Facts I Learned from Nature Documentaries as a Kid
Christian children don’t watch secular TV. No Disney, no SpongeBob, no Cartoon Network.
Boa constrictors in the Amazon basin can grow to eighteen feet long and weigh more than one hundred pounds. They’re most effective at hunting underwater where they can move swiftly due to their buoyancy. They lie in wait under the surface with only their nostrils visible. This isn’t the reason why I am afraid of the Amazon River.
Whatever “sponge bob” does underwater, it is probably more interesting than what real sponges do underwater. Do the kids who watch SpongeBob know about the never-seen-before footage of species New to Science discovered in the Mariana Trench? Does SpongeBob use a deep-sea submersible that can withstand intense water pressure up to 15,000 PSI?
Killer whales kill whales. Especially baby whales. Especially whales that have been swimming a long time, and are scared. Mother whales will protect their babies from other whales until they have no strength left.
Emperor penguin parents take turns sheltering their single egg in a special pouch while the other parent goes to the shore and eats fish. Passing the egg back and forth is difficult with no arms, and if they drop it, the bird fetus will die.
Small fish in the open ocean swim in schools to stay safe from predators. They turn and dodge in unison like a frantic silver whirlpool while seabirds attack from above and sharks attack from below.
The pastor says that the beauty of nature is proof that god exists. Nature doesn’t seem beautiful to me, just vibrantly cutthroat in competition for survival. That makes sense to me. The oceans and arctic expanse make more sense to me than god does.
Bottlenose dolphins digging in the sand with their noses say: “click-click-click-click-click dr-dr-dr-dr-dr? click-click-click click-click.”
Fish release sperm and eggs in huge clouds, in a synchronized dance, at specific times of the year. Many animals gather to feast on the excess eggs and sperm.
Most fish exist at the expense of other fish. Big hungry fish prey on weaker, smaller fish. The pastor babbles on about kindness and generosity in church, and for a few years I am fooled into thinking that humans are different from sharks and tuna and squid.
At the bottom of the ocean, if you get into a pressurized submersible, you can witness the deep sea worms, oh-god-that’s-so-many deep sea worms, the deep sea worms latched onto deep sea whale bones, wriggling, thrashing, black ropes of slime and sightless hunger.
Bottlenose dolphins always know where everything around them is due to echolocation. They rub against each other while they swim on purpose, because even underwater animals find comfort in their own kind.
I find comfort at church in daycare with other kids who only watch Christian children’s movies where nobody dies. I learn from the Bible that god created man to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky. At home, I watch BBC footage of a killer whale tossing a sea lion the size of a grown man fifty feet into the air. The narrator tells me that they play with their food before they eat it.
There is a small parasitic catfish in the Amazon River that enters the gills of other fish and feeds on their blood. I developed an early irrational fear of tiny inch-long fish swimming up my belly-button and eating me if I ever swam into a big river. I only watched the Amazon River DVD once, but I watched the other disks over and over and over.
Some human beings are parasitic even if they don’t drink blood. The church members never really wondered where their tithe was going until the church went broke and the pastor fled the church. After spending my whole life from birth in the same church community, and planning on spending the rest of my life there too, leaving the church felt like drowning.
Sixgill sharks have two types of teeth: the top row is for piercing into the flesh of dead animals and the bottom row is for tearing it free from the carcass.
My family didn’t rejoin any other churches. My mom checked out some books from the library, including Galileo's Middle Finger by Alice Dreger. We still weren’t allowed to watch SpongeBob.
Even sixgill sharks take care of their young. Mother sixgill sharks travel to shallow bays and estuaries to give birth and care for their young where they will be safe from larger predators.
Fish sperm cloud displays, even when narrated by Sir David Attenborough, are embarrassing when you hit puberty. They didn’t used to be embarrassing.
Big fish, like whale sharks, don’t need to swim in schools. They glide through the ocean with their mouths open, letting their meals be carried to them on the current. Whale sharks live in warm nutrient-rich areas of the ocean, travel freely, and have no predators.
My first day of high school, I told my new friends I was an atheist. I met a Muslim girl, an agnostic girl, and a girl who had never really thought about it. My English teacher showed an episode of SpongeBob in class for our Lord of the Flies unit.
Each time that scientists use deep-sea submersibles withstanding high pressure to reach the ocean floor, they find new species, living in ways that surprise them. Every trip into the Mariana Trench discovers life where we used to think life was impossible. The deeper they go, the more they are able to discover.