Hoax Museum Blog: Animals

Mountain Lion Email Hoax — image Quite a few people have received this picture in their email showing a man holding up a giant (dead) mountain lion. According to the accompanying text, the lion was shot by the man near Leon, Kansas while he was out deer hunting, though different versions of the email list different locations. Is the picture real? It is. But the accompanying text is incorrect. According to this article on Buckmasters.com, the lion was actually shot near Seattle, Washington. The picture first appeared in Fair Chase magazine, published by the Boone and Crockett Club, before it spread to email.
Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2004.   Comments (1)

Winston Churchill’s Parrot — parrotNewspapers are reporting the story of Charlie, a parrot that is 104 years old, once belonged to Winston Churchill, and still swears at the Nazis. When I read about Charlie, I figured it couldn't be true. First of all, could a parrot really live that long? Well, apparently in rare cases they can. So that part of the story might be true. But there is a lot of doubt about whether Charlie ever belonged to Churchill. Churchill's family is denying that Winston ever owned a parrot. Charlie might simply be a parrot that somebody once taught to swear at the Nazis. Oh, and Charlie is a girl.
Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004.   Comments (44)

Real Dog — Why own a living, breathing dog that you have to feed every day, when you can own a RealDog instead?
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004.   Comments (2)

Haggis Hunt — Here's an interesting hoax website, courtesy of Anson Kennedy. It's haggishunt.com, which punctures the common misconception that a haggis is a sheep's stomach stuffed with meat and oatmeal. In reality (according to this site) a haggis is an extremely rare animal hunted by the Scottish. The site offers many educational haggis facts, such as that the sound the haggis is most sensitive to is plaid rubbing on underpants (I never knew!). And definitely check out the Haggis Cam.

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004.   Comments (0)


Bum-Breathing Turtles — I received an email from Tammy who had an important question for me. "Is it true a turtle can breath out of his butt?" she wants to know. Dear Tammy, yes this is true. At least, I know it's true that some species of turtle, such as the Fitzroy River Turtle, can perform this amazing trick, but I wouldn't stick my neck out to say that every species of turtle can. Those turtles which can are known scientifically as 'bum-breathing turtles.'
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2003.   Comments (0)

Sea Urchins Live Forever — One of the questions in my gullibility test is whether turtles ever die of old age. The answer is that they don't, and here's a BBC article about another species that shares this trait: the sea urchin. Apparently, unless urchins are killed off by predators or diseasey, they'll live forever.
Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2003.   Comments (0)

The Great Octopus Mystery — As a joke, a Peoria woman puts a baby octopus in her boyfriend's toilet. Her boyfriend gets home, finds an octopus in his toilet, and assumes it must have crawled there from out of the sewer. He calls the local paper and the city is soon caught up in the 'Great Octopus Mystery' until the girlfriend calls up and sheepishly confesses.
Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2003.   Comments (1)

British Giant Rabbits — Giant RabbitA visitor named Patricia wrote to ask whether British Giant Rabbits are real, or whether this site devoted to them is just a joke. They're real, Patricia. And very cute!
Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003.   Comments (10)

Marry Your Pet — Do you really, really love your pet? Then why not marry him or her? Go to MarryYourPet.com, and you can make it happen. Of course, the marriage isn't recognized by a court of law, which makes it somewhat of a hoax, but they really will sell you a marriage certificate, an 'I married my pet' T-shirt, or a wall plaque. They're all incredibly overpriced. If they offered the certificate for $5 instead of $20, they probably would do more business. They're trying to sell the wall plaque for $200. Ouch! Who in their right mind would shell out that much for a gag gift?
Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2003.   Comments (4)

Primate Programming — From the company's website: "Primate Programming Inc. is dedicated to the advancement and gainful employment of non-human great apes within the United States information technology sector."
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003.   Comments (0)

Burmese Mountain Dogs — Burmese Mountain Dog: A page (also from the creators of the Mankato, Minnesota page) with some info about a rare breed of dog known as the Burmese Mountain Dog. You can examine this a long time and potentially not realize the joke, which is that the actual breed is the Bernese Mountain Dog (it comes from Berne, Switzerland). I guess a lot of people say Burmese instead of Bernese.
Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003.   Comments (18)

Lake Michigan Whale Watching — Lake Michigan Whale Watching: One of the best guarded secrets of the Great Lakes
Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2003.   Comments (0)

Real Hamster — Real Hamster: Hot hamster sex. Maybe not safe for work.
Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2003.   Comments (0)

The Penguin Conspiracy — The Penguin Conspiracy: Revealing the shocking truth... that penguins are plotting to take over the world
Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2003.   Comments (2)

Yoga Kitty — Yoga Kitty: Instructional yoga videos for you and your cat
Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2003.   Comments (0)

Munchkin Hoax — The Sydney Morning Herald has labelled that photo of Munchkin the Monster cat (see below) a hoax (thanks to Steve Wilson for pointing this out to me). Still, I can't see how the hoax was done.
Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2003.   Comments (0)

Munchkin, the Monster Cat — munchkin Meet Munchkin the Monster Cat, who seems to be related to Snowball. Is Munchkin for real. Honestly, I don't know. I'm looking for answers. (Thanks to Mara, who thinks Munchkin is fake, for sending this image).
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003.   Comments (0)

Quacks Do Echo — At last we have definitive scientific proof that ducks' quacks DO echo. Now hopefully researchers will press ahead and perform echo tests on the full range of barnyard sounds: moos, oinks, barks, cock-a-doodle-doos, etc.
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003.   Comments (0)

Crocodile Warning — Croydon residents can rest easy. Signs alerting them to the danger of a crocodile inhabiting a local pond were just a prank.
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2003.   Comments (0)

A Real What Is It? — angora rabbit When I first saw this picture I thought, 'that can't be a real animal, it's got to be a hoax.' But apparently it's real. It's an angora rabbit. What an odd-looking creature. More pictures can be found here. (link via Geisha asobi blog)
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003.   Comments (4)

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