#35: Ostriches Don’t Stick Their Head in the Sand

If you thought ostriches spent a lot of their time with their heads buried in the sand – imagining they were invisible and protected from predators – you might be surprised to find out that they don’t! They’re simply working hard to build a nest under the sand. They are very aware that predators and other animals can see them.

Pliny the Elder was the father of taxonomy, and he was an inquisitive human that spent much of his time trying to find out how things worked and why things happened the way they did. He was so curious that he died trying to investigate the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius… during its eruption. Maybe we shouldn’t trust his knowledge about ostriches.