Honey.
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And jaguars (native to North America, including much of the USA although sadly largely extirpated) are technically roaring cats.
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Since Bed Bugs (Cimex lectularius) can already be a trauma-inducing life experience, it may not be a good idea to share a “fun fact” about how they reproduce, called traumatic insemination, which thankfully doesn’t involve people in the process.
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Were you thinking about things like Chagas disease and Lyme disease or something bacterial like Sepsis?
The 24 hour lifespan of flies thing is definitely not correct and I have no idea where it originated. Flies are incredibly diverse and so are their lifespans. I can’t think of a single fly that can finish its entire life cycle (hatch from egg, several instars, pupate, to adult) in a day but maybe there are some. Even if that were true, that is certainly not most flies.
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I just realized that this is just for mayflies. oops…
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Pointing out the sheer amount of invasive species everywhere and seeing the dread creep across their once cheery faces :(
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How dragonflies mate.
Cannibalistic owls is always fun.
Honey Bees.
Songbirds as predators can be an enjoyable conversation (for me).
I would say outdoor cats, but every single person I’ve ever told about how many animals cats kill a year… well, their cat doesn’t. Somehow I’ve never met a single person whos cat kills anything. Weird. (voice dripping with sarcasm if it wasn’t obvious)
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Mayflies don’t live for a day either…mayfly adults may live for a day, but their whole life cycle takes a lot longer than that!
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woah now let’s not let this one spiral out of control
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Booooo… Hisss… 
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Yes! But I’m more than happy to ruin my outdoor cat acquaintances day. Whenever they say that their cat’s killing of birds and rodents is ‘just part of nature’ I’m more than happy to tell them that if they truly want their cat to be part of nature they should stop feeding it and taking it to the vet. Needless to say I haven’t had any takers.
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Sorry but that is a myth. While shark attacks are tracked very carefully deaths due to coconuts are not. The original calculations of ‘death due to coconut’ were done by a doctor that worked on a plantation and who extrapolated from his experience of injured workers. To the best of my knowledge there is no repository for coconut deaths.
There you go, another example of a naturalist ruining the day.
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This might not meet the criteria exactly but it’s what comes to mind. My son is like a vault of information and he frequently will point an animal or plant out and say what it is and sometimes has a fun fact or little tidbit to share. And he does this with everybody, all the time. I’m very close friends with one of his friend’s dad, and he texted me a couple months ago because of something his son said that floored him because of the strangeness and lack of context. His son had learned from my son, a certain fact about a certain lake duck, so I need not explain further what the fact was. But I guess his friend just had randomly announced it at dinner to his family and his dad was not anticipating such a thing to be said. Sharing knowledge doesn’t ruin anything I don’t think, but I think my son may have inadvertently ruined the vibe at dinner. And probably all their appetites. We’ve all laughed about it a lot. And I can’t help but feel proud that that’s the kind of thing you learn from hanging out with my son.
Hey, learning is learning.
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Can’t forget Adelie Penguins too!
On a similar topic, I’ve ruined the way many people look at barnacles too… if you know, you know
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I didn’t even notice that!
One thing that freaks out alot of people is that a teaspoon of soil contain up to 1billion bacteria. I love telling them that when their hands are covered dirt from gardening. LoL
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In the park where I work, we are constantly getting people worried about mountain lions, bears, and rattle snakes. They are very disappointed to hear that while these species occur in the park, we have never had problems from any of them, but that turned-ankles, heat-exhaustion, and sunburn are frequent issues.
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I think I saw it elsewhere here - but opportunism in “herbivores” (mainly ungulates) is a big one. A lot of casuals know a bit about it now from those viral videos of deer or horses eating birds, but bringing it further with how a few animals will regularly eat straight meat (porcupines eating from bones, hippos eating from carcasses, pigs eating… well, just about any source of food) help to further erode any notion that this is a freak accident of some kind. Also, keep in mind - whales and dolphins are ungulates! They’re some of the most voracious carnivores the modern day has to offer.
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