Animals can't do that

Z

zooman

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Dolphins apparentley cannot. Stand on there tail and move backwards as we see at all sea parks.

Bees cannot fly. There wing size and body mass donot add up aparentley!

The pressure of the heart required to pump blood to the head of a giraffe. Aparentley is too great and does not work!

I would be interested to hear other Animal facts that are not possible!
 
you should pay less attention to internet "facts". The "according to aerodynamical principles bumblebees should not be able to fly" is a perfect example of animal-related falsehoods. The story started when a famous scientists did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and determined that bumblebees had too-large bodies and too-small wings to allow flight. As this is quite obviously flawed, he went and actually examined a bumblebee's wings under a microscope and discovered (surprise surprise) that bees' wings are not flat planes as he had assumed. Once he had adjusted his calculations to take this into account then all the sums worked out correctly.

As for the dolphin tail-walking trick, there is a place in Australia where wild dolphins do tail-walk. In the 70s there was a captive dolphin who, while never trained directly herself, picked up the tail-walking trick from watching the other dolphins at the dolphinarium. After being released to the wild when the dolphinarium closed down, she apparently taught the local wild dolphins to tail-walk
 
well an elephant can't directly drink water out of it's trunk.

Bears don't nessiciarily seek out honey for the taste by the nutritional properties.
 
Chlidonias said:
you should pay less attention to internet "facts".
Click to expand...

Dead-on! Basic logical thinking should help to sort out things-like in the case of the giraffes:

If it didn't work, there wouldn't be any giraffes around....The sheer fact that they exist, proves the mentioned "fact" wrong.
Various anatomical and physiological adaptions (among others, a big and muscle-strong heart, valves in the jugular vein, and a rete mirabile) grant the giraffe a working circulatory system in its current form.
However, the whole system is quite fragile, which, besides other reasons, turns giraffe anaesthesia into one of the most demanding jobs for a zoo vet...
 
dragon(ele)nerd said:
well an elephant can't directly drink water out of it's trunk.

Bears don't nessiciarily seek out honey for the taste by the nutritional properties.
Click to expand...

Thank-you dragon and Megan, appreciate your contribution that is the spirit of the thread.

Childonais starting a statement to me with "You should" Is just rude and unnessary.

I have a hunch that some dont post here on zoochat. Because of the way the other posts here are written. Patronising and condesending.

I have no objection to people debunking what i thought to be true. There is simply polite way to do this.
 
Polar bears can't run for any significant period of time; they're so well insulated that they have to move slowly to avoid overheating.
 
nayer said:
Polar bears can't run for any significant period of time; they're so well insulated that they have to move slowly to avoid overheating.
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I wouldn't want to put that theory to the test...
 
Also, I think I heard somewhere that a polar bear's fur is not white but translucent, it only appears white because of the way the light refracts - not sure how true this is.

Chameleons can change colour when they are blind.

Buccaneers were named after bucca, a name for manatees, because they often mistook them for mermaids.
 
zooman said:
Thank-you dragon and Megan, appreciate your contribution that is the spirit of the thread.

Childonais starting a statement to me with "You should" Is just rude and unnessary.

I have a hunch that some dont post here on zoochat. Because of the way the other posts here are written. Patronising and condesending.

I have no objection to people debunking what i thought to be true. There is simply polite way to do this.
Click to expand...
I'm really not sure what your problem with me is Zooman. Whenever I post in a thread you have started, you attack me. I had made up my mind to never respond to any more of your posts because of this, but in this case I thought that this is a simple thread that cannot be taken offence at -- however it seems I was wrong. My post above (#2) was not intended to be rude or patronising or condescending towards you in any way. The words "you should pay less attention to internet facts", to which you apparently took grave offence, were not written in that vein. I was merely pointing out that many well-known animal-related "facts" are completely wrong, and used two of the examples you gave in post number one.

I shall now refrain from posting any more in response to any thread or comment you make as it appears you dislike me so much.
 
redpanda said:
Also, I think I heard somewhere that a polar bear's fur is not white but translucent, it only appears white because of the way the light refracts - not sure how true this is.

Chameleons can change colour when they are blind.

Buccaneers were named after bucca, a name for manatees, because they often mistook them for mermaids.
Click to expand...

I belive that when a polar bear in captivity looks green or yellow. It is actually alge growth in the hair not on the outside of the hair but actually inside the strand??? not really sure about this now that l write it down:confused:

Do Chameleons change there colour to that of the colour around them even when blind! Now that is clever.
 
Chlidonias said:
I shall now refrain from posting any more in response to any thread or comment you make as it appears you dislike me so much.
Click to expand...

It is not that l dont like you at all l dont even know you. I also enjoy reading the threads you start and posts you make.
I just feel that a "you should" statement is unesessary.

I am a firm beliver in sharing our experiance. Not looking to make judgements or "highlight" what is percieved as other peoples mistakes.

My referance to Patronising and condesending is towards SW. Who l would have thought. Would had heard the message very cleary 2 weeks ago. That this type of behaviour is not apreciated on this forum.
 
Not meaning to butt in zooman, but the way I read it was as if Chlidonias was saying it in a 'friendly advice' kind of way, rather than as a patronising order...
 
CZJimmy said:
Not meaning to butt in zooman, but the way I read it was as if Chlidonias was saying it in a 'friendly advice' kind of way, rather than as a patronising order...
Click to expand...

Ditto

:)

Hix
 
What all this makes me think of (well, zooman's original post not the apparent dispute that grew from it) is that Nature has evolved methods of accomplishing some very unlikely things. The giraffe's neck, the bumblebee's flight are marvels. For plants to survive in deserts, many developed - or at least exploited - a variation on photosynthesis that allows them to be much more efficient with the resources they can get. The very tall coniferous trees of NW North America (redwoods, Douglas firs, and the like) have developed somewhat unique systems and structures to enable them to get water from their roots up to new leaves over 120' above.

So do we say "you can't subsist on Eucalyptus leaves" or do we say "how do koalas do it"?
 
Its interesting that Agriculture is scarecly 5000 years old, mankind at least 5,000,000. Agriculture has had such incredible change in the past 100 years. We have made tremendous changes to our enviroment. So rapidly that we are destroying it! Something no animal in history has ever done before.

So an old thread here animal inteligence how to assess it? Is it how well we evolve to adept to our enviroment. Not as Mankind has done where we have changed our enviroment to suit us. As we become fatter, lazier, unemployed not self supporting. Yet we are convinced that we have come so far in the last 5000 years. Things are so much better?

Has the l want it now life style. Taken away all evoloution for mankind. AS it is evoloution that gave us the GIraffe and the bee also very tall coniferous trees. These things took millions of years to evolve and they did so in harmony with the enviroment.

I cannot think of 1 thing that mankind has done in harmony with his enviroment in the last 5000 years.

Are we actually the dumbest animal on the planet??? Given we use the criteria for intelligence is harmony with the enviroment.
 
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