Top 10 Untrue Myths About Animals

Where this one came from, I can't say. Modern dehydrated rice is different from wild grains, but in order to expand it needs to be submerged in boiling water, not a teeny little bird's stomach. The idea that any bird would be killed by eating any sort of grain is odd ...when you think about it. But it won't go away. Everyone thinks that birds will explode when the rice expands. People won't stop thinking this is true. And fine, it seems like a silly tradition anyway, so I guess if people stop throwing rice, it's a good thing.

Plus, lots of hard little bits of uncooked rice + concrete church steps could spell trouble for aging inlaws.

All bats can see to some extent. That's why they have eyes. And most bats employ echolocation, which is like a kind of sonar... allowing them to "see" in greater detail than you or I ever could. how else do you think these little guys can locate the tiniest flying gnat in near-darkness?

This is a myth I'm pretty fine with keeping out there. Anything that keeps kids and well-meaning adults from picking up baby birds. Not because the mother won't want them anymore -- birds don't exactly have the greatest sense of smell, so they would neve know if their children had been pawed by humans -- but because people have giant meaty hands and baby birds are tiny, delicate things. Also, the main reason a baby bird might be out of its nest would be because it was learning to fly. So, seriously, leave it be.

The better question is: how dangerous are dogs in general? Any dog is capable of attacking a human. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year, with 885,000 needing medical attention. Is there a higher percentage of these due to Pit Bull?

No. Sorry, haters. It's kind of easy to pick on this dog because it was bred to fight, but many breeds of dog were trained to kill things and they don't get banned from parks or buildings simply because of their breed. German Shepards, Rotties, Dobies, and Chows are all bred from a line meant for aggression. But in the end, we've picked the Pit to malign.

Actually, they stopped trying to keep statistics on specific breeds of biters a few years back because it was proving to be useless data. There are too many variables, and guess what those variables are?

The people who own them.

I am pretty sure no one really believes this one anymore. Maybe not even little kids.

This myth probably came into existence when mothers wanted a way to have their children stop picking up animals outside for fear they had diseases and were dirty. The lumpy toad became the culprit because it did not look like the smooth coated frog. These lumps help toads live in dry climates unlike most frogs, which require moisture. They also blend into their environment with textures made possible by the wart like protrusions.

Warts are viruses, and they don't come from toads.