Scientists have worked tirelessly over the years to discover how our mysterious planet works. But along the way, many myths have popped up seemingly from nowhere. Here are ten common myths about nature debunked.
Baby Birds
Parents have warned their children not to put baby birds back in their nests for decades. According to this popular myth, the baby’s parents will smell your scent and abandon the chick. In reality, birds have a poor sense of smell. If you can return a baby bird to its nest, do it!
Touching Toads
We’ve all heard the common myth that you’ll get warts if you touch a toad. This is not true. Toads can’t give you warts. Although they might look warty, it has nothing to do with the virus that causes warts in humans. Touching a toad is safe as long as you wash your hands afterward.
Wait Before You Swim
Many parents will tell their children to wait an hour after eating to swim. But in reality, there is no proof to suggest that stomach cramps will set in if you swim after eating. It’s perfectly safe to swim after a nice meal.
Bats Get Tangled In Your Hair
Many people believe bats will accidentally fly at your head and get stuck in your hair. But in reality, they use echolocation to navigate in the dark. They can pinpoint something as small as a mosquito, which means that they know where you are, and they will do everything in their power to avoid crashing into you.
Porcupines
For years, people believed that if you got too close to a porcupine, it would shoot its quills at you and hurt you. Although they use their quills for defense, quills will only leave the porcupine’s skin once contact is made with another animal. Unless you touch them, you have nothing to worry about.
Moss
Many people will tell you that moss always grows on the north side of tree trunks in case you ever get lost in the woods. Although this is true, moss can also grow on the south, east, and west sides. Moss grows wherever conditions are cool and moist.
Opossums
Many people think opossums hang by their tails, and although they use their tails to grasp branches as they climb trees, they can’t actually hang from them. A baby opossum can hang from its tail for a few seconds, but adults are far too heavy.
Penguins
Have you ever heard the myth that penguins fall backward when they try to look at airplanes? An experiment testing this myth found that penguins can stay upright when they look at the sky, even if they’re watching airplanes.
Bats Are Blind
For decades, people have claimed that bats are blind. Although their eyes are small and poorly developed, they work just fine. Megabats search for food using their sigh and smell, while micro-bats hunt by using echolocation.
Bats Will Suck Your Blood
People from all around the world believe that bats will suck people’s blood. Although bats are known to bite people, they usually feed on cattle. These bats only weigh two ounces and will take a tiny amount of blood when they bite cattle.
