…and this is a 
They must be devolving into dinosaurs (no, not really)! Great tits normally live on a diet of seeds and insects, but when those resources are scarce, they'll fly into caves and kill and eat bats. They don't do it unless they're really hungry — they prefer bugs and bacon, as do we all — so the interesting thing about is that these birds can push the boundary of what is expected of their species.
Follow the link, it has a short movie of a tit picking up a bat carcass and flying off to a branch to tear at it. Appetizing!
Comments
Posted by: Devon Terry | September 9, 2009 1:52 PM
They'll what? What do they do PZ?
Oh my Science! One of the Tits must have eaten him!! Oh the humanity!!
Posted by: Jim B | September 9, 2009 1:53 PM
Devon, your comment will look really stupid once PZ corrects the posting.
Posted by: Devon Terry | September 9, 2009 1:54 PM
I suppose that is true. Way to ruin my fun Jim.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | September 9, 2009 1:56 PM
open a Steak House?
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 9, 2009 1:56 PM
Maybe the bat-eating tits of Hungary have killed and eaten PZ.
Either that, or James Dobson came for him.
Posted by: Valdyr | September 9, 2009 1:57 PM
Looks like this posting went tits-up.
Posted by: essex green | September 9, 2009 1:57 PM
Show us the tits .....
hi hi hi hi
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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September 9, 2009 1:58 PM
So long as they're not man-eating tits. That would be so wrong of tits.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Jerome Triplett | September 9, 2009 1:59 PM
We can always learn more by googling great tits. I'm sure some very educational material will pop up.
Posted by: Sara | September 9, 2009 2:00 PM
Oh, great. Now I'll have to refresh refresh and refresh until I can finally find out what they'll do.
Why can't I stoooooop.
Posted by: Scott Chapman | September 9, 2009 2:02 PM
We were here when the post wasn't complete.
We have an inside joke that some will never understand.
We lucky few, we band of brothers.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | September 9, 2009 2:02 PM
Where is wÒÓ†?
Posted by: HinZ3 | September 9, 2009 2:06 PM
PZ defeated by the HaXorZ?
Posted by: Michael Dickens | September 9, 2009 2:13 PM
Nature at its finest.
Posted by: MrFire | September 9, 2009 2:14 PM
So long as they don't become new vectors for histoplasmosis, then good luck to them.
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 9, 2009 2:15 PM
After Jesus comes, the meat-eating tits will rule the skies.
Posted by: SplendidMonkey
|
September 9, 2009 2:16 PM
Other fun science headlines:
Breakthrough in bubble research at Bath
Great tits enjoying the warmer weather – so far
Posted by: Sara | September 9, 2009 2:18 PM
Definitely. We could build a clique around that. The Unholy Order of Those Who Were Here Before the Post Was Complete.
Everybody is welcome to come up with a more catchy name any time!
On topic, I have to say:
BLOODTHIRSTY TITS SOOO CUUUUTE.
Posted by: T_U_T | September 9, 2009 2:19 PM
given the massive upsurge of fascism in Hungary ( and even here in Slovakia ), could it be possible that there is something there that makes both animals and humans more bloodthirsty ? Perhaps a new pollutant or something like that.
Posted by: IaMoL | September 9, 2009 2:21 PM
Feynmaniac;
Don't you know the difference between a booby and a great tit?
Posted by: tsg | September 9, 2009 2:22 PM
I missed the hyphen in the title originally and thought it meant something much, much worse....
Posted by: IaMoL | September 9, 2009 2:25 PM
The Bat-eating Tits of Hungary - band name/song title/grindhouse porno-horror film.
Posted by: Desert Son, OM
|
September 9, 2009 2:25 PM
If that's not a film title just begging to be made starring the powerhouse duo of Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas, I don't know what is.
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: Brian Smith | September 9, 2009 2:27 PM
In Google Reader, this post says:
Yeah, those must be some desperate tits.
Posted by: Sara | September 9, 2009 2:28 PM
Oooooo. Any links? Can read: English, German, French, Polish, and perhaps could make an educated guess about Slovakian, anyway.
Btw, I'm totally interested in every perspective on atheism that is not USian or UKian, so, if you've got some cool Sovakian atheist websites/blogs, I'd be terribly grateful for suggestions!
Posted by: Jo | September 9, 2009 2:28 PM
I heard about something similar today - my mum's friend keeps chickens and they've started killing and eating the sparrows that try to steal their grain!! Crazy stuff.
Posted by: Desert Son, OM
|
September 9, 2009 2:28 PM
"Curse my metal body I wasn't fast enough!"
[/C-3PO]
And it's IaMoL by a nose!
Carry on.
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: Carl Buell | September 9, 2009 2:28 PM
Here in North America, I've seen Black-capped and Boreal Chickadees scavenging the remains of winter-killed deer and moose along with ravens and others... whatever gets you through.
Back in 1990 (it's a long story that has to do with Scottish games... don't ask) I drove Ian Campbell, the Duke of Argyle, around on his week long stay in Northern California. On the way back to the airport, he invited me to come to Scotland and visit he and his wife, but told me I had to promise him one thing. Knowing my love of birds, he told me that when I arrived in Great Britain and the officials at the airport asked me the reason for my visit, I had to reply that "I had come to observe tits". He then added that if I was given any trouble, I should refer the officials to him!
Idiot that I am... I never got to Argyle.
Posted by: Nangleator | September 9, 2009 2:30 PM
Got to watch out for them. They always travel in pairs. I think it was that great pioneer tit watcher, Bronski, who first got caught between a vicious pair.
Tragic, really.
Posted by: Desert Son, OM
|
September 9, 2009 2:31 PM
Carl Buell,
Great story!
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: nick bobick | September 9, 2009 2:31 PM
My girlfriend says she much prefers bat eating tits from Hungary over hungry tit eating bats.
Posted by: bungoton | September 9, 2009 2:31 PM
I sent the link to the article to a few of my colleagues with the title
"Great Tits in Hungary"
I hope it gets past the corporate censors at Kodak
Posted by: IaMoL | September 9, 2009 2:33 PM
I'm sure this came as a hell of a surprise to the bats.
(Insert Gary Larson Far Side style cartoon panel here)
Posted by: littlejohn | September 9, 2009 2:35 PM
Be honest, PZ. Did you post this just to read the Great Tits jokes?
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | September 9, 2009 2:42 PM
So I guess I'm not the only person who got the image of winged mammaries flying into caves w/fanged mouths, gobbling bats?
Good - I can cancel that therapy session, since I'm not completely crazy.
Posted by: speedwell | September 9, 2009 2:44 PM
Take that, vampires. :D
Posted by: Candy | September 9, 2009 2:44 PM
It's just nature's way of evening the score . . . you know, tit for bat.
Posted by: BillFromDover | September 9, 2009 2:53 PM
Yo #19,
Vampire tits?
Posted by: Lauri | September 9, 2009 2:56 PM
Bat-eating tits? That beats the fratricidal boobies of the Galapagos.
Posted by: john | September 9, 2009 2:57 PM
tits or gtfo
Posted by: Knockgoats | September 9, 2009 2:58 PM
Splendid Monkey@17,
That second link of yours, Great tits enjoying the warmer weather – so far, reports a truly amazing finding: time-travelling tits! Viz:
"One sign that plasticity is behind the shift, rather than evolution, is that the birds seem to respond to a warmer spring by laying their eggs earlier in the same year."
Posted by: Nangleator | September 9, 2009 3:05 PM
Of course, to protect the balance of nature, we could invent some type of protective apparatus, say a Bat Response Acoustics system. That way, we could use these BRA's to restrain the tits in some way.
Posted by: lose_the_woo | September 9, 2009 3:10 PM
So yeah, how many here knew what this thread would look like just by reading the heading?
*raises hand*
Posted by: Dennis | September 9, 2009 3:18 PM
Wow... that bird looks so docile... and "cute." I'm picturing it tearing apart a bat- yikes.
Posted by: IaMoL | September 9, 2009 3:24 PM
I know, it sucks; but a least it hasn't devolved into a cock fight like some other threads because then you'd have to deal with a lot of c*nts.Balls.
(thank you Seth McFarlane)
Posted by: SaintStephen | September 9, 2009 3:29 PM
Great tits normally live on a diet of seeds and insects...
No wonder I'm still single. Piss on hanging out at Black Angus after work.
Posted by: Serendipity
|
September 9, 2009 3:36 PM
Are we sure they are real and not fake? Who has seen one up close or held one of them in their hands (maybe PZ has)? Do they exist in various sizes, shapes, colors? Are some more perky than others? So many questions ....
Posted by: DiscomBoob | September 9, 2009 3:50 PM
heh hehhehheh heh heh hehheh... he said 'bat-eating'.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
September 9, 2009 3:54 PM
Are bat-eating tits anything like man-eating vaginas?
You knew someone had to ask.
Posted by: DrA | September 9, 2009 3:56 PM
Great tits also are known to raid milk (milch) bottles on the stoop by pucturing the foil to get at the cream. None of that sissy homogenized or low-fat stuff for them.
Posted by: firemancarl | September 9, 2009 3:59 PM
Welp, tits, bacon, and PZ being named in the top 5 anti-christs of 2009( ahead of Bill Mahr). Can today get any better?
Posted by: anomalocaris | September 9, 2009 3:59 PM
Here in Hungary we had absolutely no news coverage about our ferocious tits. It might be a government cover-up. Oh noes!
Also, I think T_U_T is wrong. I'm pretty sure the severe fascist infestation our countries are having is not due to pollution, but is caused by the tits' making nazis out of ordinary people by eating their brains.
Posted by: daveau | September 9, 2009 4:01 PM
lose_the_woo@43
Well, me, but only because I read Jerry Coyne's blog this morning.
@45: Yeah, good thing.
Posted by: bbgunn | September 9, 2009 4:04 PM
That story is 'batstit' crazy. (I apologize sincerely to the originators of the phrase 'batshit crazy' for that lowly pun.)
Posted by: xebecs | September 9, 2009 4:10 PM
I wonder how these tits cope with bats that splinter due to overly-slim handles.
(After all the sober commentary above, I really thought someone should make a play on the ambiguous meaning of the word "bat".)
Posted by: CarlosT | September 9, 2009 4:10 PM
You know, sites susceptible to the clbuttic mistake will render this headline as "The Bat-Eating Breasts of Hungary".
Posted by: aratina cage
|
September 9, 2009 4:11 PM
Tits to the wall!* A cold winter approaches.
* cavern wall
Posted by: HombreMoleculos | September 9, 2009 4:15 PM
Sorry, I couldn't get past tits.
Posted by: IaMoL | September 9, 2009 4:16 PM
That would not be a tit, that would be a pecker.Posted by: DiscomBoob | September 9, 2009 4:16 PM
That bird can eat my bat anytime.
Posted by: Aaberg | September 9, 2009 4:23 PM
I was expecting something quite different :P
Posted by: Nangleator | September 9, 2009 4:28 PM
anomalocaris @#52, a cover-up, eh?
Someone noticed those great tits were exposed, and quickly covered them up... We get a lot of that here in the United States, but we heard that Europe is so much more progressive in that area. Well, I guess that's a bust.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | September 9, 2009 4:37 PM
... they prefer bugs and bacon...
Once the tits run out of bats - well, I wouldn't want to be a pig farmer in Hungary, that's all.
Posted by: AndrewB | September 9, 2009 4:46 PM
Ohhh it's a bird.
Posted by: anomalocaris | September 9, 2009 4:46 PM
@Nangleator #62
On a second thought it might have been done by the pornographic-industrial complex. I could imagine that freelance uncovered tits and boobies would not be welcome due to copyright reasons.
Posted by: Ray Moscow | September 9, 2009 4:48 PM
I have to admit that I'll never look at these little guys the same again.
(Sorry, I can't think of any good were-tit jokes.)
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood | September 9, 2009 4:53 PM
I read the title and then clicked on the link without reading the rest of the article. When I got here, I found myself strangely disappointed.
Still, the sober commentary without any hint of double entendre more than made up for it.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood | September 9, 2009 4:56 PM
Death by tit. I can think of plenty of worse ways to go.
Posted by: aratina cage
|
September 9, 2009 4:58 PM
Headline:
Hungry Hungary tits batty for bats.
Or how about the obligatory:
In Soviet Hungary, tits suck on you!
Posted by: Serendipity
|
September 9, 2009 5:08 PM
Quite a titillating discussion today!
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood | September 9, 2009 5:18 PM
Aratina Cage @ 69;
"In Soviet Hungary, tits suck on you!"
Great, now I've got an image in my mind of a pair of breasts sporting a cod Bella Lugosi accent and a black cape saying;
"The children of the night; what sweet music they make!"
I know that it should be set in the Carpathian mountains in Rumania, but Hungary is close enough.
Now I've got to start trying to dream up a 'Lesbian Vampire Killers' reference. (Strange name for a film, why would anyone want to kill lesbian vampires? Hollywood should not be encouraging bigotry against the living impaired of alternate sexual orientations. Anyway, what a terrible waste of a name that should really be adorning a porn film.)
Posted by: Libbie, the Bird Overlord | September 9, 2009 5:21 PM
Aw yeah! Just more proof that birds are AWESOME! Not only are they called TITS, but they HUNT AND KILL BATS.
IN YOUR FACE, PLACENTALS!!
Posted by: T_U_T | September 9, 2009 5:22 PM
Eating alive a defenseless hibernated bat is not hunting.
Posted by: NixNoctua | September 9, 2009 5:23 PM
Sooooo, now the greatest things in the world are Bacon, Lesbians, and Tits? Works for me.
Posted by: bevo/devo | September 9, 2009 5:41 PM
If you were expecting to look at boobies:
http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/boobies.html
Posted by: Kevin Schreck | September 9, 2009 5:51 PM
That is SO METAL!
Posted by: Hank Fox | September 9, 2009 5:56 PM
It's only fair. If bats (mammals) have tits, why shouldn't tits have bats?
Posted by: Happy Tentacles
|
September 9, 2009 6:07 PM
I've heard of Mallards snatching sparrows from a riverside towpath, but considering the relative size of a Great Tit and a Pipistrelle, I would be surprised if the bird could catch and subdue a healthy adult bat. The video showed it eating a bat that was already dead; possibly the Great Tits are taking juveniles, or adults that are already sick and weakened. (Who would turn down a convenient source of protein?)
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble OM4Jesus | September 9, 2009 6:29 PM
Praise the Lord! An entire thread on the subject of carnivorous tits. I have quite a few thoughts on this subject, but will limit myself to a small poem:
I’m in love with a girl who has bat-eating tits,
And a head of live snakes, every one of which spits.
But I’m told she most treasures—
For her vampiric pleasures—
Her vagina dentata, with its pair of matched clits.
AMEN
Smoggy
Posted by: David Lee | September 9, 2009 6:32 PM
Turns out bats prey on migrating birds so it only seems fair. Was a PLOS study out last October on it. Pardon me if I keep it clean.
Posted by: dinkum | September 9, 2009 6:36 PM
I will consider my life complete if I ever find myself able to justifiably use this phrase in verbal conversation.Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble OM4Jesus | September 9, 2009 6:45 PM
Don't feel a need to apologize for 'keeping it clean' brother David Lee.
I will work hard to keep it dirty enough for both of us.
Smoggy
Posted by: I | September 9, 2009 6:49 PM
And Aratina @69 (heh heh) answers the question: "Whatever happened to Yakov Smirnoff?"
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | September 9, 2009 7:24 PM
More detailed article over on Tet Zoo.
If you can read Polish, basically all you need to read Slovak is to figure out the spelling. I've witnessed Czechs, Slovaks and Poles having unremarkable conversations with each other, each speaking their own language.
:-D :-D :-D
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | September 9, 2009 8:01 PM
I don't think this is disturbing as the doco I saw that showed toucans eating baby mice. I had no idea they were ominvorious to that extent.
They didn't mention fruitloops though...
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | September 9, 2009 8:06 PM
well, I certainly won't be able to eat frootloops for a while now, with that image in my head
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
September 9, 2009 8:28 PM
I think Libbie should go easy on the caffeine in the afternoon. But PZ appears to have made her day.Posted by: Sara | September 9, 2009 8:45 PM
Mhm. Although, from my experience, it's much easier to do with Slovak than Czech. Czech is somehow tricky, no matter what everybody says.
Still, atheism in Slovakia! Need to knoooooooow :)
Posted by: speedwell | September 9, 2009 8:53 PM
If you can read Polish, basically all you need to read Slovak is to figure out the spelling.
And that's a job and a half. Hungarian, on the other hand, is spelled exactly as it sounds.
A co-worker is trying to teach me Scots Gaelic, which is awesome fun. I get frustrated factoring polynomials, for the same reason I get frustrated trying to spell Gaelic... one should not have to guess. I told him the spelling rule I made up for Gaelic... "take the alphabet, throw out the five letters you think are most likely to be in the word, and spell randomly with the remainder." He laughed, thank Her Invisible Pinkness.
Posted by: speedwell | September 9, 2009 8:55 PM
Annnd... I am on cold medicine. Sorry for veering way off on the most convenient tangent. Fortunately most of you ignore me already. ;)
Posted by: Carlie | September 9, 2009 9:17 PM
To me Slovak sounds nice and round and rolly, and Czech is pointy and harsh and smacks you around.
From now on, I think I'll use this story as a benchmark of creepiness. "That is some Hungarian bat-eating tit creepy, there."
Posted by: Sara | September 9, 2009 9:22 PM
Not really.
They read "s" as "sz" as far as I remember.
Also, Hungarian is an Uralic language, agglutinative, completely dissimilar to the neighbouring Slavic languages, and a general pain to study :)
Posted by: speedwell | September 9, 2009 10:04 PM
Not really. They read "s" as "sz" as far as I remember.
No, no, no. The sound English speakers associate with "s" is "sz". The sound English speakers associate with "sh" is "s". But you can trust sz and s to always mean those sounds, so if you know my name, which includes an s and a sz, you can spell it right off, no mistake. Why would you try to spell Hungarian using the English alphabet, anyway?
And Hungarian is easy to study provided you don't keep trying to make it into something it isn't. Vowel harmony, for example, is tasty.
Posted by: Ragutis | September 9, 2009 11:45 PM
Bat-eating tit? That's nothing. This one hunts people!
Posted by: astrounit | September 10, 2009 2:40 AM
Now THAT is one hell of a funny title.
Posted by: darvolution proponentsist | September 10, 2009 3:08 AM
So, did you hear what extinction said to the tits ?
"bats or GTFO"
Posted by: Azkyroth | September 10, 2009 3:09 AM
Given that James Dobson mostly seems to get off on beating children and dogs, "James Dobson came" and "tits" in the same post seem highly incongruous.
Posted by: scooter
|
September 10, 2009 4:14 AM
No fair they are eating dead bats, anybody can do that
Posted by: Stephen Wells | September 10, 2009 5:23 AM
I thought Countess Bathory was the... oh, I see.
@96: send that one to ERV.
Posted by: Carlie | September 10, 2009 6:32 AM
Not dead ones - they're eating hibernating ones, right? Which makes me suddenly wonder why any bat species that hibernates hasn't gone extinct yet, given how they would obviously be easy pickings for any predatory bird.
Posted by: John Morales | September 10, 2009 6:37 AM
Carlie @100, I'm no biologist but would guess the answer is fecundity. Bat colonies can be very large, so losing some individuals to predation is not of significance.
Posted by: Ring Tailed Lemurian | September 10, 2009 8:57 AM
@Carlie #100
"the team believes the birds can only bat-hunt when they can see their prey, as they can in this wide-mouthed cave where lots of light penetrates"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8245165.stm
In dark caves the only thing bats normally have to worry about are snakes with heat detectors.
http://travel.mongabay.com/malaysia/images/malaysia0879c.html
Posted by: Ring Tailed Lemurian | September 10, 2009 9:06 AM
....forgot to say ....
Didn't you prudish USAnians change the name from Tits to Chickadees precisely to stop the kind of comments we've seen here?
We've had the Great Tit jokes, and the Booby jokes too, but I'm still waiting for the Blue Tit And Red Breast jokes.
Posted by: strange gods before me | September 10, 2009 9:18 AM
I don't know. Chickadee is onomatopoeic, but we also call them titmice. And titmouse gets the same kind of comments. Wikipedia suggests that titmouse predates tit.
Posted by: bcoppola | September 10, 2009 9:40 AM
Tits. Chickadees. Whatever. All I know is that they and the goldfinches give me the stink eye when the feeder is getting low. Looks like I'd better keep it full this winter if I know what's good for me.
Posted by: Ring Tailed Lemurian | September 10, 2009 9:50 AM
@ strange gods before me #104 ~ in case you care :)
"A very old word, dating from the mid sixteenth century, "tit", related to such Nordic words as Icelandic "tittr" and Norwegian "tita", meant any small thing or animal. It doesn't really seem to have come from anywhere; it's a small word (one of the lowest-energy words to speak that it is possible to make in English, actually, requiring virtually no movement of any part of the mouth) for a small thing, and that's enough. Norwegian "tita" means "small bird", and that's just what its relative means in the English-speaking world.
Except, that is, North America, where we do not generally call birds tits. We call them chickadees, from their characteristic call (a trilling "chick-a-dee-dee-dee), or titmice, a word which deserves its own explanation, because they are not mice. The Old English word for the the family of songbirds of which the tit is a part was "mase", the smaller version (and "tit" means a small animal) was the tit-mase, and over time, influenced by "mouse", another tiny creature, it became, reasonably enough, "titmouse".
On an episode of the excellent British quiz show Q.I., host Stephen Fry superciliously noted that Americans were so afraid of the word "tit" that they changed it to "tid-" in the expression "titbit", nearly without exception expressed in North America as "tidbit". And it's true: an old American prudishness almost certainly forbade the use of "titbit" and preferred "tidbit" "
http://cephalogenic.blogspot.com/2009/03/bosom-companion.html
Posted by: Tim Danaher | September 10, 2009 9:52 AM
So, in Hungary, the tits are rock hard?
Well, my personal experience would tend to support that assertion.
Posted by: Treppenwitz | September 10, 2009 11:37 AM
Has anyone got access to the journal article?
Posted by: rodiel | September 10, 2009 12:42 PM
Ugh, judging by the title I thought this post is gonna be about the really bad incidents (beatings) that happened in the weekend in this ugly country.
Posted by: Cimourdain | September 11, 2009 7:21 AM
That has to be one of all the greatest headlines.
Posted by: Twilight | September 11, 2009 12:42 PM
Internet meme #4701:
Exploiting archaic bird names in order to be able to make non-offensive posts that use the phrase "great tits".