"The mortality rate of the babirusa, a type of wild pig, is often raised in a curious way: some individuals die of having their brain pierced by their own tusks. [...] The bottom ones emerge from the lower jaw and point upward; the upper canines also grow upward, crossing the muzzle and then curving to the rear. They grow as long as thirty centimeters. In certain aged males, the tips of the tusks sometimes end by meeting the skull, which they gradually pierce until they bring about the animal's death.
Babirusa
I will now bite myself in the brain.
9 Responses:
Therefore, Intelligent Design.
I think you might have hit on the most compelling argument for Intelligent Design: It takes talent to fuck things up this bad.
I seem to remember that an effect like this was used as a torture/execution method in an Iain M. Banks novel. (Probably The Algebraist, but I can't check now.)
Yup, you're right - I read it recently, and that was the first thing that popped into my head.
Ha, popped into your head.
Was indeed The Algebraist. I loved what happened to that particular evil overlord.
lerman brown