Hidden Content
Does a bear hibernate in the woods? Well, no, it actually doesn’t.
Animal behavior can be varied and strange, but some things are given. Birds go tweet, grasshoppers jump, and sharks can smell blood from a mile away.

But is all of that really true?

Take that shark fact, for instance. Sharks have an amazing sense of smell — but you’d still have to be bleeding fairly close to them for them to notice and/or care.

There are other common animal “facts” that everybody knows but aren’t actually true. Here’s a collection of just a few of them.

1. Bears Hibernate

While it is true that bears retreat into their dens for the winter, they do not hibernate. True hibernation is a voluntary action where an animal slows down its bodily functions to survive a difficult period.

Bears don’t do that. Instead, they go into a state called torpor.

You can think of torpor as very deep sleep. It serves a similar purpose as hibernation, but there’s one very important difference.

Animals in torpor can wake up — and bears do, several times over the winter. This might seem like an insignificant difference, but if you’re out and about in a bear area in winter…

Well, let’s just say, watch where you step.

2. Dogs Are Color Blind

For a long time, people thought that dogs see the world in black and white, like on old-timey TV. But they can actually see colors.

Granted, a dog’s color vision isn’t as good as a human being’s. They have no receptors for red or green colors, but they do see blue and yellow.

So, they’re not completely color blind. They simply see the world as a person with red-green color blindness would.

3. Mother Birds Abandon Chicks A Human Touches

Every kid gets taught to not touch baby birds fallen from the nest. The mother can smell the human on them and will abandon the chick.

Except, they don’t do that. Most birds have a very poor sense of smell and probably couldn’t detect your stink on their babies even if you hadn’t showered in a week.

Some mother birds might abandon a nest if they see you messing with it, though. But that’s not because of your smell — their bird brain simply assumes the baby birds are as good as dead and they should cut their losses.

But even then, it’s more likely that the mother bird will try to fight you off at first if the chicks have hatched. They are mothers, after all, and won’t abandon their kids lightly.

4. Ostriches Bury Their Heads in Sand

Speaking of bird brains, ostriches sure are dumb. If they get scared, they’ll stick their heads in the sand and think the predator won’t see them.

Of course, you probably guessed that they don’t do that. There’s not a single known instance of an ostrich burying its head in sand.

Just think about it — how would it breathe? Even ostriches aren’t that dumb.

If you see an ostrich that looks like it’s burying its head, it’s probably taking care of its eggs. They bury their eggs in the ground and regularly turn them around to keep them warm.

5. Goldfish Have Three-Second Memories

We often compare forgetful people to goldfish, but that’s doing the fish wrong. Instead of three weeks, their memory can span three months.

In fact, they’re smart enough to tell the time of day. Researchers found that goldfish would gather around an automated food dispenser shortly before feeding time — implying they could tell when it was time for dinner.

They can even learn to drive cars. Next time you see a goldfish in a sad plastic bag at a pet store, feel sorry for it — it will remember being there.

6. Opossums Hang by Their Tails

A family of possums hanging in a row by their tails is a common sight in cartoons. In reality, though, it just doesn’t happen.

Baby possums can sometimes hang by their tails, but that’s because they slipped off the branch they were perching on. That’s like looking at a baby that tumbled onto all fours and deducing that people are quadrupedal.

Adult possums don’t hang by their tails at all. They’re much too heavy for their tails to support them.

7. Bulls Hate Red

The toreador waves his red cloth and the bull attacks him. Clearly, the bull must hate the color red.

Sorry to disappoint you, but a bull couldn’t hate the red because it doesn’t know what it is. Like dogs, bulls can’t see red — so how could they hate it?

Instead, they get annoyed by the movement of the bullfighter’s cape. Or maybe by the fact the bullfighter is constantly harassing the animal.

The red color actually has a more macabre purpose — it hides bloodstains, whether from the bull or the bullfighter.

8. Lemmings Commit Mass Suicide

Sometimes, during migration, a horde of lemmings decides they just don’t want to live anymore. They jump off tall cliffs by the thousands to die and prevent population issues.

Sure, lemmings sometimes do fall off cliffs during migrations. And people sometimes die in traffic during rush hour, but we don’t claim that’s a suicidal human tradition.

The myth of lemming suicide comes from the Disney-produced documentary White Wilderness, which showed the animals pulling off the stunt. But the lemmings didn’t do it voluntarily — the filmmakers imported a horde of lemmings to Canada and intentionally herded them off the cliff.

It wasn’t suicide. It was genocide.