(BPT) - By Jason Bittel, author of Grizzled: Love Letters to 50 of North America's Least Understood Animals
North America is home to some huge and awe-inspiring creatures, from 800-pound alligators and surf-cracking great white sharks to rumbling herds of bison and mountain lions — the largest cat on Earth that is able to purr.
But for those who can't get to a national park or seashore, there is still plenty of wonder waiting to be discovered on a backyard safari.
Death-Dealing Hummingbirds
The average hummingbird weighs about as much as a stick of chewing gum and lay eggs the size of jellybeans. And yet, if they were the size of a human, the tiniest birds on Earth would have to consume around 10,000 calories each day to perform their aerial acrobatics.
In fact, the hummingbird's need for a constant supply of energy is so strong, putting a little sugar water in a special feeder is all it takes to draw the little wonders near. And if you watch a feeder long enough, you might just see the males do battle.
With speeds approaching 60 miles an hour and bills shaped like sharpened stilettos, male hummingbirds have been known to guard their territories with iridescent ferocity. The brightly colored sprites have even been documented attacking golden eagles, a predator that outweighs them by about a thousand times.
Amazingly, when hummingbirds battle each other, a beak to the heart can even result in fatalities.
The Opossum's Oscar-Worthy Performance
Commonly spotted scurrying away from a tipped-over trash can or waddling along the roadways at night, opossums are about the size of a house cat and appear rather unconcerned about much of anything.
This may be because they have an evolutionary trick up their fluffy little sleeves.
When confronted by a predator, opossums can keel over and play dead. Scientists call this death-feigning, or thanatosis. You might know it simply as "playing possum."
But opossums are not like fainting goats, falling over every time someone shouts BOO! Theirs is a last-ditch, all-or-nothing cascade of biological responses.
First the animal falls on its side and its legs and tail go stiff. The corners of its mouth tighten and drool starts gushing out. The opossum also poops itself and emits a stinky green goo out of its anal glands. The eyes remain open, while the rest of the creature appears to go positively catatonic.
You can't help but admire the moxie of the opossum's death dance.
Without big fangs or claws to fight off a foe, nor the ability to outrun a hungry predator, the opossum doesn't fight or flee — it fouls, becoming so thoroughly inedible that the attacker turns its nose up at an otherwise free meal.
Bravo, indeed.
Fireflies Are Secret Savages
Scientists have discovered a whopping 2,000 species of fireflies on this planet, and their glowing lights can come in everything from pale blue and neon green to bright yellow and even burnt orange.
Also known as lightning bugs, fireflies typically use their flashes as a secret code to find and woo mates. But one type of firefly has found a way to use that code to its own diabolical advantage.
Meet the femme fatale fireflies. Females of the Photuris versicolor species complex mimic the flash patterns of other fireflies. And when an unsuspecting male touches down nearby, the femmes fatales pounce from the shadows and tear them limb from limb.
In addition to gaining an easy meal, evidence suggests the femmes fatales also steal defensive compounds from the fellas — nasty-tasting chemicals they cannot produce themselves. And the females actually lace their own eggs with those compounds as a way to protect them from predators.
So the next time you see a soft twinkle in the night, it could be a lightning bug looking for love. Or it might just be a femme fatale looking for blood.
But both are backyard magic.
Read more about these magical backyard animals in Grizzled.
