10 Widely-Believed Animal Facts (That Are Completely Wrong)”


10. Bees Always Die After They Sting You


Bees: good. Wasps: bad. It’s a view that many of us share. We convince ourselves that wasps are mean and vicious insects that like nothing better than to ruin our picnics and sting us on a whim. On the other hand, we consider bees to be friendly, hard-working members of society that make honey for our culinary pleasure and only ever sting us if we really annoy them because, hey, they’ll die if they do that. Right?


Well, it depends what bee decides to sting you. If we are talking about your average, everyday honeybee, then it will (probably) die if you provoke it into stinging you. This is because they have barbs on their stingers that become lodged in an animal’s skin so, in trying to pull free, the bee tears away not only its stinger but also its venom sac and part of its digestive tract, muscles and nerves. In essence, the bee rips itself apart. Most other bees – bumblebees included – can quite happily sting more than once, however, because they have smooth stingers that don’t get caught in an animal’s skin.


Oh, but even the honeybee rule isn’t completely watertight. The queen honeybee also has a smooth stinger so she can use it as much as her sadistic little mind feels like it.



9. Dolly Was the First Cloned Mammal


When we think of cloning, we automatically think of Dolly the sheep, who achieved celebrity status in 1997. However, cloning had been going on for quite a while before her birth. Indeed, the first animal successfully cloned – a tadpole – occurred way back in 1952.
Nor does Dolly have the distinction of being the first cloned mammal. In 1995, a year before Dolly was born, five sheep were cloned at the same institute and two of them, Megan and Morag, even survived to adulthood. The difference between them and Dolly was that they were created using cultured cells that derived from a nine-day-old embryo, whereas Dolly originated from the cells of an adult animal. It was their creation that signified the technical breakthrough that made Dolly possible just a few months later, but unlike the cloned animals to follow, Megan and Morag sadly didn’t make many headlines when they were born



8. There are Hundreds of Poisonous Snakes in the World


The mistake people make here is that they assume “poisonous” and “venomous” mean the same thing, but they don’t. Venom is a toxin that is injected into an animal by means of a sting or bite, whilst poison isingested or inhaled. As such, a venomous snake and a poisonous snake are not one and the same.


Whilst there are around 600 types of venomous snakes, there are only two species of poisonous snake in the world, both of which are toxic to eat. The Japanese grass snake is one of them. It acquires its poison by eating toxic toads, storing the poison in glands in the snake’s neck. This means that anything that decides to bite the snake’s neck (a common place for a predator to strike) will get a mouthful of poison. The other species is a type of garter snake from Oregon, which eats poisonous orange-bellied rough-skinned newts and once again sequesters the poison for its own use.



7. All Frogs Go “Ribbit”


You can blame Hollywood for this one. Each species of frog has its own particular and unique call, so that means only one will go “ribbit.” The species in question is the Pacific tree frog, found commonly along the west coast of North America … including Hollywood. It was recorded locally and plastered all over hundreds of movies for years, supposedly to enhance the atmosphere of wild, remote locations. Too bad the majority of those locales – ranging from the jungles of Vietnam to the Florida Everglades – simply aren’t home to the ribbit frog.


Other species of frogs, meanwhile, make a variety of different noises, such as barks, grunts, trills, clucks, whistles and growls.



6. Earwigs Crawl into Your Ear (and Burrow into Your Brain)


Don’t lose any sleep over this. Earwigs don’t crawl into people’s ears any more than other insects do (which, for those who are suddenly worried, is not very often at all,) and they certainly never burrow into your brain. But if that’s the case, how did earwigs get their name? One theory is that the pincers on the rear end of the insect – called cerci – resemble the tools used for piercing ears. Another is that the insect’s original name was “ear wing” – a reference to the ear-like shape of its hind wings – but no one knows for sure.



No matter the origin, though, many people through the centuries have believed the old wives tale about earwigs having an unusual attraction towards human ears. One person who certainly thought it was true was famous Greek philosopher Pliny the Elder, who decided that the recommended way of removing one from your ear was to spit into the opposite one until the earwig was forced out.



5. You are Never More Than 6 Feet from a Rat


There are two main reasons to dislike a rat. One is that they are a huge ecological pest, driving defenseless and native animal species to extinction, particularly flightless birds. But that probably isn’t keeping you up at night. The second reason – and the one that just might cause a lot more worry – is that rats are filthy, disease-ridden animals living just beneath our feet.


Well, as it happens, they probably aren’t. The National Rodent Survey estimates that we are usually at least 70 feet away from our nearest rats, and possibly up to 164 feet. They are surprisingly clean animals and, while it isn’t recommended for you to find a wild rat and put it in your mouth, they carry no more diseases than any other wild mammal.


And the brown rat never even carried the bubonic plague. The culprit was its cousin, the black rat, which has now paid for its (admittedly unknowing) role in the spread of the disease. It is today extremely rare in the British Isles, with only a few scattered populations on remote islands or major cities. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the black rat has failed to make an appearance on any “endangered” lists. Grudges, it seems, die hard.

Anyone who's attempted to wash their hands in a buffalo will know the differece

"There were no U.S. combat casualties in Afghanistan in the month of March — only the third month in over 12 years of war in which there were no combat-related U.S. deaths in the country. It was also the first time since July 2002 that there were no U.S. combat fatalities anywhere." Source; Army Wife Network

Stratford playwright William Shakespeare is said to have jilted a Coventry woman on the eve of their wedding, so that he could marry Anne Hathaway.

Bob Beamon set a new world long jump record in the 1968, he surpassed the previous mark by an unbelievable 20 inches.  Beamon, jumped 29 feet and 2 inches, it would be another 12 years before another human being jumped over 28 feet and remember he had jumped over twenty-nine.

Air-raid shelters were built in Coventry in 1938, just a year before the Second World War began.

Monty Python's first ever live performance was at the Belgrade Theatre Coventry in 1971.

The Italian Job's car chase scene involving Minis was filmed in huge sewer pipes at Stoke Aldermoor,Coventry in September 1968.

Chrissie Hynde's debut solo album 'Stockholm' will be released in June.

It features guitar playing by Neil Young and John McEnroe

That's what I thought but tbf, I think he's trying to illustrate how many galaxies there are in the visible universe

If I'm wrong could someone please explain to a simpleton like me, thanks very muchly.

pumphol. 09 Apr 14 12:03
Still don't get it, shouldn't it be  it couldn't  hold all the galaxies in the visible universe if they were the size of a frozen pea, to emphasis how many galaxies there are

I agree and think that the galaxies should be represented by frozen brussels sprouts and see if the thesis still holds.

If there is any doubt I think white-coated boffins should be able to conduct a practical experiment on the matter.

Wrigleys originally made soap.

Chewing gum cost 3p a stick to buy, but 10p a blob to get off the pavement.

Second Street is the most common street name in America. First street is the third most common.

The oldest bridge in Paris is the 'Pont Neuf' or 'New Bridge'.

More than half the fish labelled in the USA as tuna, is not tuna.

Tolkien's Middle Earth is based on Warwickshire. The author lived in the Warwickshire village of Sarehole long before it became part of the city of Birmingham. Sarehole was believed to have provided the inspiration for Hobbiton and the Shire, while the mill that features in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is thought to have been based on Sarehole Mill.

Tolkien later moved to Birmingham but returned to Warwickshire to marry Edith Bratt at St Mary Immaculate church in Warwick on March 22, 1916.

It's been argued that the settlements of Edoras and Minas Tirith in Tolkien's work were modelled on Warwick at various stages in its history. The name "hobbit" is an old word for a type of sprite or goblin and can still be seen in street names in Balsall Common and Kenilworth.

Coventry had its last public hanging 19 years before the practice ended completely in Britain. In the County Hall, Coventry, on July 28, 1849, Mary Ball was found guilty of the murder of her husband Thomas and sentenced to death.

In 2009, students at Coventry University reported that Coventry was the third cheapest city in the UK
for cost of living. The average cost of a pint in a Coventry pub was £2.15 and the average cost of
accommodation was £50 a week.