Animal stories that disregard the facts

　　In textbooks or extracurricular books, you can always see some animal stories. Some of these stories are funny, some are touching, and some encourage you to go forward without fear of difficulties and dangers. However, the animal habits described in many stories are wrong.

The eagle pushed the child off the cliff

　　Eagles can be regarded as fighters among birds, but they contain the tragic and vigorous blood dripping during their growth. When they are young eagles, they have to undergo cruel training. Their parents will push them off the cliff. The timid young eagles will be thrown to death alive, and they can only survive by flapping their wings. After training, the young eagle that survived quickly learned to fly.
　　This story tells us that the strictness of parents is precisely to make children brave, to stimulate instincts and thrive in desperate situations.

　　In fact, eagles only reproduce once a year, and they only lay 1 to 2 eggs each time. After finally hatching, how could the eagle’s parents push it off the cliff?
　　In the nest, the young eagle will flap its wings to exercise strength; parents will not force it, but patiently give food and protection. After 10 to 12 weeks, the feathers of the young eagle are fully developed, and it instinctively learns to fly. In the next few weeks, it will hover around the nest, learn hunting skills from its parents, and become fully independent before it is fully prepared.
Plucking hair and cutting off beak, rebirth from Nirvana

　　After the eagle ages, its beak, claws, and feathers are all aging, it can’t grasp things that are too heavy, and its flight becomes sluggish. There are only two ways before it: starvation or plucking hair or beak and rebirth. The eagle chose to pull off the nails and feathers from his claws one by one, and pecked at the rocks, causing his beak to split and fall off. Enduring great pain, until new beaks, nails and feathers grew, the eagle was reborn and could live for many more years.

An eagle with a broken beak cannot survive in the wild and needs human help.

　　The author tells us with this story: To make progress, we must constantly temper ourselves; only by defeating ourselves can we survive from desperation.
　　However, the story does not match the facts. Just like a person’s hair loss, an eagle will naturally shed and renew its feathers throughout its life. It does not need to be plucked when it is old, and its nails will maintain a certain length during growth and wear. But the bird’s beak is not a nail, but a part of the skull. Knocking off the bird’s beak is equivalent to smashing the jaw of a human being. It is lucky to not die on the spot, and it is even more impossible to let the skull regenerate on its own.

　　Even if an eagle is so serious about self-harm, it will starve to death because it can’t eat.
Old goral jumping off the cliff, little goral flying across

　　A large group of gorals were chased and intercepted by hunters and fled to the cliff. The cliff on the opposite side is 6 meters away, and the gorals cannot cross such a distance. They have no way to retreat and are about to be hunted. At this time, a little goral struggling to jump towards the opposite side, the old goral followed closely behind, and jumped just to the feet of the little goral in the air. It wants to be a springboard for the little goral! The little goral kicked on the back of the old goral and jumped to the opposite side, while the old goral fell down. Then, a pair of gorals jumped up, and each old goral fell to pieces, allowing the young goral to escape.

　　This story celebrated the great self-sacrifice spirit of the elders.
　　In nature, there are indeed great mothers. There are also examples of sacrificing some members of the ethnic group and letting most members survive, but this does not include gorals. Gorals can only form a small group of 2-12. Older males often live alone and have no chance to sacrifice themselves for the gorals.
　　What’s more, all gorals are master rock climbers, often appearing on high-altitude rocky slopes and swimming easily in the mountains. If the goral is driven to the edge of a cliff, it will only leave calmly along the cliff.
The bird helps the crocodile to pick their teeth

　　There is a kind of bird called the toothpick bird, and they often fly into the open mouth of the crocodile. Are they not afraid of being eaten? It turns out that there are many parasites and food residues in the crocodile’s mouth. The toothpick bird will eat these things, just to help the crocodile pick its teeth. During the cleaning process, the crocodile will close its mouth. After cleaning, the toothpick bird will tap the crocodile’s teeth, and the crocodile will open its mouth in cooperation to let the toothpick bird fly away.
　　This story preaches that as long as people help each other and benefit each other, people can turn their enemies into friends, and coexist amicably like a bird and a crocodile.

　　Crocodiles don’t need to pick their teeth at all. They have wide gaps between their teeth, and the water is constantly scouring them, so they generally do not clog their teeth. There may be cavities or bacteria on the teeth, but birds can do nothing about it; even if the teeth are damaged, the crocodile does not have to worry, because it can change teeth about 50 times in its life.
　　The “toothpick bird” is actually a nile plover (héng). So far, there is no real record of nile plover helping crocodiles to pick their teeth. The photos of the little birds standing in the crocodile’s mouth are actually fake. Perhaps it is because the crocodiles ignore nearby birds when they are basking in the sun, and people have this misunderstanding.
Boiled frog in warm water

　　There is a widely spread fable: Put the frog in hot water, and the frog will jump out immediately if it is stimulated; but if you put the frog in cold water first and then slowly heat it, the frog will not care and will eventually be heated by the hot water. Boil to death.
　　People often use this fable to warn others: if we are not aware of crisis and cannot detect the arrival of danger in time, we will sit and wait like a frog.
　　This fable comes from real experiments in the 19th century. However, the wrong operations during the experiment led to wrong conclusions, and the experimental conclusions have been overturned by modern scientific experiments and theories.

　　The body temperature of warm-blooded animals is relatively stable. For example, the normal body temperature of humans is around 37°C; while the temperature-changing animals are not so particular about body temperature, but they lack the ability to regulate body temperature. Or hibernate to protect yourself, such as desert lizards hiding in the shadows during the day, snakes hibernating and so on. The frog is also a temperature-changing animal. When the temperature exceeds its acceptable range, it will find a way to escape instead of just waiting to die.
Cat fishing to eat

　　The little cat and little black cat meet to go fishing. Before long, a beautiful butterfly flew in front of the little cat, and it put down its fishing rod to chase the butterfly; when it saw an apple tree, it climbed up to pick apples. When he got tired of playing and returned to the river, the little black cat had already caught several fish and went home contentedly. The little black cat could only go home empty-handed.
　　This story tells us that half-heartedness when doing things will only make us achieve nothing.

　　Cats don’t actually eat fish very much. They may like the fishy smell, but they don’t specialize in fishing. Most cats are afraid of water. Their ancestors lived in desert areas and rarely saw fish. Instead, they feed on mice and birds. Cats do not pick fish bones and are easy to be stabbed; some fish also contain thiaminase, which destroys vitamin B1 in the cat’s body, causing the cat to have symptoms such as convulsions, coma, and shock.