Around this time of year, elaborate decorations featuring ghosts, vampires, zombies, witches and werewolves adorn front doors, gardens and shop windows across the country.

But you may be surprised to hear that in the animal world, there are many real-life creatures with similar tendencies to these fictional characters of our Halloween nightmares.

The southern grasshopper mouse (Onychomys torridus) howls at the moon to defend its territory and attract mates, a little like werewolves in films. These nocturnal rodents stand up on their hind legs, point their nose upwards, and produce high-pitched sounds.

Grasshopper mice are voracious carnivores, preying upon scorpions, beetles, grasshoppers, and even other mice. They are also immune to the stings of their favourite food – the bark scorpion (Centruroides sculpturatus). Grasshopper mice can block the chemical pathway that transmits the signal from the venom, essentially numbing themselves to the pain. They then bite off the scorpion’s tail, rendering their prey defenseless to their fate.

These little rodents are so formidable that they will unhesitatingly attack anything that is appropriately sized and considered to be food, even if it might be dangerous.

Small mammals, like grasshopper mice, play crucial ecological roles in their ecosystems. For example, through digging their........

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