The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design

by Wendy Northcutt

  Our “indestructible” friend Blumpkin was sucked underwater twice, to resurface at dawn, one hundred yards downstream, with a Darwin Award clutched in his fist. His female companion managed to reach shore, as did his male companion, who knew it “wasn’t a good idea from the start.”

  Reference: www.wina.com, Daily News-Record, The Breeze

  DARWIN AWARD:

  A CLOSER LOOK AT VICTORIA FALLS

  Confirmed by Darwin

  31 DECEMBER 2004, ZIMBABWE

  The one-hundred-year-old Victoria Falls Bridge, linking Zimbabwe and Zambia, offers a spectacular view of the eighty-meter chasm. Continuous spray from the massive waterfall makes the rocks and vegetation along the lip as slippery as a slide at a water park, but far less tolerant of error.

  While taking pictures at the falls with his girlfriend on New Year’s Eve, Michael, fifty, dropped his spectacles over the rim. He would hardly be able to enjoy the view without them, so he decided to retrieve them.

  He was intelligent enough to be aware of the risk. Headmaster at Summit College in Johannesburg and a highly regarded lecturer at geography conferences, he knew how to assess the physical world. Edging out on the slick rim, reaching toward his glasses, he slipped—and fell forty meters to his death. His body was recovered by helicopter.

  Reference: Mail & Guardian

  HONORABLE MENTION: CATCHING THE BOAT

  Confirmed by Darwin

  28 SEPTEMBER 2003, VANCOUVER, CANADA

  Isaac, a thirty-six-year-old carpenter, had a brilliant plan to become a stunt man. During the Vancouver Film Festival, he would bungee jump from the Lions Gate Bridge, gracefully descend to the deck of a passing cruise ship, and disengage from the bungee cable as smoothly as James Bond, to the awe of the passengers. Producers and movie people who had jetted in from all over the world would marvel at his work. Over cocktails, they would compete to hire him for their next film.

  Stunt men work with stunt coordinators, who carefully plot out each acrobatic feat. But Isaac was a do-it-yourself man. He planned for over two years, checking the height of the tides, boat schedules, and deck layouts. He even lined up sponsors and recruited assistants. But as it turned out, he would have been better off hiring a stunt coordinator.

  The jump began perfectly. Isaac took a swan dive off the bridge, trailing the bungee cord behind him. He felt it grow taut as it stretched and began to slow his descent. The tennis court of the cruise ship drew nearer…and nearer…

  …and nearer, until he banged into the deck, vectored into a volleyball net, bounced against a deck railing, and found himself flying once more into the air, watching the cruise ship sail away.

  Isaac failed to make his James Bond entrance, but “people on the boat loved it,” he said. “They were screaming, yelling, waving.” A witness, however, described the reaction as “shrieks of horror.”

  Isaac dangled above the water, confirming that no bones were broken and making a mental note to use a shorter bungee cord next time. A water taxi positioned itself beneath him, and he descended to its deck and disengaged from the bungee cable…to a less than appreciative audience. He was turned over to the police, who charged him with criminal mischief.

  He is still waiting to hear from the movie producers.

  Reference: AP, cnn.com

  HONORABLE MENTION: GO WITH THE FLOE

  Confirmed by Darwin

  6 APRIL 2003, QUEBEC, CANADA

  Elbert, described as a “woodsman,” was previously nominated for an Honorable Mention for trying to adopt a bear cub as a pet. He stole “Buddy Bear” from its snarling mother and dragged it behind his Jet Ski to subdue it. Quebec, the only Canadian province with no animal-protection laws, was unable to prosecute Elbert for that incident. But in a karmic inevitability, he was soon in the spotlight once again.

  During the spring thaw, Elbert found himself fascinated by the ice floes drifting rapidly down the Gatineau River near Ottawa. Shortly thereafter, a downstream resident was cleaning her car, “when someone ran up to report a man floating downriver on a little piece of ice.” That man, of course, was Elbert. “After we called 911 we went to watch. He was traveling pretty quick because the water is fast.”

  Elbert’s impulsive ride ended where the ice floes piled up on a hydro-boom strung across the river, above a set of rapids. This left him stranded on a fifteen-foot cake of ice in the middle of the frosty Gatineau River. Two young men in a rowboat rescued our adventurer, thereby preventing him from capturing a Darwin Award that day.

  When police asked him what he was thinking, Elbert said, “I just felt like going for a ride.”

  Reference: Low Down to Hull and Back News, www.snowgoer.com

  PERSONAL ACCOUNT: DO-IT-YOURSELF BASS BOAT

  SEPTEMBER 2004, ARKANSAS

  My son is a rescue diver with the sheriff’s department. About two months ago, they were called out for an emergency rescue of several people who had fallen in the water after their boat had tipped over.

  When the rescue team arrived at the scene, other boaters had pulled two men out of the water. Two other cloth-covered items were floating ominously in the river. But when the divers entered the water, they were relieved to discover that these were not bodies.

  The story was that the two rescued men had decided to do a little fishing. Bass fishermen spend tens of thousands of dollars outfitting their specialized boats with fancy electronic fish finders and other gear, and they sometimes make the boats into floating palaces, with reclining seats that allow them to relax while they’re waiting for the Big One to strike. But not everyone can afford the best.

  These two fishermen had to make do with a fourteen-foot, flat-bottom jon boat. Wanting to be comfortable, and not having the money for a real bass boat, these two dim bulbs decided to put a couple of La-Z-Boy recliners on their skiff. They must have barely had enough room left for their supply of beer. Needless to say, they both decided to recline at the same time, and you can figure out the rest of the story.

  My son said that he and the rest of the rescue team were laughing so hard that they could hardly do their job.

  Reference: Mark Goecke, Personal Account

  CHAPTER 3

  Women

  Few women win Darwin Awards, but this book is lucky enough to have a strong selection of female applicants. We have a spy, two explosions, pilot sex and street sex, a desperate smoker, a gymnast, an amateur mechanic, and a thief. We also have a Jet Ski, a hurricane, a raging river, a roller coaster, gasoline, and an aerosol can. But first, an essay on the damage that females do to their mates….

  DISCUSSION: LOVE BITES

  Annaliese Beery, Science Writer

  When humans get themselves killed in creative ways, they are usually considered unfit individuals. But for some species, self-sacrifice of the ultimate kind is a common, adaptive part of mating. The process is called sexual cannibalism, and it’s every bit as gory as it sounds.

  You probably know that black widow females sometimes consume their mates (along with 95 percent of their young) and many species, from crickets to scorpions, indulge similarly cannibalistic appetites after sex. One fly, Serromyia femorata, administers a death kiss, sucking the body of her mate through his mouth as a post-copulatory snack. But the masochism prize in the mating game goes to the suitor of another poisonous widow, the Australian redback spider Lactodectus hasselti. He actually tries to feed himself to his partner.

  Before mating can begin, the male redback spider must go through a few preparations. First he spins a special web and deposits sperm on it. Then he sucks the sperm packets into his pedipalps, two appendages on the front of his head that he might otherwise use to hold food. Once he’s primed and ready, this inconspicuous brown male searches for the rare web containing the irresistible black and red female, who is fifty times his weight.

  The drama begins in the standard spider mating position: He stands on her large abdomen and inserts a palp into one of her genital openings. But then the redback male does some
thing different. He uses his palp as a pivot to somersault 180 degrees and land on the female’s jaws. The female may then pierce his abdomen and inject enzymes, beginning the digestion process. The male is ready for this outcome—he hopes for it—and his abdomen is compartmentalized to slow his demise. Often he will manage to insert his other palp in her second genital opening, then leap into her jaws again. Eventually he is devoured, mating all the while. If he survives his daring leaps, it is only because the female isn’t hungry. (She is typically ravenous.)

  Other male widow spiders don’t feed themselves to their mates. So what drives the male redback to such lengths? In the lingo of evolutionary biologists, “What’s in it for him?” Scientist Maydianne Andrade of the University of Toronto performed an experiment to find out: She mated redback spiders in the lab and determined how many eggs males fertilized when they were eaten—or spared. After a first pairing the females were allowed to mate again. Dr. Andrade found that when the first male was eaten, the female mated with him for twice as long (while eating him), and the “male meal” fertilized roughly twice as many eggs as an uneaten male. She was also much less likely to mate again with a second male. The male fertilizes more eggs, which is the goal.

  But is it worth it for a male to lose the chance to mate again? For the male redback spider, the answer is yes. He only lives eight weeks, compared to the female redback’s two-year lifespan. Only 20 percent of males ever find one female, let alone two. Even if a redback male did get lucky twice, he would be functionally sterile, because his palps are damaged during mating and emptied of sperm. Cannibalized, the male doubles his “paternity benefits”—offspring. The female he inseminated can store his sperm for the rest of her life, potentially producing thousands of offspring. Generation after generation, this paternity advantage has cemented risky behavior in males. Each suitor performs the same suicidal somersault, trading his life for more offspring.

  Widow spiders aren’t the only animals with a penchant for cannibalism. Several species of praying mantis also eat their mates. Mantises are aggressive hunters, occasionally catching much larger prey, including hummingbirds. (One biologist often says the only thing mantises pray for is a good meal.) Most species only cannibalize mates regularly in captivity, but one species in particular deserves its bloodthirsty reputation. The European Mantis (Mantis religiosa) is a common, two-to three-inch green mantis with an uncommon appetite. In the wild, the female eats a third of her partners. She eats even more in the lab when the males can’t escape. She is so voracious that the male European mantis forgoes mating displays in favor of surprise. No foreplay for her! He sneaks up on the female from behind, so she won’t get any ideas about his juicy head. If he can get close enough, he’ll leap onto her back and begin to mate.

  If the female spots her mate’s head during the process, she’ll snatch it and begin to dine. The decapitated male only has one goal at this unfortunate juncture. He thrashes wildly, and though headless, manages to mate with her. Mantis females eat all parts of the male they can reach. At least the male redback spider’s death is voluntary. Cannibalism in the European mantis shows no sign of male buy-in. He makes a tremendous effort to avoid being eaten, his wariness a good indication that sexual cannibalism has shaped the evolution of his behavior.

  Sexual cannibalism may be rare and extreme, but it has evolved several times in the animal kingdom. For species like the redback spider and the European mantis, reproduction trumps even death. It always does—natural selection ensures that the fittest genes are perpetuated, even when the process is painful for the participants. So when the male redback spider gives his life as a snack, he can honestly claim: “my genes made me do it.”

  Further reading:

  Andrade, M.C.B. 2003. “Risky mate search and male self-sacrifice in redback spiders.” Behavioral Ecology, 14: 531–538.

  Lawrence, S.E. 1992. “Sexual cannibalism in the praying mantid, Mantis religiosa: a field study.” Animal Behavior, 43: 569–583.

  Johns, P.M., and Maxwell, M.R. 1997. “Sexual cannibalism: who benefits?” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 12(4): 127–128.

  Additional References:

  Andrade, M.C.B., and Banta, E.M. 2002. “Value of remating and functional sterility in redback spiders.” Animal Behavior, 63: 857–870.

  Andrade, M.C.B. 1996. “Sexual selection for male sacrifice in the Australian redback spider.” Science, 271: 70–72.

  Mukerjee, M. October 1995. “Giving your all.” Scientific American.

  Now that we’ve read about the deadly dangers that female insects pose to their males, let’s turn the tables, and watch female humans place themselves in equally deadly predicaments. It is with great pleasure that I introduce these stories about feminine wiles….

  * * *

  Video of the male redback spider’s suicidal somersault:

  www.DarwinAwards.com/book/spider.html

  * * *

  DARWIN AWARD: MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

  Unconfirmed by Darwin

  1970S, NORTHERN IRELAND

  Back in the late seventies, intelligence units in Northern Ireland were issued exploding briefcases to carry sensitive documents. These briefcases were lined with oxygen bricks. To arm the case, one simply removed a small pin next to the handle of the case. Thus armed, an opened case would instantly combust, destroying everything within a meter of it.

  Because there was a half-second delay before the bricks ignited, the lids were designed to stop on a spring catch, so that no document could be rescued or photographed before it was destroyed.

  To open the case safely, therefore, the sequence was:

  1. Make sure the arming pin is in place.

  2. Open the case.

  3. Using a thin object such as a ruler, push back the spring catch.

  4. The case will now open.

  But in this particular case, the sequence went as follows:

  1. Make sure the arming pin is in place.

  2. Open the case.

  3. Look for a small thin object to push back the catch.

  4. Find none immediately available.

  5. Notice that the arming pin is a small thin object.

  6. Use the arming pin to push back the catch.

  7. Kiss one “intelligence” unit goodbye.

  Reference: Eyewitness account, verification sought

  DARWIN AWARD: MILE HIGH CLUB FAILURE

  Confirmed by Darwin

  23 DECEMBER 1991, FLORIDA

  This account of an aircraft accident is quoted directly from the National Transportation Safety Board report, with comments added in brackets for clarity.

  Aircraft: Piper PA-34-200T, Registration: N47506

  Injuries: 2 Fatal.

  The private pilot and a pilot-rated passenger [two pilots] were going to practice simulated instrument flight. Witnesses observed the airplane’s right wing fail in a dive and crash. Examination of the wreckage and bodies revealed that both occupants were partially clothed and the front right seat was in the full aft reclining position. [The pilots had converted the copilot seat to a bed.] Neither body showed evidence of seat belts or shoulder harnesses being worn. [They were lying on the bed.] Examination of the individuals’ clothing revealed no evidence of ripping or distress to the zippers and belts. [Their lack of clothing seemed to be voluntary.]

  The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:

  The pilot in command’s improper in-flight decision to divert her attention to other activities not related to the conduct of the flight. [The pilot and copilot were having sex, and nobody was flying the plane.] Contributing to the accident was the exceeding of the design limits of the airplane leading to a wing failure.

  [Lack of a pilot caused the plane to fly erratically, overstressing the wing and leading to a crash.]

  Reference: NTSB #MIA92FA051

  * * *

  READER COMMENTS:

  “Get an autopilot!”

  “The
ultimate high!”

  “I guess they did give a flying f—–.”

  “Perhaps Durex ought to sell parachutes as well….”

  “Well, obviously they were erotic…oh, oops, I mean erratic, pilots.”

  * * *

  DARWIN AWARD: ULTIMATE QUEST FOR AIRTIME

  Confirmed by Darwin

  31 MAY 2003, INDIANA

  Tamar came all the way from New York for the annual Stark Raven Mad event at the Splashin’ Safari water park at Holiday World, where members of the American Coaster Enthusiasts planned a rendezvous on Memorial Day weekend. The thirty-two-year-old eagerly looked forward to riding the Raven, later described by Spencer County Prosecutor Jon Dartt as “one of the world’s most terrifying roller coasters.”

  Tamar planned what coaster enthusiasts call “catching airtime,” standing up during the ride to show bravery. The park staff warned the “spirited and intelligent” Harvard MBA, along with the rest of the group, “Don’t mess with our safety equipment.” Tamar’s seat belt and lap-bar restraint were in place when the train left the station. But you can’t catch airtime that way. Her seat belt was later found unbuckled and tucked into the seat cushions.