Creatures of the dark

For many people, Halloween is the one time of the year when being active at night is a must, whether to remember those who have passed or to celebrate the macabre and supernatural.

While nighttime activities like trick-or-treating, themed parties, and haunted house visits are popular with humans for a few nights a year, some creatures keep it creepy all year round.

Why choose to be active at night?

For years, scientists have studied the advantages of nocturnality. A recent study now suggests that activity in darkness provides a survival advantage. This research points to four key survival benefits that helped nocturnal creatures outlast their daytime counterparts, especially during mass extinctions.

Let’s meet a few of these eerie night dwellers!

Adorable but deadly

We’ll start with arguably the cutest animal on this list. The Loris. As the common name, Slow Loris, for the species in the genus Nycticebus suggests, these beady-eyed mammals are not the fastest. But don’t be fooled by their harmless appearance as Lorises are the only venomous primates on the planet.

These dwellers of the night are specially adapted to life in the dark. Having large eyes increases their ability to capture light, improving night vision. When threatened, lorises use their bare patch that secretes oil, mixing it with saliva to create venom. Despite being really slow, these animals are skilled hunters using their slow pace to sneak up on unsuspecting prey. Truly giving new meaning to the saying “silent but deadly”.

A true creepy crawler

Now we move to a true creepy crawler, the whip spider. Despite what the name may suggest, these are not true spiders. Unlike true spiders in the order Araneae, whip spiders belong to the order Amblypygi. (See our previous article on why neither are insects!)

Whip spiders are, like their namesake, predators, hunting all kinds of arthropods. But unlike spiders, they do not possess silk glands for making webs. For this reason, they have developed an active hunting strategy. Using their modified legs, they sense prey items, once found they sprint towards them and grab the prey item with their spikey pedipalps. Witnessing this in action is sure to create an unsettling feeling in anyone. Whip spiders are found primarily in tropical to subtropical climates. They prefer moist dark places coming out to hunt when most of us are asleep. 

Endangered Beauty

For the third and final animal on our list, we stay in the realm of arthropods. Ever heard of the moon moth? Saturnia isabellae or Spanish moon moth is a moth in the large family called Saturniidae. Like most moths the Spanish moon moth flies during the night, searching for a partner or places to lay their eggs.

As the name suggests it is found in Spain, specifically the Pyrenees. What makes this species so special is that it lives in a relict population.