Table of Contents

Horror

Shrinking human heads

The Jivaro Indians lived in Peru. After killing an enemy, they would cut off his head, remove the skin from the skull along with the hair, sew the mouth and eyelids together, and then boil it. They then hung it over the fire to harden and blacken it. Europeans who encountered the custom of the Jivaro Indians in the 19th century became very interested in such peculiar trophies. Demand was so great that the Indians began to produce forgeries from animal skins. 1)

Vampire bats

There are three species of blood-eating bats and they all live in the New World from Mexico to Argentina. 2)

Arachnophobia

There are some statistics that indicate that up to 50 percent of women and 10 percent of men exhibit symptoms of arachnophobia. The evolutionary reasons for this are unclear, as the vast majority of spiders are harmless. Humans are more threatened by wasps and hornets, which are not as feared. One theory is that humans may have evolved in areas where venomous spiders were a significant threat. 3)

Boris Karloff

Boris Karloff is an actor known for the creature Frankenstein (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein) and for his roles in other horror films. In the 1930s and 1940s, the actor was a star, competing for the throne of the king of horror with Béla Lugosi (who played the role of Dracula). 4)

Suicide forest

Japan's Aokigahara Forest is infamous for its extreme popularity with suicidal people. There are no statistics on suicides committed in the forest, but there are regular reports on the number of bodies found in a given year. For example, more than 100 suicides were reported there between 2013 and 2015. 5)