The dumbest myths you heard about animals

Recently, I saw a tour guide in Isla Contoy telling people that horseshoe crabs sting very painfully and dangerously with their tails (telsons). He said that the tails dig deep into skin, and that the barbs made it impossible to pull them. The truth is that they never try to sting.

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sounds like stingrays

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Yes, they are believed to do the same as stingrays.

Did you fail to stir counterclockwise? Maybe that’s why it didn’t work.

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Although a black angus steak is pretty tasty.

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Actually the term “dinosaur” was first used to describe large extinct vertebrate animals by Sir Richard Owen in 1842.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur

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I live in an area where mountain lions are reasonably common, and I’ve glimpsed a few of them from time to time. I never understood how anyone could possibly confuse anything else for a lion… until one day I was climbing around in a brushy creekside, I turned around, and I’d have sworn on my life I was looking right at a mountain lion walking along the edge of the embankment. Then I blinked, and it was suddenly an brownish-orange house cat, a hundred feet closer than I’d thought.

It was such a bizarrely disorienting moment. Something about the slope of the terrain and my line of sight made it seem further away than it was, and therefore my brain decided it must be absolutely enormous.

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I agree with your above Comment 100 percent. All these are nonsense.

Oh! You took the words right out of my mind. I appreciate the action taken by you regarding the 'Selfie with Bear" incident. All such actions e.g Selfie with some wild creatures etc are stupidity only. My utmost respect to U.
Now a cocktail of the topic mixed with your valuable comments:


Mozilla’s Firefox is not a Fox.
The Himalayan Red Panda is perhaps the most cute and adorable-looking animal of our country. They are not dangerous animals, but may always attack his threat with its claws and teeth. Love should be expressed from a distance away from him/her without touching/disturbing him/her.

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Yes, although he wanted to do a good deed, it was a very foolish act in a wild area which normally become harmful to the cub and the rescuer rather than security. Usually their mothers stay nearby or keep them there purposely for some reasons. Recently I was in a Forest, where in a Zone (named Zone-3) a Tigress presently lives with her three cubs. One morning we saw the Tigress alone is roaming in Zone-4 without her cubs. When we enquired about the fact, the forest guards confirmed that her cubs are OK. The tigress placed her 3 cubs in a hided grassland area in her Zone-3 and went out for a kill. Yes, we spotted (glimpses of hem and movement of grasses there) her cubs hiding in the tall grass area in Zone 3. Normally (almost as a rule) the cubs never come out from the hide-out where their mother has placed them unless and until their Mother gives a call to them. In such situation, it never becomes a wise job to lift the cubs from there presuming they have been lost from their mother. The same, if at all become necessary for any inevitable reasons (such as death of their Tigress mother) etc, requires 100% confirmation and a lot of monitoring that too by the proper authorities.

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Regarding the Mozilla/Firefox logo, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

It’s meant to be a red panda, but vis-a-vis the logo itself:

A firefox is actually a cute red panda, but it didn’t really conjure up the right imagery. The only concept I had done that I felt happy with was this, inspired by seeing a Japanese brush painting of a fox.

While the animal seen on the icon is undoubtedly a fox, in fact, the word “firefox” actually refers to the red panda. Why isn’t then a red panda featured on the logo? As Hicks explained, very few people know that a “firefox” means a panda.

So, yes, they are referring to the Red Panda in the name ‘Firefox’ (and old alternative name for the Red Panda), but they’re also using an actual fox as the logo instead of a Red Panda. Makes the whole thing a bit messy.

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And on top of it all a red panda is not a panda or a fox

It’s the Giant Panda that’s not a panda. Giant Pandas are bears.

The term ‘panda’ originally referred specifically to the Red Panda, and they are the true pandas.

Red Pandas are in the Musteloidea, specifically the Ailuridae family, closely related to
Mephitidae (skunks and stink badgers), and to the common ancestor of Procyonidae (raccoons, coatis, kinkajous) and Mustelidae (weasels, otters, badgers)

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Weird, all the nature books I had as a kid said red pandas were not pandas, and giant pandas were pandas not bears

If that’s what those books said they were very wrong.

The giant panda was named after the red panda, and was given the ‘panda’ name because there are some superficial similarities with the red panda.

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I believe this, I just find it weird how as a kid who was into animals all my books and videos saied “panda bear” is a misnomer because pandas aren’t bears, and that red pandas aren’t pandas. When I saw pandas under bears in iNat I just assumed there was a taxonomic merge of pandas into bears sometime in the last 20 years, but it turns out every source I was exposed to when I was young had the taxonomy backwards!

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My hypothetical theory regarding messing a Firefox with a Fox in the logo (I won’t tell it an ‘Explanation’):
It’s like naming of Google- Intention was ‘googol’ misspelled as ‘Google’ and that stood. It was never felt necessary to rectify the same.
Here also the same issue: The term Firefox (Red Panda) misunderstood as a 'Fox, drawn a ‘fiery’ Fox from the inspiration of the Japanese painting. That stood and more more modified as a normal Fox later, on every modification stages. It could have been otherwise also. The fox of the logo could have been changed to a true Firefox (Red Panda), on the later modification stages, but that was not felt necessary, decided or intended later on.
Repeat: My imagination only.

This logic couldn’t not satisfy me (It is like few people know that ‘BlueBull’ is a Nilgai Antelope, so a Bull (adult male of the cow family) has been drawn as a BlueBull), Anyways, all these are Creator’s decision ( who is a far far better skillful and competent imaginator.).

@earthknight has explained the matter fully. Fully going with him.
A small addition to make it further clearer- ‘Panda’ came from a Nepali word where Red Pandas are seen but Giant Pandas are not seen. As Red Pandas were discovered earlier, it is obvious the Nepal’s Panda (Red) is the species who was firstly named ‘Panda’ before discovery of the somewhat similar looking Bears Species of China, who has been given a name 'Giant Panda" after the “Red Panda”.

That was also my experience. Pandas are bears… no, Pandas are not bears… well yes, Pandas are bears, but Panda bears are not Pandas… wait, what?!
I, too, just assumed that the taxonomy had changed in the past few decades.

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I’m well aware I work part time as a museum educator so I get a lot of dinosaur related conspiracy theories in dinosaur hall which is my favorite spot to teach

Recently, I was looking at the taxon page for Tyrannosaurus. Under the “Taxonomy” tab, I find that it is in the extinct Class Dinosauria. Which means that it isn’t a reptile, because reptiles are Class Reptilia. Well, if that’s the case, then birds actually wouldn’t be reptiles either.

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What would people say is a conspiracy about dinosaurs??

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