Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [zoology]

Use this tag for questions involving animal biology; evolution, ecology, physiology, behavior, genetics, and marine biology.

Zoology the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems.

241 questions
18
votes
2 answers

Is it impossible to tell a lobster's age?

Source Stephen Fry said in the QI episode "I-Spy": "You can't tell the age of a lobster " (watch video) From the American Lobster FAQ: There is no foolproof way to determine a lobster’s age. One can only make an educated guess by looking…
Oliver_C
  • 47,851
  • 18
  • 213
  • 208
18
votes
4 answers

Is eating cloven-hoofed animals, bottom-feeders or ruminants bad for you?

The Torah and Talmud claim (and I have Christian friends that also claim) that eating animals that are bottom-feeders or ruminants—That is, eat the crud off the sea-floor, like shrimp, or digest their own waste like rabbits, pigs etc.)—OR have a…
MSpeed
  • 4,818
  • 3
  • 29
  • 38
18
votes
1 answer

Do Japanese fishermen put sharks in their tanks to keep fish fresh?

I saw the following story on Quora and when I Googled it, I got a lot of inspirational websites like Patheos.org that were hosting this same story without any citations. I would like to know if the story is true. The Japanese have always loved…
Aamil Syed
  • 491
  • 2
  • 4
  • 9
17
votes
1 answer

Are animals skinned alive or dead for their pelt?

An animal rights activist friend of mine recently went on a rant about how fur should be illegal. One of her main arguments was that all animals suffered greatly during the fur removing process as they were not killed before this process. Some…
ChrisR
  • 1,393
  • 2
  • 13
  • 28
17
votes
1 answer

Are birds pushed out of the nest?

Is it true that most birds learn to fly by being pushed out of the nest? I've seen this most often in cartoons and quoted all over the net. Here is an example quote: A fledgling is a baby bird that has some feathers and can hop around. Its …
going
  • 18,069
  • 18
  • 86
  • 151
17
votes
1 answer

Do elephants see humans the same way humans see puppies?

This tweet and others like it have been making the rounds lately: Julia‏ @JuliaHass I just learned that elephants think humans are cute the way humans think puppies are cute (the same part of the brain lights up when they see us) so pack it in,…
fluffy
  • 381
  • 1
  • 2
  • 9
17
votes
1 answer

Does having a pet help to cure your depression?

According to the community based website Curetogether spending time with a pet helps people with depression. Is there peer reviewed research that makes the same recommendation?
Christian
  • 33,271
  • 15
  • 112
  • 266
17
votes
1 answer

Did a baboon work for a South African railroad?

This image is circulating on Facebook (at least among my South African friends). It strikes me as somewhere between an extraordinary claim and a completely vague claim. To what extent, if any, is this story true? The image reads: During the late…
Flimzy
  • 15,520
  • 14
  • 63
  • 132
17
votes
0 answers

Is fish-flavored cat food bad/dangerous to a cat's health?

Our (two male) cats normally eat turkey and chicken flavoured canned wet cat food from our favorite cat food brand. However, we don't feed the cat's any other flavours which all contain fish, such as tuna or salmon, because of a vague recommendation…
Kevin McCormick
  • 275
  • 1
  • 2
  • 7
17
votes
2 answers

Is the theory of evolution disproved by bats?

For some species, the Darwin's theory of evolution makes perfect sense to me. I can easily imagine how, for example, the giraffe has evolved to its current appearance: the natural selection was favoring individuals that could consume more vegetable…
Desmond Hume
  • 297
  • 2
  • 6
16
votes
2 answers

Can small bags of water repel mosquitoes?

I was in Nicaragua recently and noted many restaurants and convenience stores had small sandwich sized bags filled with water hanging at their entrances. When I asked why, they said it was to repel mosquitoes. This seemed to be a widely held belief…
user6327
16
votes
1 answer

Do cheetahs die after sprinting for 30 seconds?

I heard that cheetahs, after sprinting for 30 seconds, will start to have their brain cells melt. Is that true?
bleh
  • 1,571
  • 14
  • 24
16
votes
1 answer

Is the Earth experiencing another mass extinction event?

I have heard that Earth is experiencing another mass extinction event, with many species going extinct at a rate comparable to Earth's many other past extinction events. This has been reported in the news. The BBC reports the claim like this: The…
Jeff Attwood
  • 169
  • 3
16
votes
2 answers

Can dogs detect human cancer?

I heard several times that dogs could detect cancer before it was detected by humans. Can Dogs Smell Cancer? There are many published studies that prove dogs can detect cancer through breath samples, and scientists and doctors are trying to come up…
Einenlum
  • 1,293
  • 1
  • 7
  • 21
16
votes
0 answers

Do crabs exemplify "crab mentality" behaviour?

Is there any verifiable evidence that crabs, in fact, behave as if they possess "crab mentality"? The term “crab mentality” is used to describe a kind of selfish thinking that runs along the lines of “if I can't have it, neither can …
sashkello
  • 3,762
  • 3
  • 28
  • 37
1 2 3
…
16 17