Somewhere a Herpetologist Is Crying: Difference between revisions
Somewhere a Herpetologist Is Crying (view source)
Revision as of 02:05, 20 August 2023
, 8 months ago→Literature: Replaced redirects
m (update links) |
(→Literature: Replaced redirects) |
||
| (5 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 10:
* [[Removable Shell|Showing turtles' carapaces as being removable/a type of clothing/with a little furnished apartment on the inside]]. In [[Real Life]], a turtle's carapace is as removable as a human's ribcage, if not less so. The carapace is formed from the turtle's ribcage and other skeletal elements fusing together with bony scales.
* Iguanas having sticky tongues and eating insects. Iguanas eat leafy greens, fruits, and vegetables and do not have sticky tongues (although they have been known to eat insects in the wild, doing so typically indicates a dietary deficiency and is purely opportunistic, and not healthy in large quantities).
* Referring to any reptile as "poisonous"; something which will also cause [[Grammar Nazi
* Portraying reptiles and amphibians as one and the same, or have the two terms as interchangeable. In reality, reptiles and amphibians are only related superficially, considering that the two lineages separated over 300 million years ago. The closest living relatives to reptiles today are the birds: living descendants of dinosaurs, and therefore part of the reptile group themselves.
* Snakes referred to as "slimy". They actually have smooth, dry scales.
Of course, reality is often ignored due to [[Rule of Funny]], [[Rule of Cool]], etc.
Subtrope of [[You Fail Biology Forever]]. See also [[Funny Animal Anatomy]] and [[Artistic License]]. Supertrope of [[Hollywood Chameleons]], [[Removable Shell]], and [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* The "Travelers Assurance" commercial featuring a rattlesnake and a few jackrabbits never shows the rattlesnake as being able to blink, averting one trope, and plays it straight by having the rattlesnake rattle at potential prey. The implication of the second may be that the snake was kind of a bully and was only trying to intimidate.
* The [[Notable Commercial Campaigns|Geico Gecko]] is obviously not supposed to be entirely realistic, if only because he talks and hawks car insurance, but real life [[wikipedia:Phelsuma|day geckos]] do not have eyelids. In fact, one of the only types of geckos that does is the [[wikipedia:Leopard gecko|leopard gecko]]. Made worse in one commercial when he talks to a non-cartoon leopard gecko and it licks its eye like the type of gecko the mascot is supposed to be. Leopard geckos ''can'' lick their eyes, but usually only if there's something in their eye that's bothering them, so this is a double failure.<ref>not to mention a small level of [[Fridge Horror]] for leopard gecko owners since it suggests that the makers of the commercial ''intentionally'' put something in the gecko's eye to make it lick it</ref>
Line 38 ⟶ 39:
== Literature ==
* In ''[[
** For that matter, he's talking to a snake, despite the fact snakes can't hear very well. Riddle also says in the ''Chamber of Secrets'' movie about the Basilisk being able to hear Harry, though [[Science Marches On]] with the hearing (it's now known that snakes ''can'' hear, though not in the same way we do) and the Basilisk is a fictional species. In this case, [[A Wizard Did It]].
** And then there's how the voice in the pipes kept ranting about "blood" and about ripping/tearing its prey. If the basilisk were anything like a real snake, it ought to swallow its prey ''whole'', with little or no blood shed, especially if it kills its food with its deadly gaze.
Line 63 ⟶ 64:
== Music ==
* The Shel Silverstein song "I'm Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor" is an example because boa constrictors kill their prey before eating them and swallow their prey head first. The snake in the poem swallows its prey feet-first. This may just be [[Artistic License]], as the poem would be much shorter the other way, and owners will sometimes tell stories about how their snakes can sometimes get it backwards.
== Real Life ==▼
* There is an [[Urban Legend]] wherein a woman keeps waking up to discover her husband's pet python is stretching itself out alongside her in bed. She calls a herpetologist to ask about the behavior, and he tells her, "[[Don't Ask, Just Run|Get out of the house now!]]": The python, he tells her, was measuring her up in preparation to eat her. In reality no snake (or, for that matter, ''no predator at all'') would ever waste valuable time or the element of surprise in trying to "measure" their prey.▼
* Sadly, most wildlife-rehabilitation facilities have had to treat turtles with cracked shells, whom some idiot tried to remove from their "little house" in ignorance of the fact that the shell is part of the animal's skeleton. A case of [[Television Is Trying to Kill Us|Television Is Trying To Kill Turtles]] in action.▼
* Horned Lizards are often called "horned toad," "horny toad", "horned frog" etc etc etc due to their similarity to the given amphibians but they are actually lizards. To make things more confusing, their scientific name, Phrynosoma, evidently means "toad-bodied" so...▼
* One ''[[(The Customer is) Not Always Right]]'' tidbit had a man in a petshop try to have a [http://notalwaysright.com/hiss-terical-contest/6199 staring contest] with one of the pythons for ten minutes before the owner had to remind him that snakes can't blink.▼
* The idea that snakes somehow possess a hypnotic gaze probably stems from a few things. The first is that snakes lack eyelids, so their unblinking stares can be kind of creepy to humans. The second comes from stories of people who witness small animals sitting very still when snakes are nearby. This is standard prey behavior with just about any possible threat, freezing up so that predators who aren't already aware of them might not notice (if that doesn't work, ''run''). This sort of behavior may be partly responsible for the myth of [[Taken for Granite|the Gorgon Medusa]]. And while we're on the subject, snake charmers don't really charm snakes with music (since snakes don't hear things the same way we do), the snake is just following the motion of the charmer's flute and hands. In effect, [[Inverted Trope|the snake charmer is hypnotising the snake]].▼
* Some aspects of the traits that iguanas express in movies are true, but not to the extent they are usually shown. They can change color, slightly-- they are mostly green in a neutral state, mostly orange when is trying to show off as a sexually mature male, and 'greyed out' when angry or scared. They also have slightly sticky tongue, and when they eat, they will flick the tongue at the food once or twice, and moist vegetables will stick to the tongue long enough for him to get them into the mouth. They can also eat mealworms, and will occasionally eat insects in the wild to supplement a dietary deficiency; but doing so tends to make iguanas extremely sick if eaten in more than trace amounts, and are definitely not part of their normal diet.▼
* Chameleons changing colour and pattern to blend into their environments is a common belief, but not a very accurate one. While some species do change colour as a form of camouflage; the primary purpose of chameleon colour changing is social signaling such as aggression/defensiveness and mating displays. A few species also use the ability for thermo regulation.▼
== Video Games ==
Line 96 ⟶ 86:
* Played with in an episode of ''[[Animaniacs]]'', where a chameleon is subjected to multiple rapid background changes, changing his own colour and pattern to match. Becomes a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] when the poor lizard is given a plaid background, and [[Big No|loudly refuses to match it]].
* Shouldn't Baby Kermit on ''[[Muppet Babies]]'' be a tadpole? Oddly enough, his nephew Robin is actually portrayed as (a talking) one.
▲== Real Life ==
▲* There is an [[Urban Legend]] wherein a woman keeps waking up to discover her husband's pet python is stretching itself out alongside her in bed. She calls a herpetologist to ask about the behavior, and he tells her, "[[Don't Ask, Just Run|Get out of the house now!]]": The python, he tells her, was measuring her up in preparation to eat her. In reality no snake (or, for that matter, ''no predator at all'') would ever waste valuable time or the element of surprise in trying to "measure" their prey.
▲* Sadly, most wildlife-rehabilitation facilities have had to treat turtles with cracked shells, whom some idiot tried to remove from their "little house" in ignorance of the fact that the shell is part of the animal's skeleton. A case of [[Television Is Trying to Kill Us|Television Is Trying To Kill Turtles]] in action.
▲* Horned Lizards are often called "horned toad," "horny toad", "horned frog" etc etc etc due to their similarity to the given amphibians but they are actually lizards. To make things more confusing, their scientific name, Phrynosoma, evidently means "toad-bodied" so...
▲* One ''[[(The Customer is) Not Always Right]]'' tidbit had a man in a petshop try to have a [http://notalwaysright.com/hiss-terical-contest/6199 staring contest] with one of the pythons for ten minutes before the owner had to remind him that snakes can't blink.
▲* The idea that snakes somehow possess a hypnotic gaze probably stems from a few things. The first is that snakes lack eyelids, so their unblinking stares can be kind of creepy to humans. The second comes from stories of people who witness small animals sitting very still when snakes are nearby. This is standard prey behavior with just about any possible threat, freezing up so that predators who aren't already aware of them might not notice (if that doesn't work, ''run''). This sort of behavior may be partly responsible for the myth of [[Taken for Granite|the Gorgon Medusa]]. And while we're on the subject, snake charmers don't really charm snakes with music (since snakes don't hear things the same way we do), the snake is just following the motion of the charmer's flute and hands. In effect, [[Inverted Trope|the snake charmer is hypnotising the snake]].
▲* Some aspects of the traits that iguanas express in movies are true, but not to the extent they are usually shown. They can change color,
▲* Chameleons changing colour and pattern to blend into their environments is a common belief, but not a very accurate one. While some species do change colour as a form of camouflage; the primary purpose of chameleon colour changing is social signaling such as aggression/defensiveness and mating displays. A few species also use the ability for thermo regulation.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Reptile and Amphibian Tropes]]
[[Category:Somewhere This Index Is Crying]]
[[Category:Artistic License Biology]]
[[Category:Somewhere a Herpetologist Is Crying]]
| |||