We got to see firsthand how people reacted to just the mention of ‘Ajolote’ (their local name for the reptile). It seems that everyone has heard of the creature and everyone knows of its ability to burrow into the human body. It’s quite sad to think that people can be so ignorant and ultimately react adversely towards such an amazing and harmless animal.
Interesting. Our “Muchacha” told us a myth about another Mexican “Ajolote” (maybe genus Ambystoma) near Toluca. People catch and eat them because they think it’s an aphrodisiac.
One myth that is quite common is that army ants prey on large mammals and defoliate trees, while mammals might be in danger of injury or death from bites and stings if they are unable to walk out of the path of the ants, or caught in their sleep, army ants really aren’t looking for large animals, they are predators of insects, and will attack other small animals too, but large mammals aren’t their intended prey, and the popular conception of ants stripping animals to the bone is totally unrealistic
Army ants are strictly predators, the idea that they defoliate trees likely comes from confusion with leafcutter ants, which do form large columns to gather leaves, and have a nasty bite, but aren’t predators, and only bite to defend themselves
This is apparently a common misconception in the UK. Beavers were hunted to extinction hunted to extinction in the 16th century. Beavers are now back in the UK - there has been one official reintroduction in Scotland, and larger unlicensed population in Scotland, plus a small population on a river in South West England due to a unlicensed or accidental release. There are also a number of small semi-wild (fenced) populations.
One of the barriers to getting people to support beaver reintroduction is this misconception, or the misconception that beaver dams prevent fish migrating. Someone blamed C.S. Lewis for this misconception due to the Mr. and Mrs. Beaver in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe eating meat. If that’s true that’s even weirder. my assumption is that people think beavers must be a bit like otters so have similar diet.
The single coyote luring a dog into a pack ambush is very real, and my parents watched it happen to their very large pitbull mix from their porch. Luckily she was able to get back but she shat herself she ran so fast.
I’ve heard a few interesting ones over the years–all of these myths were “collected” in North Carolina, USA:
-Snakes will crawl into a sleeping baby’s mouth and suffocate it. I found a similar myth referenced from Mexico: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346321?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
-You can repel snakes by chopping up a dead snake and scattering it around your yard.
-Some snakes will chase you. (I think this sort of observation often comes from the behavior of Black Racers, which will follow large animals, including naturalists, in my experience. I imagine they are looking for the large animal to flush some prey. I believe this is called autolycism.)
-Edit. Another good one. Rattlesnakes and non-venomous snakes (such as Black Rat Snakes, I guess) will hybridize, so you get a venomous snake that looks like a non-venomous one.
-If you hear an Eastern Screech Owl outside your house, someone will die soon (this heard recounted by a Cherokee woman). Of course many cultures consider owls to be bad omens.
-Another myth heard from Cherokee country in the mountains of North Carolina was that Hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) are venomous. I think that one is pretty widespread.
As a kid in Alabama, USA I was told that dark-morph Romalea microptera would spit blood at you if you disturbed them. While they do have a fluid defense I somehow doubt they can shoot jets of it at predators.
Plants are the bottom of the food chain for the entire planet and are pollinated by bees so without bees all life on Earth will cease to exist. Bees are nearing extinction which is proved by the fact that tens of thousands of bees die every year.
I wish the doctrine of signatures would crawl into a hole and die.
(Doctrine of signatures: if something (usually a plant or plant part, but, in this case, an animal) has some resemblance to a part of human anatomy, it must be useful for treating ailments associated with that part of human anatomy).
Ahmad ibn Fadlan was an Arab who travelled in the Nordic countries in the 10th century and wrote remarkably accurately about a lot of the things he saw on his travels, including beavers and their dam-building. Of course, it’s not accurate by modern standards: not only did he mention that beavers eat fish as well as trees, but check this out:
The beaver is a wonderful animal. It lives in the great rivers and builds houses on land, at
the edge of the water. It makes a kind of high platform for itself and to the right another,
less high, for its wife and to the left another, for its children. Below, there is a place for its
slaves. The house has a door which gives on to the river and another, higher up, on to the
land. Sometimes, it eats the wood known as khalanj ; at other times it eats fish. Some
beavers are jealous of others, and make them prisoners.
Those who trade in those lands and through the country of Bulghar have no trouble in
distinguishing the fur of slave beavers from those of the masters. This is because the slave
beaver cuts the wood of the khalanj and other trees with its teeth, and as it gnaws them, they
rub its sides and its hair falls off right and left. Hence they say, ‘This pelt is from the servant
of the beaver.’ The fur of the beaver who owns slaves, on the other hand, is perfect.
Yes- he’s repeating the popular mythology that you’ll encounter in social and other media, tongue in cheek.
The counter-analogy I often see is that trying to fix the problem of pollinator decline by keeping honeybee hives is like starting a chicken farm to save wild birds for extinction. I think it’s a pretty good analogy.
Farmers move to intensive agriculture, mow nests and chicks to death, drain their land and pump it full of pesticides and all the meadow birds disappear? The foxes did it.
Fishermen overfish the waters so badly that all large mature fish are gone and half the species have gone extinct? The cormorants did it.
Farmers over-fertilize their land with ridiculous amounts of artificial fertilizer and all the wildflowers and insects disappear? It was the geese who shat on my land that enriched the ground.