I was eating my string cheese today and, as is my habit as I don't like plastic, I pulled the wrapper off. These particular wrappers have trivia on them. Today's trivia question is this:
A carnivorous animal will not eat an animal struck by what?
Struck by...a stone? A car? How about lightning! Yes! Lightning it is.
Doesn't that seem weird, though? Is that really a fact or just one of those things that people say? Like swallowing bubble gum means that it will stay in your stomach for seven years.
I tried to look it up and found a forum where people post back and forth and try to be knowledgeable.
One person said, "Just how do you conduct research that leads one to that discovery? That one really cracks me up."
Another said, "We had a bull struck and killed by lightning back in the late sixties. When we found him, the flies and maggots had already started in on the buffet. "
Still another suggested that lightning poisons the whole body, just as it poisons a human body.
Beyond that I could find nothing.
The page where I got the quotes is a wacky one, although not unusual, I don't think. It's the kind of site that I'd be tempted to post something on. Then I'd say, "Why? People aren't reading this for education. They want to be right. Just like I want to be right that the whole lightning thing is nonsense."
I want to ask, "What's your source?!" Instead I'll say, "Hey, here are some bits of stuff that might be real and might not be, but it's always a good time to read this kind of thing. Like calendars of fun facts. But whose facts?
But who cares! Let's have some fun! Here are some uncorroborated "facts" that lack a source. Dive in!
Pound for pound, the common Shrew is actually the most vicious predator on the American Continent. It eats many times it's body weight per day, and will eat damned near anything.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
A chicken who just lost its head can run the length of a football field before dropping dead.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue. (I really like that one. So useful!)
Koala bears have finger prints that are almost identical to ours. (Now you know who to bring on your jewel heist!)
Most marine fish can survive in a tank filled with human blood. (I don't think I want to know how they figured that out.)
Toads have no teeth.
Frogs have teeth on their upper jaws but none on their lower.
Coconuts kill more people than sharks.
So forget about being worried about sharks. The killer coconuts are the real problem.
Now be happy for the education you got in school. At least there you knew it was supposed to be true.
Posted by dotty at September 28, 2005 08:01 PM