Strange but True

Your guide to all the unusual, unique, and unbelievable stuff that goes on in nature.

A cork-lid trapdoor spider weaves a lid for its burrow out of vegetation, soil, and spider silk. When an unsuspecting bug walks over the door, the spider throws it open and drags the “guest” down into the burrow for dinner.

An acorn weevil uses its super-sized snout like a power tool, drilling through the hard shell of an acorn, so it can munch on the nut inside. Mama weevils lay eggs inside the drill holes, ensuring their babies will have plenty to eat.

Common nighthawks have one of the longest migrations of any North American bird. The narrow-winged night-flyers nest as far north as Canada and spend winter as far south as Argentina, racking up over 12,000 miles in between.

Sowbugs and pillbugs — aka roly-polies — aren’t bugs at all. They’re crustaceans, more closely related to lobsters, shrimp, and crayfish than insects. Roly-polies live on land, but they breathe using gills like their aquatic cousins.

Neat freaks: Some people believe bats are dirty, but they’re actually quite clean. They spend much of their downtime — or upside-down time — grooming their short, velvety fur like tiny, flying cats.

Giant puffball mushrooms can grow bigger than a beach ball and weigh more than 40 pounds. When you step on a puffball, a cloud of spores — mushroom “seeds” — puffs out. 
Large puffballs can contain over 7 trillion spores!

Ruby-throated hummingbirds pack on fat to use as fuel during their 1,000-mile migrations. But young hummers can get too heavy. After guzzling nectar, they sometimes need to sit for a bit until they shed enough weight to fly again.