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The bird known as the greater honeyguide got its name because it will lead people to beehives. You may have also heard that honeyguides will lead honey badgers to beehives. There was even a wildlife documentary that illustrated this behavior. The problem is… its not true!
The myth of the badger-guiding honeyguide began in 1785 with a man called Anders Sparrman, who had heard the story from local people. He never saw the actual behaviour first-hand. Neither had anyone else. In 1990, three ornithologists – Dean, Siegfried and Macdonald – wrote a paper debunking the honeyguide/honey badger story. In it, they wrote, “Naturalists and biologists have been active in Africa for more than 200 years. During this period, to the best of our knowledge, no biologist or naturalist, amateur or professional, has observed a Greater Honeyguide leading a Honey Badger to a beehive.”
Since 1990, Spottiswoode says that there still isn’t any evidence for badger-guiding, “despite some extensive studies of honey badgers in perfect honeyguide habitat in Mozambique.”
And the documentary? It was staged! Science writer Ed Yong was just as surprised to find this out as you are. Link
It’s skeeter season (at least here in Oklahoma) and while everyone has their preferred method of avoiding malaria and dengue fever–and the general annoyance of being vampirized by flying insects–there are some really bad ideas about how to do so. DIY Life has a list of legitimate tips and debunks some common myths about mosquito control. Example:
A popular email forward from a few years back states that if you spritz yourself with a 10 to 1 mix of water to Listerine, you’ll repel mosquitoes. While the menthol and eucalyptus doesn’t appeal to the critters, the dilution won’t be enough to make much of a difference. (And directly applying Listerine to skin will just dry you out.)
Link | Image: Wikimedia Commons
Surely you’ve heard someone say that humans only use 10% of our brains (and some people even less), but that turns out to be a just myth:
William James, a psychologist in the 1800s, once metaphorically used the idea of 10% of the brain being all that was used at one time. This grew into the rumor that it was all the brain was overall and most of the rest was not understood or used as far as we know. Actually, the inactive neurons are just as important at any given moment as the ones actively firing at a point in time, and the 10% comes from varying areas at different times.
Read more human body myths at Environmental Graffiti: Link
A professional skydiver set out to debunk 10 most common myths about skydiving in this neat article at The List Universe. For example:
9. The Freefall Chatter
Skydiving Myth: You can talk or yell to each other during freefall
Despite what you’ve seen in movies like Point Break and Cutaway, you cannot hear another skydiver during freefall. Perhaps if you were to yell into his year, you may hear a little but you certainly can’t have any type of conversation. The wind traveling past your ears at well over 100 mph pretty much makes you deaf to all sounds. Additionally, it would be very hard to fight during freefall as well.
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