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
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.
