There was an article in The New Yorker which had a photo of a dead Iraqi whom the troops had nicknamed "Catlips" because before his body was discovered, his mouth had been eaten by feral cats. The picture, which only showed him from the neck up, showed indeed his lips had been chewed off. However, his nose, eyelids, ears, and other parts that might be considered soft and chompy had remained intact.
Jonathan Shaw ::: July 31, 2005, 10:46 PM
Perhaps not entirely relevant, but a herd of killer whales, in the first part of last century, helped the human whalers at Twofold Bay in New South Wales by herding humpbacks into range of the harpoons. The only reward they seemed to want was the lips of the humpbacks after they had been killed--the humans were welcome to all the rest.
Apart from the lips, the orcas liked to take the tongue of whalers' kills. The town of Eden, ~500k south of Sydney on the Far South Coast of New South Wales, is on Twofold Bay. It's the last big settlement before the Victorian border if you're travelling the coastal route Sydney-Melbourne. Whaling and sealing were a very early substantial industry around Australia, and survived into the 20th Century. Some whale jawbones displayed around Sydney Harbour have only been removed in the last couple of decades.
The story of the "Killers of Eden" has been put into at least a couple of books, Killers of Eden: The Killer Whales of Twofold Bay, by Tom Mead. and Killers in Eden, by Danielle Clode.
Here are the local Eden Community Access Centre History of Eden page, and one for the Eden Killer Whale Museum.
And some stories from the ABC Site:
Ockahm's Razor: Killers in Eden Broadcast Sunday 3 November 2002, with Robyn Williams; Whales, Fish & Sealions Andrew Trites on the Science Show, Saturday 29 May 2004; Eden Killers Radio National Breakfast, 8:24am - Tuesday 30 July 2002, with Danielle Clode
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