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Crocodiles prefer to eat black people. The people who say this also tend to have very racist, but also peculiar, assumptions about the diet and body composition of different ethnicities.
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If a house gecko calls after someone speaks in a room, everything that was said is / will come true. I guess if you had a little persistence and a good sized population of them to work with, you could game the system and turn them into some sort of budget fairy godmother.
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Catfish sting with their tails, like scorpions.
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Following up on the woolly worm forecast, here’s a video from this year’s festival if you want to see and hear people cheering on their caterpillars in a race to the top. 
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Yes, that is a common bit of folklore in Eastern North America, though I have heard it that they will poke people with their “tails” (abdominal appendages), so are called “devil’s darning needles”. A zoologist friend in North Carolina told me he thinks this may come from some female darners (or hawkers, Aeshnidae) that oviposit in wet logs. He thinks that on occasion they may poke at a person’s bare leg, mistaking it for a log. Some related European myths about dragonflies, including various nefarious associations–see Wikipedia–Dragonfly in culture.
Edit. That dragonflies actually can give people a painful jab with their ovipositors is mentioned in Corbet’s Dragonflies: Behavior and Ecology of Odonata (Cornell Univ. Press, 1999, pp. 17, 561), and that work documents cases of dragonflies delivering a painful jab when trying to oviposit in a human leg or arm. The reference cited by Corbet for folk names is available online. That is fascinating reading.
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One I’ve heard a (well-educated) friend repeat is that “Lovebugs” (March Flies/Bibionidae:Plecia nearctica) were introduced and/or genetically engineered to control mosquitos in Florida, and the introduction/experiment had failed, creating a pest species. For debunking, see the discussion from the University of Florida IFAS Extension Service–Living with Lovebugs.
I’m from Germany so it appears to be quite a lot more common a tale than I thought. I even previously believed that it was exclusive to my grandma’s side of the family as I’ve never heard it anywhere else.
As for them trying to oviposit eggs into our legs, I’ve luckily never had that happen to me, though a few dragonflies have landed on them. Hopefully I’ll never be mistaken for a wet log in the future too. Haha
The concept of a catfish with a stinger tail is a fascinating theoretical concept, As for the whole crocodile thing there might be the tiniest sliver of truth in it, I know that with some snake keepers they ( questionably) report that some snakes will only accept rabbits of a certain coat colour but idk if crocs are the same and the colour vision of reptiles is something I have absolutely no knowledge of. I do have intentions in a few years to visit Sierra Leone and see my relatives there so maybe ( as someone who’s half black) the Nile crocs will view me as a delectable snack when I do some dip netting in the rivers there, but that’s just a theory, a croc theory.
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Yes, good one. I’ve actually had a racer shadow me while walking through old field habitat. I think it was expecting me to flush up a grasshopper or other prey. I imagine they do this with cattle, etc., as well. I am guessing that is the origin of the myth that they chase people. This sort of behavior is called autolycism. (An uncommon term apparently, from the mythical Greek robber Autolycos.)
In a similar instance, I had an Eastern Wood Pewee watch me closely as I tried to photograph an American Lady butterfly. I flushed the butterfly and the Pewee grabbed it with a snap.
I feel that this sort of behavior is responsible for many instances of “the snake chased me” incidents.
Edit. Am not sure who coined the term autolycism. Further research needed.
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Nice to see so many that are enthusiastic about these little woolly bears, if only the British population were that enthusiastic about reintroducing wolves and lynx and celebrated a yearly lynxfest.
Thanks for mentioning these. I had no idea what they were. They are not part of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Although I am an American, it seems that Chinese are no different from Americans who are chasing after the latest “superfood” based on very little other than wishful thinking. That’s always sad to see.
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I don’t doubt more black people are victims of crocodile attack than other races due to the fact that the areas where crocodiles are found (Africa, New Guinea and other Pacific Islands), have predominately black populations. Also in developing countries more people will be engaged in fishing, travelling in small watercraft and will need to access lakes and rivers to obtain water.
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- Crocodiles prefer to eat black people. The people who say this also tend to have very racist, but also peculiar, assumptions about the diet and body composition of different ethnicities.
That is very amusing myth, I dont think melanin affects the taste of meat
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How do you determine whether a certain product or practice is a part of Traditional Chinese Medicine? Do you base that statement on your own upbringing (the practices that were taught to you by another practitioner), or could you provideo online/literary sources to support it? Most search results I’ve consulted point toward the chinese bahaba’s (Bahaba taipingensis) main cause of decline being overfishing, partly thanks to to the value of its swim bladder to Chinese traditional medicine. Would you say the fish’s swim bladder became medicinally valuable only because it isn’t culinarily valuable?
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When I refer to Traditional Chinese Medicine (note the caps) I am talking about a specific style of Chinese medicine with a long history in China that is formally taught in the US. I received a Master’s degree and passed a national exam in order to qualify to practice. (Doctorates are required now.) I’m sure that you have noticed that the media, in their rush to get a story out, are not good at conveying the details, even crucial details. Chinese folk medicine attributes amazing qualities to innocuous plants and animals, usually so someone can make money. A native plant in eastern China has come close to extinction because it is “lucky” to decorate your plate on New Year’s Day with it. It’s not even edible. American folk medicine is not much different. If you read the People’s Pharmacy you will hear about families that touted the medicinal value of 7 Up (!). If you search online for medicinal uses of apple cider vinegar, you will find hundreds of them. When patients ask health care practitioners about these things we tell them they have no medical value, but that doesn’t mean that they will listen, and most of the time they don’t even ask. I am asking you to understand that folk magic beliefs and unscrupulous marketing can be very criminal and, of course, lead to environmental destruction. I am asking you to understand that folklore and urban myths are not the same as an established and licensed form of medical practice. If you say that Chinese medicine remedies are mythical, how is that different from the people who attacked Asian-American people during the pandemic because they blamed them for it? This essential detail that you have missed makes a world of difference. You can be sure that 2,000 years ago or 1,000 years ago some substances were used in Chinese medicine that are not considered medicinal or used now. China is a culture that values old things and traditions. Unscrupulous people who want to make money will take advantage of that. It’s just like in the US where youth and looking young are valued - Many unscrupulous people are eager to sell you some (often expensive) anti-aging product. The fact that I have not heard of these swim bladders means that it is extremely unlikely that they are used medicinally at this time.
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Here in Mexico, one of the few things people know about ecology is that honeybee abundance is directly proportional to ecosystem health, which is sadly not true. Since covid started, I´ve been picking random people to tell them about the truth concerning to bees (honeybees vs natives) and they really find it shocking.
Yes, most native bees are quite generalistic. But plants aren’t. Excluding flower oddities (buzz pollination, weird, very specific orchids that depend on specific bees, Malpighiaceae which give oils to Centris bees, squash flowers that depend on Peponapsis, etc.), many native plants (with some notable exceptions though, but still most of them) that appear not to have a marked pollination syndrome, at least here in tropical Mexico, attract tons of native bees (and other insects, of course), and not a single honeybee. Some of them attract mainly bees (in many cases only meliponines), and others will attract all kinds of bugs, but no honeybees at all (if you’re curious I can provide some examples). And very specialized plants that require some specific bee species are not rare either, they make a significant portion of a forest’s composition (or of whatever ecosystem). So, natives bees contribute hugely to floristic diversity: Even though most forage on a variety of flowers, many of those flowers depend exclusively on them.
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Do myths about other organisms, like plants or fungi, count?
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What I find more plausible: the snake, in its panic, fled in a random direction, and by chance that random direction happened to be toward (or semi-toward) the person. In other words, the same phenomenon as the mouse that runs across someone’s toes or the deer that jumps in front of their car.
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Just to follow up
While iNat appears to concentrate on photos (literally and figuratively ‘snapshots’), I’m more interested in processes and interaction over time, which snapshots are not so good for. I notice quite a few of my pix carry comments about species interactions, and time, or references to other pix for comparo.
That posting was a bit rough, and a bit simplistic, but was largely about population dynamics, modified by aboriginal and later European intervention.
If this notion is new to you, there are a few things you can chase up.
Google: yellowstone wolves elk
and see how small changes (kill off wolves to save livestock) make huge and unexpected differences (changes in stream shape and flow velocity, nutrient distribution, veg and animal species location & number, fire behaviour)
Similarly google: otter, sea urchin, kelp. Perhaps add fur trade, timber cutter, fishing industry.
And I just listened to this
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/katherine-moseby-science-arid-recovery-bilbies-natural-selection/13729324
the other day. Interesting chat, lots of similar processes coming into play.
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The world is racist. Black people are more likely to be poor, and lack the social safety nets that we rich white people enjoy (cars, swimming pools, motor boats, croc eradication) and have to take more chances to make a living. I don’t know if crocs prefer black people, but they certainly get more access to them.
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How many of you believed that handling frogs/toads would cause warts on your hands? I did, until I was surprisingly well along in life.
That said, this folklore/urban legend perhaps saved a lot of frogs from infections and stress due to being handled by humans.
OTOH, the belief that kissing a frog will result in getting a boyfriend likely offset that benefit.
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If that were the case, my hands would be one big bump. While adult me feels bad for the stress to the critters, nine-year-old me is still giggling over my cousin’s “ewww, ick, gross!” reaction, leading to being chased around the back 40. As I’ve said before, for a kid who was admired as being “all boy”, he sure was squeamish.
Serves him right for giving me grief about being a bookworm.
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