Publisher's Synopsis
500 of the most absurd and horrifying things that happen in nature!
Crashing waves, stunning sunsets, sprawling landscapes. Nature is beautiful, right? Wrong. Nature Is the Worst. Need proof?
- The giant pitcher plant not only eats bugs, it's large enough to trap small mammals.
- Almost 90 percent of the koala population in Australia has chlamydia.
- A hailstorm in Bangladesh in 1986 killed 92 people with giant balls of ice weighing more than 2 pounds apiece.
- Crocodiles can climb trees.
- The poisonous Dracunculus vulgaris, or voodoo lily, smells like rotting flesh, looks like it's splattered in blood, and features a central black spike that can grow up to 4 feet tall.
- Cats often kill their first litter.
- A "haboob" is a biblically-huge wall of dust that can reduce visibility to zero, reach a height of 5,000 feet and stretch as far as 100 miles wide.
- Vampire bats are totally real, and yes, they love blood.