I can remember a poster that was on the wall in my 8′th grade science class twenty five years ago now. It was a picture of a loon swallowing a frog, and the frog’s arms were coming out of the bird’s mouth and gripping the bird tightly around the neck. The caption read, “Never Give Up!”
Here is a couple of real life situations in which prey had been eaten by a predator and the did not give up, rather, they ate, kicked or clawed their way back to freedom.
Ljiljana Tomovic, a Serbian herpetologist, was tagging snakes in Macedonia when she found a dead Viper with a centipede sticking out of it. Though the snake was longer than the centipede, the centipede had a greater mass, at 4.8 grams versus the snake’s mass of only 4.2 grams. In other words, the snake ate something larger than itself and it wasn’t a very good idea.
This isn’t the first time someone has come across a predator whose eyes were bigger than his belly. In 2005 in Florida’s Everglades National Park, a thirteen feet long Burmese Python was found dead, it’s belly busted open, after it tried ingesting a six feet long American Alligator.
So, no matter what challenge you might face in life, always remember, like these little guys did; never give up!
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