Zoological inaccuracies & mistakes

I thought this was a big mistake as the exhibit was well invested but will have to be demolished :(
 

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An article with a set of inaccuracies. :p

The subject of the article is escaped Magpie-Shrikes, but the photo is of an Australian Magpie. At the end of the article it relates a story relating to Eurasian magpies, apparently pretending that all three unrelated species are the same thing because they don't know differently. :rolleyes:

Free birds: Minnesota Zoo boosts security around enclosure after avian escape
 
I used to watch videos from Animalogic back in the day, but there were two that made them lose me.

1. 3:12

When I first heard this, I was confused about where this information came from. I asked a few experts and basically, they told me/showed me that tigers can travel and swim long distances, but there wasn't anything about them having good running endurance. And the reason for that is that, just like other cats, tigers can't run long distances due to low running stamina.

2.

This is where they lost me. Wolves don't go after grizzlies, at least not fully grown adults. They go after the cubs, and in fact, grizzlies will steal kills made by wolves and due to this they actually benefit from the presence of wolves. Hence is probably the real reason the wolves are acting the way they are towards the grizzlies in this video which look relatively small for a grizzly, but a larger bear on the other hand is a different story.
 
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A-Z gets confused about tapirs - what is an African Tapir meant to be ...
It involves a warthog, a gallon of root beer, and...
 
Great Argus said:
An article with a set of inaccuracies. :p

The subject of the article is escaped Magpie-Shrikes, but the photo is of an Australian Magpie. At the end of the article it relates a story relating to Eurasian magpies, apparently pretending that all three unrelated species are the same thing because they don't know differently. :rolleyes:

Free birds: Minnesota Zoo boosts security around enclosure after avian escape
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Not zoos sorry but perhaps related- upon uplifting an orphaned 3 week old Australian Magpie from Bird Care Aotearoa (formerly NZ Bird Rescue, who never would have got this wrong btw) BCA told me it was a blackbird! And more recently an online group sent me dietary instructions for English magpies. I called to explain the difference and they said yes they knew that and went on to promote their new avian dietary supplements for corvids and avian omnivores as being ideal for my rescue magpies. I politely declined. Scary stuff from "Experts"
 
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It is sometimes claimed that the Black-footed Cat is the national animal of the Marshall Islands and that turacos are the national bird of Switzerland. Both of these animals are endemic to Africa and therefore cannot be the national symbols of those countries.
 
Birdsage said:
It is sometimes claimed that the Black-footed Cat is the national animal of the Marshall Islands and that turacos are the national bird of Switzerland. Both of these animals are endemic to Africa and therefore cannot be the national symbols of those countries.
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I wish you were kidding…
 
Birdsage said:
It is sometimes claimed that the Black-footed Cat is the national animal of the Marshall Islands and that turacos are the national bird of Switzerland. Both of these animals are endemic to Africa and therefore cannot be the national symbols of those countries.
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Although both of those are fake, presumably dreamed up by someone on the internet because those countries don't actually have genuine examples, your last sentence is nonsense. It doesn't matter if the animals aren't found in the country, or even if they are real animals - the National Animals of Wales and Scotland, for example, are dragon and unicorn respectively. Typically a national bird / mammal / flower / whatever is something representative of the country in some way, but sometimes they are just chosen seemingly at random. I'm pretty sure there was a thread somewhere on here recently where it was pointed out that a number of the State Birds in the USA don't even occur in the states they represent.
 
Birdsage said:
It is sometimes claimed that the Black-footed Cat is the national animal of the Marshall Islands and that turacos are the national bird of Switzerland. Both of these animals are endemic to Africa and therefore cannot be the national symbols of those countries.
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The national animal of England is the lion. As stated by Chlidonias, the national animal of Scotland is the unicorn and the national emblem of Wales is the dragon.
 
I can’t believe I forgot about the European lions and the various mythical animals! I know: plenty of the official animals of states either do not live in their respective jurisdictions or are otherwise unrepresentative. But just think about it: not only are these African animals not native to the Marshall Islands and Switzerland, they are obscure animals I doubt most locals would even know about. Lions, unicorns, and dragons are popular in the UK (and in the case of lions, many other European countries), and most state birds are common backyard birds that state residents would know. Residents of Caribbean, African, etc. nations are likely to be at least somewhat familiar with their local birdlife (regardless of its obscurity elsewhere), but I would not expect more than a tiny handful of Marshallese to know what a Black-footed Cat is.
Angola and Eswatini, however, do have species of turacos as national symbols.

Regarding the US state birds, I can at least say that all of them, except the chickens of Delaware and Rhode Island, are found in the wild in their respective states. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t want to change most of them, though.
 
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