Appealing to our comedic side, the thought of an exploding whale paints an entertaining picture. The picture is not as absurd as you might think, this very thing has occurred more than once. The reasons behind the events are both natural, and by the hand of man. The first recorded incident was the 1970 explosion of a whale in Oregon. More recently, in 2004 a dead whale spontaneously exploded while on the back of a truck in a Taiwanese City covering the street with whale guts.

A fishing trawler sailing on the South coast of Iceland noticed a menacing plume of black smoke on the morning of November 14, 1963. Thinking it was a boat on fire the crew of the trawler moved closer to help. On closer inspection the crew realized this wasn’t a ship on fire, but rather something very few have ever witnessed: a volcanic island being born. Over the next few months the island would fend off the eroding forces of the Atlantic to grow to over 2.5 square kilometers in size.

The Cymothoa exigua, a parasitic crustacean, is a true-to-life tongue snatcher. The parasite prays on the Spotted Rose Snapper Fish found off the coast of California. Cymothoa exigua swim into the fish's gills and latch onto its tongue. Once attached, it begins to suck the fish's blood. Eventually the tongue dies from lack of blood flow and falls off. With the tongue out of the way, the parasite attaches itself to the remaining muscles at the base of the tongue.