When we were camping at Zion National Park several years ago, we were inundated with blue, furry catepillars. They were everywhere: on the ground, on the tables, making cocoons on the tents, etc. etc.

At one point. I saw a spider catch one and start industriously covering it in silk, suspending it from the underside of a table. I had mixed feelings about it: I don't like watching anything be killed, but it was, after all, the spider's hope of survival. C'est la vie (et la morte.)

I think it wasn’t the violence of it that bothered me, so much as the sheer kookiness.

Yep, I know what you mean. Shawn was watching a nature program that featured a hedgehog. Suddenly, a cobra slithered up to and under the cute little critter. Shawn was thinking, "Oh, no! Poor little hedgehog!"

Then the narrator said, "It is at this point that the hedgehog would normally break the cobra's neck, but this particular snake is just a little too big for it."

Go killer hedgehogs!

Right on. Hedgehogs rock.

There is a whole species of wasp called cicada killers that basically home in on the noisy buggers, sting them, lay their eggs in them, and bury them, alive, in the soil. The young ones hatch later and burrow through the cicada and thrive on its flesh until they are ready to strike off on their own.

I once saw one trying to do this to a monarch catepillar, which kind of blew my mind, considering they're toxic.