There are stories of envenomation from the legs, but the front pincers are what is actually venomous, these stories are probably fabrications, unusual allergic reactions, or cases of secondary infection from scratches
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Well, govt employees know things (wink wink)
A claim not that easy to dismiss actually. Various places or countries manage to track in near-real-time each and every individual in low-numbered populations of precious critters e.g. lynx, brown bear, wild sheep, bearded vulture… not to mention cellphone owners.
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Re: porcupines throwing their spines, it might come from people seeing the spines embedded in wood. I’ve seen that a few times. It’s evidence of a porcupine getting frightened and possibly swinging its tail at an adversary near that piece of wood. Example 1, example 2, example 3
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A lot of catfish have spines, sometime venomous spines (~1,500 species in over 100 genera), on their dorsal or pectoral fins. Most people have no clue about catfish anatomy, though, so if they’ve been spined by a catfish, they might not know what part of the body did it.
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Well, this isn’t exactly a myth; more like a manifestation of wishful thinking. When the sign on a barbecue joint has a picture of a pig wearing a napkin and licking its lips, or the sign on a chicken joint has a picture of a chicken wearing a chef’s hat…
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Oops, wrong thread.
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Unsurprisingly, there are a bunch of those around here. Every time I see one, I can’t help but think of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Milliway’s Restaurant, and the Dish of the Day.
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I heard a myth about the species Homo sapiens that their actions have no effect upon the climate.
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A myth that I’ve been stamping out lately is regarding Coyotes:
(read in a voice of righteous indignation) “Ooooh, we used to have pheasants and foxes and quail, but then, coyotes started to increase and drove the others out. Oh why don’t we kill off those awful Coyotes?”
Because yes, our destroying all available habitat had absolutely nothing to do with the disappearance of all those fun species. It’s fun to see the dawning comprehension on people’s faces when they realize that coyotes are just a little more adaptable than the others and had little if anything to do with their disappearance.
A related one was from a while ago, but a coworker and I were doing maintenance on the 14 mile bike trail we have and a woman stopped us to ask if it was safe to be out here. I thought that question was a bit odd considering that she was already out here and had apparently already determined the safety. But then I thought she was wondering if drug deals and the like take place in such isolated places, and started to assure her of the safety. She responded with: “because you read all those stories about people being killed by coyotes.” I had to let my coworker deal with that.
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I can’t say as I’ve ever managed to find any such stories.
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I’ve always admired coyotes since I realized how good they were at exploiting humanity’s expansion throughout North America. Despite all the extermination campaigns they always bounced back and moved into new places right behind us.
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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 county is right up here with her. Might be 100 of 'em following you (ominous lightning strikes).
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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 people being killed by coyotes” is some serious hyperbole
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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.
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This one still persists and is a surprisingly popular misconception, “Mosquitos are ecologically useless”
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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
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And if leglessness is such a curse, why have so many other animals also evolved leglessness!
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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