Gruesome AP report:

Seagulls around the city of Puerto Madryn discovered about a decade ago that by pecking at the whales as they come up for air, they can create open wounds. Then, each time the whales surface, it’s dinner time: Gulls swoop down and dig in, cutting away skin and blubber with their beaks and claws.

The problem has only grown more severe since then as more gulls caught on and the bird population exploded due to easy access to human detritus — not only open-air garbage heaps but fish parts as well, dumped directly into the water by fishermen and a seafood packing plant.

There’s even a picture! Don’t worry, it’s pretty safe.

I mean, it’s clearly not safe in the sense that it shows a seagull in the process of devouring a whale and what the fuck, but there’s no visible wound and the bird’s beak looks like it’s just resting on the whale, so if you didn’t know the context you wouldn’t even know that some bad shit was about to go down.

Ed Yong on Discover’s Not Exactly Rocket Science blog:

Some flies, known as phorids, specialise in decapitating ants in a gruesome way. They lay their eggs inside their victims. When the maggots hatch, they move towards the ant’s head, where they gorge upon the brain and other tissues. The ant stumbles about in a literally mindless stupor until the connection between its head and body is dissolved by a enzyme released from the maggot. The head falls off and the adult flies burst out.

Nature is weird.

Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience:

As coyotes take over their ranges in North America, red fox populations are plummeting, and researchers have found one surprising result: The drop is fueling the spread of Lyme disease.

Lyme disease cases have increased enormously in recent years: From 1997 to 2007, the number of cases increased by 380 percent in Minnesota, 280 percent in Wisconsin and 1,300 percent in Virginia. Researchers used to think the increases were due to increasing deer populations, since deer are an important host to the disease-causing bacteria. However, the new data show these increases were independent of deer population levels.

Nature is weird.