Damn Mother Nature, Calm Down: Gull Swallows Rabbit Whole

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This is a short video of a great black-backed seagull quickly killing a rabbit then swallowing it whole, something that surprisingly isn’t out of the ordinary, or an Easter horror movie. Some more details:

Great black-backed gulls (Larus marinus) are the largest gull species in the world, and they breed on Skomer [Island]. Rabbits are an important part of their diet when few smaller seabird or seabird chicks are available.

So they normally prey on seabirds and seabird chicks, but eat rabbits when there isn’t a ready supply of those. That’s, uh, that’s pretty gnarly. So you think it could fly immediately after, or had to hang out and digest for a bit? Because how crazy would it be if was a species of walking fish that preyed on gulls that were too heavy to fly because they’d just eaten rabbits? Put that in your circle of life and smoke it! “Huh?” I SAID SMOKE IT, SIMBA! Timon and Pumbaa already hit it.

Keep going for the video, which probably isn’t for the squeamish.

Source: Geekologie – Damn Mother Nature, Calm Down: Gull Swallows Rabbit Whole