By FMT’s Lifestyle Desk

Myth: Lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs
You don’t need to be a genius to smell a rat in this rodent-related myth. It can be traced back to a specific source – an Academy Award-winning documentary called ‘White Wilderness’ released by Disney in 1958, which turned out to be as fictional as their animated adventures. The documentary apparently showed a herd of lemmings dashing over a cliff to their deaths, but it later emerged that the footage had been faked. When lemmings do actually dash off cliffs it is invariably to dive into a river below to swim off in search of a new area to settle.

Myth: Swans mate for life
This idea is a feathery fiction. Swans are just as prone to infidelity and divorce as humans. A recently-conducted genetic experiment revealed that one in six of all cygnets is actually illegitimate; while other studies showed that swans are more surreptitious about mating with another bird behind their partner’s back.

Myth: Pigs are excessively, inherently dirty
Scientifically speaking, pigs are no dirtier than any other animal. They will designate one area of their enclosure as a toilet, then sleep, play and eat in the other areas. Unlike dogs, they do this instinctively, without training. Pigs only wallow in mud because they do not sweat like most other animals, so they need to find another way to cool off.

Myth: Sheep are dimwits, the ultimate herd followers
Far from having wool between their ears, sheep are actually fairly intelligent animals that are capable of solving problems. In fact, University of Cambridge studies showed that sheep had learning skills that were better than rodents and similar to humans and monkeys. Sheep can also recognise and remember the faces of at least 50 individual sheep for more than two years, display different facial expressions for a range of emotions, and are able to self-medicate by choosing which plants to eat to cure them when they are ill (how many of us humans can say that about ourselves?)

Myth: Sloths spend most of their time sleeping
Despite their somnolent reputation, sloths are not the biggest snoozers in the animal kingdom. They sleep 9-10 hours each day. Yet Koalas (which are marsupials, not ‘bears’ – another common myth) doze for 14.5 hours a day, while brown bats get around 20 hours of shut-eye and are awake for just 4 hours per night. At the other end of the spectrum are the grazing giants like giraffes and elephants, who need a mere 3-4 hours of sleep each night.

* First published in www.petfinder.my