246
votes
Accepted
Is it illegal to own a rabbit in Queensland unless you're a magician?
From Queensland's Department of Agriculture and Fisheries brochure Can I have a pet rabbit?,
Why are pet rabbits illegal in Queensland?
Rabbits are Australia's most destructive agricultural ...
- 2,844
203
votes
Is bread bad for ducks?
I can't comment specifically on ducks, but I will quote the Official Statement on Bread from the Queen's Swan Marker (who has responsibility for swans in the UK):
There has been a great deal of press ...
- 1,011
121
votes
Accepted
Are spiders unable to hurt humans, especially very small spiders?
The answer is that spiders definitely can hurt you. While you may not be likely to be killed, spiders can absolutely hurt you, whether from a large one's bite (whether venomous or not) or from any ...
- 6,228
82
votes
Accepted
Does dyeing elephant tusks help discourage poachers?
I cannot speak to the viability of dying tusks, but it does appear that the photo cited in the question is a fake, as noted on the blog staintuskstostopelephantpoaching.wordpress.com.
Here's the ...
- 792
81
votes
Is bread bad for ducks?
To address the feeding of ducks:
Ducks Unlimited Canada has this to say:
I’VE HEARD THAT FEEDING DUCKS BREAD IS BAD. WHAT SHOULD I FEED THEM?
DUC does not recommend feeding ducks. It ...
- 3,031
78
votes
Accepted
Has a mole stored over a thousand earthworms in its underground larder?
You're asking two questions. First, do moles store earthworms for later consumption, and second, can these "larders" contain 1000 or more earthworms?
There's little reason to doubt that ...
- 9,112
65
votes
Is bread bad for ducks?
tl;dr- I haven't been able to actual evidence of the claim that consuming bread causes angel wing in ducks, and an expert claims that there isn't any.
Apparently the main claim against feeding ducks ...
- 4,041
61
votes
Can venomous snakes be determined by these pupil, nostril and scale patterns?
No, this is not true. Not even for just India, as Indian cobra (Naja naja) has round pupils and subcaudal (tail) scales are divided. There is also no pit visible. It is venomous species of snake.
...
- 671
61
votes
Accepted
Are raptors in Australia intentionally spreading brush fires to smoke out prey?
This is a new paper published in a peer reviewed journal. It will take time before it garners the positive or negative citations that are the real peer review. In the mean time, our best option is to ...
- 11.9k
48
votes
Have we wiped out 60% of vertebrate populations since 1970?
To get a littler closer to the horse's mouth -- the news article is about the Living Planet Report 2018 as published by the WWF (the wildlife people, not the wrestling people.)
On page 7 of that ...
- 3,031
47
votes
Accepted
Did Louis Pasteur keep a gun in the laboratory while developing the rabies vaccine?
The story appears to be mostly true. It was told by the niece of one of the men who participated in the early experiments.
Note that these experiments were before there was even an experimental ...
- 5,038
45
votes
Accepted
Has it ever rained fish?
Yes.
As published in "Do Fish Fall from the Sky?" Science vol. 109 page 402,
On October 23, 1947, biologist Alexander Dimitrivitch Bajkov, PhD was eating breakfast with his wife at a ...
- 102k
41
votes
Does dyeing elephant tusks help discourage poachers?
There is at least one organisation that dyes Rhino Tusks pink, although there are also plenty of doctored photographs of that too.
The Rhino Rescue Project has a dye which, while harmless to the ...
- 527
39
votes
Is moderated livestock grazing an effective countermeasure for desertification?
In the wild, herds of buffalo, elk, etc. cluster together to protect themselves from predators.
As the densely populated group moves around, it clears out vegetation and leaves manure, which their ...
- 2,763
36
votes
Accepted
Can tortoises become deformed by growing up inside rings of plastic?
There are at least two documented cases where turtles were found with constricting plastic rings around their midsection. One with a six-pack ring, another with a milk bottle safety seal ring:
...
- 1,460
34
votes
Accepted
Did a cheetah refuse to race against dogs?
No.
Snopes explains it is from an advert from Audi:
Snopes references a broken link for its source. Here is an equivalent. It names the photographer, Simon Mooney.
- 138k
32
votes
Have we wiped out 60% of vertebrate populations since 1970?
What is the claim?
Are you asking about total biomass, biodiversity, regional populations, ...?
Are you asking about specific areas / countries, or worldwide (which will be hard to exactly quantify)?
...
32
votes
Are spiders unable to hurt humans, especially very small spiders?
The claim
First let's start with noting that the goal of the episode was to get children over their irrational fear of spiders and making those children see the bigger picture.
Mummy says cobwebs ...
- 4,103
31
votes
Accepted
Do apes/monkeys open bananas from the floral end?
This is a myth, because monkeys don't normally eat bananas in the wild.
"The entire wild monkey-banana connection in fact is total fabrication," Katharine Milton, who has studied the diets of ...
- 78.3k
30
votes
Can tortoises become deformed by growing up inside rings of plastic?
There has been discussion on the Snopes forums regarding the second image. In the link, they discussed the case of Peanut the tortoise, which appears to be the same tortoise depicted in the first link....
- 18.7k
29
votes
Are spiders unable to hurt humans, especially very small spiders?
Are spiders unable to hurt people?
There are several species of spiders, some large, others not so large. that are quite capable of harming people. Some can cause severe injury to or kill people. ...
- 14.3k
26
votes
Can venomous snakes be determined by these pupil, nostril and scale patterns?
... maybe a bit more education hurts even less... but the answer is still no.
So to me the description with pits and slit pupils (and also the head drawing) looks like indicating pit vipers. I don't ...
26
votes
Do wombats share their burrows during fires?
Yes, they do share... but not specifically because of the fires or out of a sense of altruism.
According to AFP Fact Check:
University of Adelaide ecologist Dr. Michael Swinbourne told AFP via ...
- 716
24
votes
Accepted
Do cheetahs die after sprinting for 30 seconds?
Not quite. This idea comes from a 1973 study that appears to have had some experimental issues with the setup. I am trying to find a more reliable source to debunk this than Io9, but everything so ...
- 44.9k
24
votes
Is bread bad for ducks?
The problem of undigested bread
Bread may be bad for ducks, but not necessarily for the reasons stated
The claim in the question concerns whether bread directly causes diseases for ducks and swans. ...
- 17.6k
23
votes
Is the Earth experiencing another mass extinction event?
tl;dr: Yes, the paper provides strong evidence that we're undergoing a mass extinction event. The media reporting is basically right (for once).
What you are asking
I'm going to assume that what you'...
- 3,143
22
votes
Can venomous snakes be determined by these pupil, nostril and scale patterns?
That is a diagram for identifying pit vipers. There are many, many venomous snakes in the world, including I believe all of the most deadly ones, that are not pit vipers.
The advice is particularly ...
- 1,588
19
votes
Accepted
Were beavers once classified as fish for religious reasons?
Yes, according to the 1760 book The natural and civil history of the French dominions in North and South America, vol.1 , page 27
In respect of his [the beaver's] tail, he is a perfect fish, and ...
- 102k
19
votes
Are the British to blame for Israel's stray cat problem?
No, cats have been in Israel from at least 6000 BCE, and the land of Israel has had considerable connections with Egypt, where cats were worshiped. From Cats in Ancient Jewish Society by Joshua ...
- 29k
17
votes
Accepted
Do Japanese crows use traffic to crack nutshells?
This behavior has been well documented in Japanese crows, but Cristol et al (the contradicting paper in the question) did not observe it in American crows.
This Ph.D. dissertation discusses the ...
- 11.9k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible