8 Animal Misconceptions Rundown

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0:048) Lets talk about Lemmings

0:06When you hear the word “lemmings” you might think of two things:

0:08This video game and some sort of small creature that suicidally leap off cliffs when its population

0:12grows too large.

0:13In case you didn’t know lemmings are real and adorable and not suicidal.

0:17The origin of this myth is a bit unclear but the video game lemmings may have done a lot

0:20more to convince a younger generation that lemmings are willfully suicidal – and extremely

0:23frustrating to micromanage thus deserving of mass extermination.

0:257) Daddly Longlegs

0:27These wispy-looking things have earned the reputation as the most poisonous of any spider.

0:31But they’re also pretty common so, you might wonder why more people don’t die from daddy

0:33longlegs bites every year.

0:35Like a good conspiracy theory, this myth, covers its own tracks by also saying that

0:38their fangs are too small to penetrate human skin.

0:40You could score one for team human except that this misconception is a triple whammy

0:43of wrongness:

0:441) Daddy Longlegs don’t have fangs because

0:462) They don’t produce venom because

0:473) They aren’t even spiders

0:496) Ostriches

0:51Let’s review the properties of these flightless birds, shall we?

0:53They’re up to nine feet tall, up to 340 pounds, aggressive, with sharp beaks and long

0:57claws.

0:58Essentially an ostrich is the closest thing to a living raptor you’re ever going to

1:00see.

1:01(That is our genetic engineering technology gets better – common dinopocapolipse!).

1:04Anyway, keeping these facts in mind, if you decide to threaten an ostrich do you really

1:08think it’s going to stick it’s head in the sand and wait to die?

1:10No, of course not, if you’re lucky it will run away at 40 miles an hour and if you’re

1:14not, it’s fatality time for you.

1:16Ostriches have no reason to hide and especially not in the stupidest way ever.

1:20If they did they would have survived about as long and another species of flightless

1:23bird.

1:24While we’re talking about flightless birds,

1:255) Baby Birds

1:26A mother bird won’t abandon her baby because you’ve touched it any more than a human

1:29mother would abandon her baby if a bird touched it.

1:32If you find a baby bird and can easily reach the nest, it’s perfectly fine to put it

1:35back.

1:364) Goldfish Memory

1:37Goldfish do have memories longer than three seconds or seven seconds or whatever other

1:41made up number always accompanies this fact.

1:43They can actually be trained and will remember what they learned for months.

1:45Which is more than can be said for many humans.

1:47On an unrelated note, Goldfish are also delicious.

1:493) Dog Vision

1:51Poor dogs, forever living in their sad, monochrome worlds.

1:54Except, they don’t.

1:55Dogs do see color, but not quite like us.

1:57Most humans see three primary colors, red blue and green, but dogs are limited to two:

2:01they can see blues, but the rest of the color spectrum they can’t tell apart.

2:05Which they don’t mind, until you buy them a red toy and throw it into the green grass

2:08and act like they’re stupid for not finding it.

2:10It’s easy for you to see because your ancestors spent several million years foraging for red

2:13objects on a green background and so got quite good at it – unless they didn’t which

2:16in that case they died – but canine eyes are not monkey eyes and to your dog, if it

2:20isn’t blue it’s all the same color.

2:21So next time you’re at the pet store, get rover a blue toy.

2:24And, while we’re talking about vision lets talk about

2:262) Bats

2:27Which, if you’ve ever looked at one, it should be immediately obvious they’re not

2:29blind because they look right back and you – with their eyes – that they use to see

2:33things.

2:34But they do one better by having an additional sense called echolocation that allows them

2:37to navigate the world in complete darkness, something you can’t do.

2:40So from the bat’s perspective you’re the blind one.

2:431) You Can Boil a Frog to Death if you do it very slowly

2:46This one is true… sort of.

2:48Friedrich Goltz, demonstrated that a frog will remain blithely in a pot of water brought

2:51to boil if the temperature is raised slowly enough.

2:54However, the rather salient fact that is often left out of the retelling is that Goltz cut

2:57out the frogs’ brains before placing them in the pot.

3:00Which rather puts them at a disadvantage.

3:03Goltz also showed that if you don’t lobotomize the frog first then – surprise – it jumps

3:06out of the pot.

3:07It seems likely – but please don’t try this at home – that removing the brain of

3:10any animal would rather hinder their instinct of self preservation.

3:13And also make them more gullible about common misconceptions.

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8 Animal Misconceptions Rundown

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