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J
John Wilkins
Guest
Representative Trantis <[email protected]> wrote:
> Does this reall happen, and if so how did such a bizarre
> instinct evolve?
No. It's a late Rennaissance myth, along with humans with
faces in their tummies.
--
John Wilkins [email protected]
http://www.wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do
not mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
> Does this reall happen, and if so how did such a bizarre
> instinct evolve?
No. It's a late Rennaissance myth, along with humans with
faces in their tummies.
--
John Wilkins [email protected]
http://www.wilkins.id.au "Men mark it when they hit, but do
not mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon
J
Jeffrey Turner
Guest
Representative Trantis wrote:
> Does this reall happen, and if so how did such a bizarre
> instinct evolve?
This is a myth.
"There are two theories about how this rumor got started.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the ostrich
lowers its head toward the ground in reaction to danger,
especially when it's sitting on a nest (the female keeps the
eggs warm during the day and the male sits on the eggs at
night.). "To escape detection, chicks as well as adults may
lie on the ground with neck outstretched," the Encyclopedia
Britannica adds. Supposedly the ostrich hopes its enemy will
mistake it for a termite mound or low bush when its head is
lowered. Seeing as an ostrich is the world's largest bird
weighing as much as 400 pounds, I doubt they fool anyone but
the blindest hyena. I'm one to talk, though. I almost walked
into an elephant seal on a California beach once and those
suckers are huge.
"Male ostriches use their bills to dig shallow nests in the
sand and move their eggs around. From a distance, this could
look like the ostrich's head is disappearing in the sand.
That's the other theory."
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mostrich.html
--Jeff
--
A man, a plan, a cat, a canal - Panama!
Ho, ho, ho, hee, hee, hee and a couple of ha, ha, has;
That's how we pass the day away, in the merry old land of
Oz.
> Does this reall happen, and if so how did such a bizarre
> instinct evolve?
This is a myth.
"There are two theories about how this rumor got started.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the ostrich
lowers its head toward the ground in reaction to danger,
especially when it's sitting on a nest (the female keeps the
eggs warm during the day and the male sits on the eggs at
night.). "To escape detection, chicks as well as adults may
lie on the ground with neck outstretched," the Encyclopedia
Britannica adds. Supposedly the ostrich hopes its enemy will
mistake it for a termite mound or low bush when its head is
lowered. Seeing as an ostrich is the world's largest bird
weighing as much as 400 pounds, I doubt they fool anyone but
the blindest hyena. I'm one to talk, though. I almost walked
into an elephant seal on a California beach once and those
suckers are huge.
"Male ostriches use their bills to dig shallow nests in the
sand and move their eggs around. From a distance, this could
look like the ostrich's head is disappearing in the sand.
That's the other theory."
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mostrich.html
--Jeff
--
A man, a plan, a cat, a canal - Panama!
Ho, ho, ho, hee, hee, hee and a couple of ha, ha, has;
That's how we pass the day away, in the merry old land of
Oz.