When most of us imagine scientists, we picture white lab coats, sparkling work benches, and tidy, controlled experiments. We do not tend to imagine accidentally exchanging saliva with dead animals or gluing oneself to a large carnivore.
But such is the nature of field work, a romantic-sounding activity that, in reality, is a bit like strapping a bunch of live grenades to rabid dogs and setting them loose in a city. I was a science grad student in a previous life, and the worst thing that ever happened to me was getting lost in the woods and having to hitchhike down a Puerto Rican mountainside in the rain with a bunch of soon-to-be-slaughtered chickens on the back of some nice old gentleman’s truck.
Others have seen the far side of hell. Beginning late last week, scientists came out of the woodwork to share their #fieldworkfail stories — proving once and for all that these are some of the weirdest, toughest, most harebrained crazies you’ll ever meet. God bless ‘em.
Contact the author at maddie.stone@gizmodo.com or follow her on Twitter.