ACROSS AMERICA — If it weren’t such a dire ecological harbinger, it would be easy to dismiss what’s happening to fish as just more Florida foolery.

It is bizarre. Dozens of species of fish have been observed spinning in tight circles as they swim, alternately bobbing and sinking, swimming upside down or on their sides as if they’ve lost their equilibrium and balance, and in many cases beaching themselves and dying.

In a video she recorded from her Florida Keys beach, one woman described the sight of a critically endangered smalltooth sawfish that swam out of the water as “the scariest thing” and said it seemed disoriented, as if “there was something wrong with [its] brain” as it flopped around in the sand.

Researchers racing to discover what’s behind the mysterious whirling behavior think they’re on the right track. And if they’re right, it could have some serious ecological consequences.

• Read more: What’s Up With Whirling Florida Fish?

Cicadas May Squirt Pee At You

Anyone hanging out where periodical cicadas will be hanging out later this spring, namely under a tree, should take along an umbrella or wear body armor as protection against powerful jets of cicada pee.

Cicadas are world-champion-level pee squirters. In a contest of distance and velocity, cicadas could line up with other animals their size and out-pee them every time. These insects that only live a few weeks above ground can squirt pee up to 3 meters per second, the fastest urine stream among animals recently studied by scientists.

And here’s the thing: If you get hit with a long stream of cicada urine, don’t assume it’s an unlucky accident. The cicadas are coming for you. They use their locker room brag-worthy urine streams as a defense against predators like squirrels and, yes, humans. They’re always ready for you, too, replenishing their arsenal by sucking in 300 times their weight in plant sap every day.

• Read more: Yes, Cicadas Intentionally Squirt Pee At People

A suburban Chicago woman defended peeling off her clothes as she ran from a Cheesecake Factory and through the parking lot, telling police the wings she ate were “too hot.” She wasn’t charged for skipping out on the bill. But she does have to answer a misdemeanor public indecency charge.

• Read more: Wings ‘Too Hot,’ She Stripped To The Buff: Police

Bacon Behind Brain Tapeworm

The medical files of a 52-year-old Florida man hospitalized with worsening migraine headaches carry a cautionary tale for anyone who prefers their bacon more tender and not so crispy that it shatters at first bite. He had a brain tapeworm and doctors suspect he was infected by eating undercooked pork.

And, as if a deadly months long pandemic in which we sanitized everything wasn’t enough persuasion, the man’s excruciatingly painful journey is a reminder of the importance of handwashing after using the bathroom. A person gets a tapeworm infection by swallowing microscopic eggs passed in the feces of a person who has an intestinal pork tapeworm. It can spread quickly and indiscriminately.

• Read more: Brain Tapeworm Caused Excruciating Migraines

Stay Away From Lightning

This is some freaky kind of luck. And we’re just saying, the recipient of all this luck — about $250,000 worth of it — should maybe stay away from lightning.

A Maryland delivery driver who rarely plays the lottery was so struck by a set of numbers — 1, 9, 2, 6 and 3 — that he played them on five tickets in the state’s $1 Pick 5 lottery game. That’s not all. He bought each of the tickets, worth $50,000 apiece, at the same convenience store.

“I’m feeling better than ever,” the winner said in what may be a candidate for understatement of the year.

• Read more: Ask This Dude To Pick Your Lottery Numbers

‘Not All Heroes Wear Capes’

The buzz at the recent BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California wasn’t about the anticipated quarterfinal match between Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Germany’s Alexander Zverev, but about a swarm of about 3,500 bees that delayed the tennis match and the bee whisperer who flew into action to save the day without so much as a bee suit or gloves.

Lance Davis, who removes and relocates bees for a living, had been at the Palm Springs area facility removing bees for about five days, but his truck was being repaired across town. He rushed to the repair shop just as the mechanics were starting to work. “No, put it back together,” Davis instructed. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got an emergency call.”

“Not all heroes wear capes,” Alcaraz, the No. 2 world player, tweeted after his win.

• Read more: Barehanded Bee-Whisperer Saves The Day

Will Eclipse Make Tortoises Swoon?

Officials at zoos in the path of totality for the April 8 total solar eclipse are eager to see how animals react when the moon slips between the sun and Earth and turns daytime into dusk, In past eclipses, zoo animals have behaved oddly, including especially curious behavior by the usually slow-moving Galápagos tortoises that generally did absolutely nothing all day, but started breeding at the peak of the eclipse.

Other animals also responded during the 2017 eclipse, according to studies. Giraffes galloped in their quarters until the eclipse passed, gorillas marched to their nighthouses and flamingos gathered around their young. Animals in the wild acted strangely, too.

• Read more: How Will Animals Respond To Eclipse?

Butterflies Are Free (To Nap On Dog’s Nose)

It didn’t take an eclipse for this odd encounter to occur. A monarch butterfly landed on the snout of a dog named Olive in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, the other day and hung out for a while.

• Read more: A Dog And Her Butterfly

A New York homeowner’s heart may have been in the right place. But installing an inground pool and an addition for a 30-year-old blind alligator with a spinal condition that was rescued from Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn in February 2023 wasn’t the right way of helping the likely abandoned pet, according to state wildlife conservation officials.

The homeowner allowed people to swim with the alligator, including children, endangering the public according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which seized the reptile and sent it to a licensed caretaker until permanent care can be arranged.

The homeowner’s state license to keep an alligator expired in 2021, but state officials acted this past week after learning the “extent to which the owner was seriously endangering the public.”

• Read more: Homeowner Let Kids Swim With Alligator: Complaint

Town Is De-Pantsed

After 12 years of holding the cheeky Guinness World Record for the most people wearing underpants on their heads, Naperville, Illinois, has lost its crown, In 2012, 270 people put their undies on their heads to welcome “Captain Underpants” series author Dav Pilkey to a local bookstore. On March 14, 355 people crowded into a St. Louis museum and stood together for one minute with their underpants on their heads, de-pantsing Naperville.

Never Lose Hope

A 14-year-old cockapoo named Cleo has been reunited with her owners in South Florida 10 years after she disappeared. Her owners “never lost hope” she would be found and they would be reunited, even when they moved hundreds of miles away to Miami. Cleo came into the Humane Society of Tampa Bay as a stray. She had been microchipped, so the reunion was easy. The reunion shows the power and importance of microchipping pets, the Humane Society said.

• Read more: After 10 Years, Dog Comes Home

In some areas of the country, tourists are particularly facsinated with the “Muffler Men,” the ginormous fiberglass advertising sculptures that loomed large over America’s highways in the 1960s and 1970s. Acquiring one isn’t cheap, but Muffler Men are quintessential roadside America quirky enough to draw a crowd.

Building on the area’s status the beginning of the “Mother Road” — the famous Route 66 — the Joliet (Illinois) Area Historical Museum picked up Gemini Giant for $250,000 at an auction. Plans are underway to prominently display the 30-foot, 438-pound sculpture in Wilmington, Illinois, where millions of motorists have passed by it since 1965. For years, Gemini Giant appeared to guard the Launching Pad restaurant, but that eatery closed in 2022.

• Read more: Gemini Giant Is Home To Stay

Lived To Tweet About It

We’re not talking about a message on X here. A bald eagle that collided with an SUV in Maryland wasn’t injured, but my have tweeted — for such powerful birds, eagles have high-pitched calls — its gratitude after it was freed from the grille, where its legs had become stuck. The bird was released in the woods.

• Read more: Eagle Unhurt In Collision, But it Still Wasn’t Pretty

Outfoxing The Kits

How do you nurse an orphaned kit? Outfox it. Employees at the Richmond Wildlife Center in Virginia, are putting on red fox masks, giving the little one a stuffed red fox to cuddle with and doing their best to act like a mama foxes as they feed the tiny orphan with a syringe. The trick is to speak in limited, hushed tones and stay out of the kitten’s line of sight as much as possible. It’s important that orphans raised in captivity not become too dependent and accustomed to humans, the center said.

It’s Not The Same, But …

And dang it if that fox mask didn’t prompt a laugh-snort about that time a lawyer couldn’t turn off the cat filter is kid was using on his computer and went through an entire court proceeding looking like a cat. His lips moved, eyes rolled and everything. Yeah, that’s worth a rewind.

• A Weird Classic: Your Honor, ‘I Am Not A Cat’

Until next time, keep it weird, people.