"[M]any carnivorous animals devour their prey alive. The usual method seems to be to subdue the victim by downing or grasping it so it can't flee, then eating it whole or in a series of bloody bites. Frogs eat everything whole, stuffing prey into their mouths with their thumbs. People have seen frogs with their wide jaws so full of live dragonflies they couldn't close them. Ants don't even have to catch their prey: in the spring they swarm over newly hatched, featherless birds in the nest and eat them tiny bite by bite."
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Novelists from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesWomen academics from the United StatesPeople from Pittsburgh
Original Language: English
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"Heaven and Earth in Jest", p. 9
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Annie_Dillard
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Annie Dillard
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