Just dumb things that you heard people say about certain creatures, some I heard in real life for me are; ‘‘gecko salvia if comes into contact with the scalp will make you bald.’’ ‘‘Pigeon’s (specifically Columba livia domestica) carry the most diseases known to mankind’’ ‘‘Goldfish have a 3 seco…

Yeah I was internally screaming “name one!”. What I really wanted to do was explain habitat corridors to her. She’s on a 14 mile bike path that runs through the northern farmland in the county and the path has a fifty foot buffer on either side, so yeah, every coyote in the northern part of the co…

As far as I know there is one confirmed case of an adult being killed in a predatory attack, though I have heard of stalking behavior and nonfatal attacks, as well as predation attempts on children that were stopped by parents, so they are a species to be careful of, but “all those stories about peo…

Genesis 3:14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life." Uhh, snakes do not eat dust.

This one still persists and is a surprisingly popular misconception, “Mosquitos are ecologically useless”

I think this was a reference to the inevitability of ingesting dust if ones mouth is next to the ground, not necessarily a reference to diet

Gar are “bad fish that eat all the other fish,” so you should kill them when you see them. Didn’t catch a big trophy bass today? It’s the gars’ fault. They have eaten all the fish.

I’ve seen coyotes go nearly senseless with panic because they can’t get away from a human fast enough. I would be very surprised if there are any confirmed cases of a healthy coyote displaying any kind of aggressive behavior toward humans. Unless you count attempts to escape.

There’s a ton of myths about snakes but one that I found especially odd was this: “If you cut one in half, it’ll split into two snakes.”

I wonder if that is a variation of “If you cut a worm in half, it will split into 2 new worms”?

The dumbest myths you heard about animals

Nature Talk

apusaffinis January 19, 2024, 10:28am 141

And if leglessness is such a curse, why have so many other animals also evolved leglessness!

Topic		Replies	Views
Weird and Strange Animal Myths Nature Talk	76	4682	December 25, 2019
Tell me your favourite animal fun fact! Nature Talk	78	6027	September 1, 2023
What animals make you cringe? Nature Talk	185	10936	September 16, 2022
Popular (?) sentiments regarding snakes; teaching moment Nature Talk	57	2348	June 6, 2022
Naturalists ruin everything - what have you ruined for your friends? Nature Talk mostly-humor	391	15506	August 5, 2026

The dumbest myths you heard about animals

Related topics