Animal Myths, Busted!

Animal Myths, Busted! — page 1 — Busted Hippos Sweat Blood contained blood They called the Ancient Greeks were puzzled by the hippopotamus or hippo The Greeks noticed hippo sweat looked substance blood sweat Scientists assumed the blood sweat red The enormous African mammals protected the hippo's skin while in seem to sweat blood Nineteenth the water This is true But blood century Europeans studied the phenomenon Like the Greeks the explorers assumed a hippo's sweat sweat is not sweat at all Hippos do not have sweat glands They are unable to sweat The blood sweat was not really blood either Observers discovered AGGRESSIVE PLANT EATERS Hippos are usually slow moving A plant eating mammals But if another animal threatens their RSS territory hippos will attack They can move surprisingly fast running up to 20 miles per The red blood hour 32 km h They can bite BS sweat of a hippo a crocodile in half Hippos are is not blood considered the most dangerous or sweat mammal in Africa C

Animal Myths, Busted! — page 2 — Scientists have T discovered pigments turn the mucus red that blood sweat was really an oily blood They do mucus It moisturizes the hippo's not sweat at all skin and protects it from the sun Science helped bust The mucus makes the skin water an ancient myth repellant It also protects hippos from germs in dirty crowded watering holes It protects them from infection if they are injured in a fight Average weight in pounds 2 930 kg of an Exposure to sunlight turns the adult hippo mucus red It took until 2004 for scientists to discover what made so Scientists used to think called blood sweat red Scientists hippo sweat had blood 6 460 in Japan studied the chemicals in Later scientists discovered blood sweat is not sweat but an oily blood sweat They found there were two pigments in blood sweat One is red and one is orange They help protect the hippo from getting sunburned Hippos do not sweat mucus The mucus turns red when exposed to sunlight

Animal Myths, Busted! — page 3 — Busted Birds cannot Smell The myth that birds cannot smell smell to find food This is where the started in the 1820s Renowned myth that birds cannot smell began ornithologist John James Audubon was studying bird behavior He Audubon's conclusion was considered truth for more than theorized that vultures found dead animals to eat by sight not smell He wanted to test his idea a century But his methods were flawed He did not distinguish between turkey vultures and black vultures In 1927 ornithologist First Audubon stuffed a deerskin with grass He put it in a meadow Frank Chapman studied both It looked like a carcass but did not smell A Vulture flew down and tried to eat it Then Audubon hid a dead hog under some brush It smelled of rotting meat but could not be seen No vultures came Audubon concluded that vultures do not use THINK ABOUT IT If you were going to test a bird's sense of smell how would you do it Audubon devoted his life to studying

Animal Myths, Busted! — page 4 — Turkey vultures use their sense of smell when searching for food TAW species His research suggested Birds do not have noses but they do turkey vultures hunted by smell In have nostrils The part of their brain 1960 ornithologist Kenneth Stager that senses smell is smaller than did some new experiments He in other animals Still one thing is discovered turkey vultures do not certain Birds can sense a smell like to eat very rotten meat The hog Audubon used had been dead for days Stager redid the experiment with fresher meat Like Chapman Stager found turkey vultures do use 600 their sense of smell to find food Number of smell related genes found in kiwi and kakapos birds He even determined the specific chemical that attracts them For a long time scientists have debated whether birds can smell Since then scientists have tested many types of birds They all react to odors Today scientists know birds use their sense of smell for many things Odors can help them find food mates or their way home Vultures use odors to find food Many bird behaviors are tied to their sense of smell

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