Someone here somewhere recently mentioned the grasshopper mouse, a desert rodent that howls at the moon, so of course I had to know more. Native to northwest Mexico and the American southwest, the grasshopper mouse is a scrappy — and honestly rather sinister — little fellow so named because, despite being about the length of a pencil and weighing less than 20 pennies, they are largely carnivorous, and grasshoppers are a staple of their diet.

They have another name as well: scorpion mouse. This name, too, stems from a preferred prey: the Arizona box scorpion. Unlike grasshoppers (I hope), these scorpions are deadly venomous, but the grasshopper mouse don’t care. Possessed of a unique attribute that essentially shuts down their pain receptors when scorpion venom is in their system, the grasshopper mouse stalks and hunts scorpions, blithely enduring stings that could kill a human until they’re able to bite off the scorpion’s tale and turn the tables.

Honestly, this thing is pretty terrifying. Solitary and aggressive, grasshopper mice are prone to attacking anything that moves if even close to their size. They sometimes live in mated pairs, but one usually eventually kills the other (marriage, am I right folks?). They’re crazy territorial, which leads to their other amazing feature: They howl.

They are particularly fond of howling after a kill — and these guys will kill and eat just about anything they can reach; in addition to arthropods, they’ll push the occasional plant around the plate, but, more often, when they want a little variety, they treat themselves to lizards, birds, and, er, other mice. They’re basically apex predators made to scale.

I’ve seen Night of the Lepus and The Killer Shrews, both attempts to make little furry creatures scary. I’m just saying, I would absolutely watch Attack of the Scorpion Mice. Get on that SyFy Channel! (Is the SyFy Channel still around?)

Howl after you kill, Avocados, and have a great Day Thread!