I first heard of the ostrich head in sand myth from my mom, i was probably 6 or 7. I have often wondered why is the largest known bird such a chicken (no pun intended), it's nothing short of a miracle that ostriches still exist, they possess the most counter-productive escape plan ever! Seriously, the only thing this plan escapes from is reality ......... ahh~ escape from reality.. that's kind of nice ...... *buried my head under the pillows*So who started this myth?
Enter Gaius Plinius Secundus, aka Pliny the Elder (23-79AD), a Roman historian. Hey I like this guy, his Historia Naturalis is good stuff and we share some of the same values, one of it being "all time wasted that was not employed in study".
In Historia Naturalis, Book 10, Ch 1, Pliny wrote "... they (ostriches) imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed." According to historians this is the earliest record that describe this specific ostrich behavior. No ostrich farmer or anyone else has witness an ostrich bury it's head in the sand, and none has managed to capture this on film. The likely reason is when seen from afar, ostriches may appear to be burying their head in the sand when they feed, but they were just ingesting gravels from the ground to aid digestion!
Yay! So ostriches aren't that dumb after all. Sadly,can't say the same for some human beings. ;)
reference:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/11/02/1777947.htm
http://www.wolaver.org/animals/ostrich.htm
http://waterman99.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/us-ostrich-head-in-sand1.jpg
*edit:
image added 01/10, it's cute! ;)
