Not sure if it is rare but it felt pretty special to watch Wild Dogs harassing Spotted Hyenas. The Lycaon would nudge their muzzle at the Crocuta’s butt - hence the tail between the leg and squatted position.
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These two spiders tying up the same prey at the same time:
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Those are a male and a female, males live for some time near females, so it’s their romantic dinner.)
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Hands-down winner for me: watching a very large porcupine chase a pair of Sandhill Cranes out of his patch. Aside from being almost too Canadiana to be real, this was the slowest-motion chase you could imagine!
Runner-up, if we can count humans in this category: many years ago, I saw a Monarch butterfly hitch a ride on the Chi-Cheemaun car ferry that connects Southern Ontario to Manitoulin Island in the North. The ferry was literally in the middle of Lake Huron when, out of the blue, this solitary Monarch came alongside landed on the deck below me. The tenacity of a little butterfly migrating across the world’s third-largest freshwater lake is incredible. Only evidence I can offer is this photo of an orange blob and some waves (!), but it did happen:
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That is a ridiculously interesting observation!
- One of my favourite observations was watching a Sphex subtruncatus (Digger Wasp species) drag a paralysed katydid into her nest and then subsequently filling in the hole. I have attached a series of screenshots from the video I took.
- Another cool thing I saw was a defence mechanism of a nest(?) of bees (it was a small cluster of about 20 bees on a rock) against Vespa velutina. The wasps would cover close to them and the bees would wiggle their abdomens in coordination so it seemed like they made ripples.
- Also saw this tiny metallic-looking moth twirling around on this leaf. (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/52771025) If anyone has an idea of an ID please contribute to the inat link above, I’ve asked the Hong Kong moth expert/s and they are even stumped.
- I also saw this greedy Heteropoda venatoria eat two ichneumonid wasps at once! (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/50860217). The second wasp was just about to escape from beneath its legs when the spider just shot towards the wasp and grabbed it.
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This one isn’t my observation; but it appears that the observer captured an organism’s last second of life: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/120164784
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I don’t have pictures or video of this but I once saw a black-backed gull apparently attempting to drown a subadult herring gull in a tidepool. It had hold of the smaller gull’s neck and kept smashing it into the water; the herring gull was fighting back. I knew gulls could be opportunistic and ingenious hunters but I’ve only seen something like this that one time.
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The family dog treed a young bear. The dog was barking up at the tree, and I thought I’d see a raccoon or possum or squirrel up there but no . . . https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/52526831
I can’t say I was thrilled in the moment though because I wasn’t sure what to do.
I watched a painted lady butterfly outmaneuver a large dragonfly–that was cool. It was skillful flying.
The last is not mine and not on iNat but on Bugguide, so I don’t know if I’m allowed to post a link. But someone had a picture of a moth trying to mate with a butterfly (and since I cannot remember the species involved now, I’m not sure I could find a link anyway).
(PS Found the Bugguide observation–it was in West Virginia, and it was a clearwing moth (Hemaris) and a skipper. )
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Dragonflies and damselflies have a reputation as agile, acrobatic fliers. Not always agile enough though, as this one ended up as prey to a robber fly:
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Recorded a video of mother Pronghorn chasing off Coyote to protect her young:
https://youtu.be/BJPMqv_zP6s
Recorded this mother Bison fending of a pack of 3 Gray Wolves to protect her already dead calf. She spent the whole day before leaving to drink water and rejoin the herd: https://youtu.be/IhDDUjg0LWg
Recorded a very large Gray Wolf fending off a pack of coyotes at a carcass: https://youtu.be/Rb3Eg6kN6io
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Oh definitely this interaction between Ring-billed Gulls and White Ibis. Not a lot of footage, just the tail end of the whole situation but there’s more written in the description. Haven’t witnessed anything like it since.
Saw a pretty small brown anole eating another one of the same species: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/138033099
As well as a paper wasp attacking (and maybe eating?) a dragonfly: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/152206138
^^^ This has to be one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.
I have seen some other interesting/funny things as well, including:
A dumpster diving squirrel: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142410204
Some hatching lepidoptera eggs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/147422571
And a jumping spider using the egg sac of another spider species as a home: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/152570697
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https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/54344235 crab spider creeping up on a leaf hopper nymph. Had I noticed the leaf hopper at the time I would have stuck around to see how things ended.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93108007 large gull, probably great black backed, trying to steal osprey’s catch. was not successful.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99076795, parasitic wasp and bold jumper hanging on the spider’s thread. Don’t know which won in the end. maybe both lost, or won, one before than the other.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141270336 Northern Cottonmouth consuming a yellow rumped warbler. A virginia rail strolled by but wasn’t close enough to be in the same shot.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/89734837 two-spotted spider wasp catching a fleeing orbweaver, paralyzing it, then burying it in the ground. Was initially photographing the spider when it dropped to the ground and began moving at a rapid pace, then the wasp swooped in.
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I once saw a wild Willie Wagtail attacking a captive Wedge Tailed Eagle at a wildlife park here in Perth. The Willie Wagtail came out unscathed of course.
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Fight between a diamondback and a cottonmouth
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Mostly bird stuff, probably because I understand their behavior/distribution better than other groups;
A great-tailed grackle eating a black-throated green warbler in South Texas.
An immature herring gull repeatedly attacking a dovekie during a nor’easter, the dovekie diving to avoid attack over and over until it tired out and the herring gull grabbed it and shook it to snap its neck. Once dead the gull picked it up and dropped it on the beach a few times then left it. (I assume it couldn’t eat it because there was nothing to rip off).
A peregrine falcon catching and carrying a Leach’s storm-petrel as it struggled to stay offshore during a hurricane.
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