OK so have you ever seen a pelican yawn? Because if you haven't I need you to stop what you're doing and prepare yourself, because what happens when a pelican opens its beak REALLY wide is the kind of thing that makes you question everything you thought you understood about how bodies work.

A video has been making the rounds showing a pelican doing that thing where it stretches its beak open and... there's no gentle way to describe this. It looks like the pelican is pulling its own spine out through its mouth. Like a long thin wiggly bone structure just casually slides up from the bird's throat area and sits there above its beak while the pelican chills like everything is completely normal.

And people are LOSING it in the comments which, fair.

The beautiful and deeply weird truth is that this is NOT a spine. According to experts who spoke with AFP Fact Check what you're actually seeing is the pelican's gular pouch, which is that big stretchy pouch of skin under the beak, stretching up and over the bird's neck when it yawns. Because nature has a truly unhinged sense of humor the stretched pouch looks EXACTLY like the bird is removing its own vertebrae through its face.

You can watch the full video here and I strongly recommend you do because no amount of my describing it will prepare you for actually seeing it.

And honestly pelican beaks are already absurd BEFORE you learn about the fake spine situation. Their lower beak has this massive pouch of skin that they use like a net to scoop up fish then drain the water out and swallow. The whole thing is like if a fishing boat and a grocery bag had a baby and gave it wings.

Birds are just out here existing on a completely different plane of structural weirdness and I am so grateful for it. Like the fact that we share a planet with an animal that accidentally convinces people it's performing self-spine-removal just by yawning is a gift. The world is absurd in the best possible way and pelicans are living proof.

Go watch the video. Send it to your group chat with no context. You know what to do.