It’s 2022 and creatures from the deep are preparing to take over the planet
Take heed: A coconut crab has attacked a golf bag and a goldfish has learned to drive a water tank
To be fair to every other animal, humans have pretty firmly proven ourselves to be the worst candidate to control the planet. Still, we can’t help but feel the natural terror of a former apex predator transforming into prey when we watch feral hogs sack our cities and mug our pop stars, armies of goats occupy towns, swarms of shrieking bugs turn entire coastlines into venues for their public orgies, or, most recently, creatures brought forth from the oceans deciding to break our golf clubs and drive around in fish cars.
The first of these semi-aquatic menaces is a coconut crab that decided to very slowly vandalize a golf bag belonging to a guy who was set upon while on Christmas Island. The video below shows the crab getting “a bloody good grip” on the club it eventually snaps right through. This action is clearly a demonstration of its power, which is noted by the man filming who tells a friend to leave the crab alone because “He’s won the victory. He’s beaten us.”
Even more worrying is news, reported by Vice and CTV, that a goldfish has learned to drive an aquarium tank on wheels. Researchers at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University Of The Negev set the fish on the path toward eventually commanding entire tank battalions by recruiting them for a study focused on testing their ability to navigate space when outside of water. Once put into what the scientists have called “a fish-operated vehicle” (or “FOV”), a sample group of goldfish were found to rapidly figure out how to control their FOV in order to reach a target, where they were given food as a reward.
Researcher Ronen Segev explained on Twitter that the study shows how a goldfish is “able to transfer to a wholly different terrestrial environment and navigate successfully.”
In short, the planet is now fielding new, even less expected troops in its campaign to supplant humans as rulers of the Earth. Where we were previously under attack from boars, goats, and insects, the sea has now turned its citizens loose on us, too.
Sure, the coconut crab may actually be considered “terrestrial” because it prefers to hang out on land, but it also lays its eggs in water—where, we must assume, propaganda posters featuring our mugging, hairless ape faces decorate the decimated coral, calling on all aquatic warriors to swim into their FOVs, sharpen their claws, and venture forth to retake the planet.
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