medicine otherwise. The physical pain they experience, is part of what is monitored.
I worked in Forensic Osteology, please do not try to school me.
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u/Who-Just-Shit-Myself Mar 22 '23
This is why I canāt forgive lion king for not making Timon a mongoose. They had the perfect symbiotic relationship example but instead of a mongoose they went with a meerkat
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u/AutisticHistoryLover Mar 22 '23
Meerkats are actually part of the moongoose family. You can let go of that grudge now.
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u/Squishyfood Mar 22 '23
Mongooses seem much cooler than meerkats though. It was important to Timon's backstory that his entire species were stereotyped as being little bitches
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u/ayymadd Mar 22 '23
uf when it dropped down I thought some of them were RIP
is this basically the equivalent whales and sharks have with smaller fishes?
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u/ChillFax Mar 22 '23
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u/craftworkbench Mar 22 '23
Commensalism is a long-term biological interaction (symbiosis) in which members of one species gain benefits while those of the other species neither benefit nor are harmed.[1] This is in contrast with mutualism, in which both organisms benefit from each other; amensalism, where one is harmed while the other is unaffected; parasitism, where one is harmed and the other benefits, and parasitoidism, which is similar to parasitism but the parasitoid has a free-living state and instead of just harming its host, it eventually ends up killing it.
That is one of the most helpful Wikipedia intro paragraphs I've seen in a long time.
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u/heinebold Mar 22 '23
Oh wow, that poor mongoose sniffs its ass and gets a load of poop right in the face
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u/bemethealway Mar 22 '23
I don't see that happening, I think it was just another mongoose moving around the back
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u/Flowsnice Mar 22 '23
Nature sure is amazing. Hope he didnāt squish one to death on his way down lol
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u/VattghernCZ Mar 22 '23
Or a group of mongeese?
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u/Andrelliina Mar 22 '23
The word "mongoose" is of Hindi origin, and the plural is formed in the regular way in English.
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u/Narodnik60 Mar 22 '23
Food truck.