I’ve actually heard a few. In my back home country, owls are considered to have no intelligence because they are awake at night. Even calling someone an owl is an insult over there. I try to explain and convince my friends about this issue and how it really is the opposite, but many don’t really believe me.
4 Likes
The page for the festival has me smiling. If the actual ‘do’ is as much fun, D and I might have to make a field trip out there sometime!
2 Likes
Most traditional Chinese “remedies” are mythical at best I would say.
Hmm yes rhino horn, a soup of this will surely solve my erectile dysfunction. What say you? Human hair, nails and skin contain keratin too. Maybe but it’s proto-beta-maxima-sigma keratin I need, not that cheap, self-replenishing alpha-keratin. Checkmate loser conservationist
7 Likes
and the South Australian Government’s list of mammals, both native and introduced, omits Homo sapiens. I guess they’re closer to god.
8 Likes
Wow! I’ll jump in for this one.
250 years ago roo numbers used to be controlled bottom up by lack of water and by lack of food, and top down by aboriginals and dingos eating them. And 5000 years ago, by tassie devils and thylacines. Normal population dynamics, they would build up in ‘good years’,and so would predators. Then in ‘bad years’, top down and bottom up controls would re-assert, roos would die off. There would still be plenty of vegetation left - food & habitat for other things.
Now, we have water points everywhere in pastoral land, and grass in grazing land, and no predation, and because ‘animal lovers’ vote, governments are reluctant to allow culls. So roos proliferate, overgraze & overbrowse, kill veg, wipe out habitats, and finally die horrible death by starvation and thirst.
Ideally (I’m an ecologist, not a farmer), we’d get rid of sheep, minimally support roos, harvest them. Roos use 1/7 the water (it’s Australia, remember) and make 1/7 the methane that sheep do. Roos have soft feet, not chiselling hooves, so they don’t smash the soil. Their meat is comparable to sheep. They need less care. They are the ideal ‘free range’ crop.
And the notion of ‘wrong and cruel’? Apart from the above, how does a bullet in the brain (95% of the time, or several minutes of pain from a poor shot), compare with a 30 day death from starvation & thirst or being eaten alive by a dingo, or running away with a spear in you for 2 hours.
HTH
19 Likes
Is this where the word shampoo comes from? Not real poo, but good for your hair all the same.
3 Likes
Thank you so much for the explanation : )
https://nickswildlife.org/2016/11/12/venom-poison-or-both/
Except for the few that are both :D
2 Likes
When I was little our house was infested with Asian Lady Beetles and my little sister who was only a year or two old at the time was obsessed with munching on them and no matter how hard my mom tried she still managed to consistently get her hands on them XD. (she was fine but its still a very amusing story)
4 Likes
wow, she used to snack on ladybugs?! 
@alfamax, I’ve also heard the “horses, mules, and donkeys are dumb” myth, plus “horses are mean and hateful.” It really baffles me. I worked with horses for about 12 years, and most “bad behavior” was due to pain, stress, or mishandling. All individuals have different personalities, but horses that have been treated well really don’t want to hurt people and are calmer in the presence of a person. I once fell down in a muddy pasture, and one of the geldings raced out, roaring like a monster (had never heard a horse outright roar before), to defend me from one of the LGDs that also was rushing over to me. They can really care about their handlers! Another would open the locks on his stall to try to escape (we eventually had to use a padlock to keep that stinker in). You’d see him just watching you as you did the locks, trying to learn how you did it.
I’ve heard people say goats are stupid, as well. Anyone who claims goats are stupid is probably more stupid than a goat, and should be avoided.
The myth that feral cats are “natural” also drives me bananas.
My fiance believed the wives’ tale that @swampster mentioned that cellar spiders are highly venomous, but have chelicerae too small to bite people. I was a bit stunned he believed that!
2 Likes
The myth I remember best is that snakes can only strike about 1/3 of their body length forward. But they can strike twice their length backwards.
2 Likes
Since I keep aquariums I know quite a few daft myths which frequently circulate, here are a few.
1- fish only grow to the size of their tank so I can keep my gigantic oscar in a 30 gallon no prob ( this is your fish essentially being stunted by tank size and poor water quality which shortens lifespan and leaves you with a deformed and stressed fish)
2- The goldfish have a three second memory myth
3- betta fish live in puddles so I can keep him in an unfiltered bowl ( a half truth where in reality said puddles are often significantly large and usually temporary as well as frequently having lots of vegetation and replenishment from rain)
4- plecos clean aquariums by eating algae and fish poop and as such don’t need feeding, usually the plecos in question are pterygoplichthys which need a varied diet of actual food and resort to eating fish poop to keep themselves alive. This is also said for others like clown and bristlenose plecos ( which I own) where clowns feed mostly on wood and the odd pellet that drifts near them and bristlenoses which also have no interest in poop but are fishy dustbins that eat anything remotely edible.
5- cichlids are cichlids. This is rather less commonly said but quite common amongst people with little experience with cichlids, I see tanks where there are fish from rift lakes in Africa, softer water bodies in Africa, North America, South America, Central America and everywhere in between. People argue about water parameters but usually its more about their hierarchies and personalities
and lastly 6- bettas are always aggressive with other fish species. I have owned 4 bettas before. 3 males where one was peaceful and 2 were aggressive and a passive female who currently lives in a community tank , It varies from fish to fish but Its annoying to see this being spread. I don’t particularly like keeping bettas anyway since they usually succumb to dropsy after a few years an waste away due to being mad inbred like neon tetras and guppies.
6 Likes
No idea why Pholcus have so many poor myths, any animal which readily eats craneflies is a friend in my book and deserves to live in my house free of charge. Apparently false widows also took my belief quite readily and have been multiplying like crazy but they’re invasive pests that eat all my cool moths that visit my light.
3 Likes
I’ve heard that before, and I found out when I stayed on a farm that it is actually not true, goats are literal geniuses.
6 Likes
Really? I’ve no idea what the real ranges are, but I’d expect it to be the other way around.
1 Like
Yup, she absolutely loved to according to my mom. My mom could always tell when she had eaten them cause supposedly they made her breath smell. She is in college now and both mortified and amused by the fact that toddler her ate ladybugs for fun.
2 Likes
I suppose that it’s not any worse than the dog kibble or carpet lint that were part of toddlers’ diets in my family. And yes; identities are being withheld to protect the guitly and embarrassed. 
Not an animal, but my usually sensible Mamaw used to tell me that Mock Strawberries were poisonous. Given that I would eat them by the kilo as soon as they were anything resembling ripe, either she was very wrong about that, or I’m an unusually eloquent zombie.
1 Like
You are correct in recognizing their distinct personalities. During my time at a horse stud, we had two Arabian stallions. One displayed a spirited nature, while the other exuded remarkable calmness, almost unshakable. These characteristics were noticeably inherited by their offspring, indicating a genetic element in addition to the factors you mentioned, such as environment, handling, and past experiences. Horses possess the ability to forge deep connections with humans and other animals, as indicated in your account of the gelding that protected you.
2 Likes
Funnily enough that same sister did try the dog’s food when she was in high school because she wanted to know what he was eating.
I grew up hearing that as well and was always terrified I would drop dead given how often I would eat them when ever they showed up in our back yard
2 Likes