when i was little, my father told me that Frankfurt sausage-like dogs once have long legs, and the reason why they have short legs now is because they ran too much.
animals
3,621 beliefs in this area
Where I grew up, we called dragonflies "sewing needles". My aunt told me that they were called that because if they came near you, they would sew you up. Like sew your arm to your side, your hand to your face or even sew your mouth shut. I would run screaming every time I saw one.
When I was little I thought all cats were females and all dogs were males.
A grad student I knew from England believed fireflies were imaginary, like fairies. Apparently they don't have them over there. When he came to the United States he was astonished to discover that there are bugs that give off light -- which is kind of amazing, if you think about it.
My big brother told me that yogurt was processed dog vomit. It was perfectly safe to eat, after the treatment, so it was no big deal. Of course he believed that salt on the tails of birds actually incapacitated them until he was 18. We both found out the truth at the same family dinner.
I used to think that white dog poo was left by white dogs.
when i was young i thought a shelter for a cat was called a cat house until i said it out loud and my mom beat the snot out of me
I used to think grass hoppers were called "grass-soppers." You know, because of how when you squeeze them they get "juice" all over the place.... yuck.
When I was a little kid, I asked my mother about the balls of leaves up in the trees.
She told me that they were squirrels nests.
From then on, i believed that squirrels laid eggs.
I refused to believe that squirrels gave birth to live young in their nests. I would then defiantly argue and tell the person that squirrels built nests so that they could lay their eggs in them.
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I thought that all dogs were boys and all cats were girls.
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When i was little, my dad told me that tires on cars were made from dog noses. i believed it until fourth grade.
This isn't actually my belief, but my brother in law's. We were watching something on the Discovery channel one night, and apparently it had something to do with sloths. So of course they had footage of the sloth eating and swimming and hanging on a tree branch. Well, my brother in law came down stairs and was like "What kind of animal is that?"
"A sloth," I replied.
"No way," he responded, "Nu uh! Are you serious?"
"Yes, and they're so slow that they have slime growing on their fur."
"Wow. I thought sloth was just something they made up in the Bible when they were talking about lazy people."
(Note: he's like 15 years older than me...)
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I used to think that bears laid eggs! I always pictured bears sitting on enormous nests, just like chickens.
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I'm not sure where I got this from, but when I was little I believed that kangaroo pouches were filled with sticky purple gel.
When i was little i belived that cats are pure evil and kittens are plotting, come to think of it i still do
I thought until I was about 8 that if I barked at a dog, meowed a cat, quacked a duck, etc., and thought reeeaaally hard about what I wanted to tell it, it would telepathically understand. I also thought that they could reply if I concentrated and was all quiet, but I was a rowdy kid so I never tried it. I got very frustrated when I thought, staring all bug-eyed at one of the cats,'meow back if you understand me' and it stayed quiet. I wasn't deterred at all, I simply thought they were being lazy.
Then after watching 'Cats and Dogs' I was convinced they could even talk out loud if they wanted to, and they were just keeping it a secret from me. I was such a weird little kid.
When I saw the movie "Dumbo" (the about the flying elephant) I thought that if elephants had big enough ears, they could actually fly!!!
I lived in the desert and there were flying orange beetles we called June bugs that only came in the summer. My dad used to always tell me that if they landed on me they would stick and someone would have to burn them off me. I believed this until I was 12 and one actually fell on me. My scream was finally cut off after a full minute when my friend brushed it off.
My dad swears he maybe said that about ticks but I don't know why I would have confused ticks with these things.
Either was, they don't stick.
When My brother was 4 or 5 I convinced him that alagators lived in our garbage cans, so he never threw anything away, he would just hide it in the refregerator!!
When I was about 4, I was convinced that all dogs were male & all cats were female.