Wednesday, December 14, 2022

THE PREDATOR & THE PREY

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I had walked into my bathroom with the intention of taking a shower when I happened to look through the small window above the sink.

 

What greeted my eyes was surprising.

 

As a matter of fact, it was utterly deplorable. Shocking. Maddening. Utterly beyond the pale.

 

I found myself watching a vicious predator in the act of catching and consuming his prey. And without the slightest sign of remorse.

 

The predator had suddenly grabbed the smaller creature out of the air as it flew by, and now the latter was struggling to free itself from the powerful jaws of its captor.

 

Bit by bit the predator consumed the unfortunate creature alive; severing its body parts and gulping them down. In the course of my seventy plus years I have never been privy to such brutality.

 

And while I may have inferred it, I think I failed to tell you that when I looked through the window, I was literally looking through the opaque glass of the closed window; (rather than out of the open window).

 

And the predator? A common porch lizard.

 

And the prey? A small moth.

 

However, given their size what I beheld recently was every bit as gruesome as anything I had ever seen on one of those nature programs in which a crocodile attacks a hapless zebra, and rips him apart limb by limb.


I think I will never think of a porch lizard the same way again.


by William McDonald, PhD

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