5 American Animals Whose Size You Get Completely Wrong (Documentary)
America's Lost Wild
915 views
A bald eagle weighs between eight and fourteen pounds. That is the national symbol of the United States, the bird on the seal and on the money, and a large one weighs about as much as a house cat. Almost everything you are looking at is feathers and air, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game puts its practical lifting capacity at four or five pounds. Every video of an eagle carrying off a dog is either fake or badly described.
This full documentary covers five American animals people consistently get wrong, in both directions. A black bear is regularly called enormous, and a typical adult female weighs less than the person describing her. A coyote weighs about twenty-five pounds, which makes it smaller than a labrador and roughly the size of a border collie, and the reason it sounds like a pack of ten is that a small group of coyotes genuinely does sound like a pack of ten. A turkey vulture spans six feet and weighs under five pounds, less than a gallon of milk, with stomach acid strong enough to destroy anthrax spores.
And at number one the direction flips completely. A bull moose stands six to seven feet at the shoulder. A riding horse stands about five. It is a foot to a foot and a half taller than a horse before anything on its head is counted, it weighs up to sixteen hundred pounds, it runs at thirty-five miles an hour through forest, and it carries forty pounds of antler that it grows from nothing every spring.
You can watch the full documentary about any of these animals here: America's Prehistoric Animals Documentaries
CHAPTERS
00:00 Less Than a House Cat
01:09 It Cannot Carry Your Dog
06:28 Lighter Than the Person Describing It
10:48 The Size of a Border Collie
15:00 Six Feet of Wing, Four Pounds of Bird
19:50 Taller Than a Horse
25:18 Reputation Is Not Size
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Adult bald eagles weigh 8 to 14 pounds with a wingspan of 6 to 7.5 feet; females are larger than males and northern birds larger than southern
A bald eagle carries circa 7,000 feathers and the feather coat weighs more than the skeleton; avian skeletons are hollow and account for circa 5 to 6 percent of body weight against circa 15 percent in humans
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game puts practical eagle lifting power at circa 4 to 5 pounds; lift depends on airspeed so a diving snatch permits slightly more than a standing takeoff
Eagles that seize prey too heavy to lift row to shore using the wings; talon grip is largely passive through tendon arrangement, which is why the bird cannot simply release
The screaming call associated with bald eagles in film is a red-tailed hawk; the largest recorded eagle nest, in Florida, was nearly 10 feet across and estimated near 3 tons
Adult female black bears generally weigh 90 to 180 pounds and males 130 to 300; shoulder height on all fours is circa 3 feet and grizzlies weigh two to three times more
Autumn coat and fat substantially increase apparent size; bipedal standing is investigative behaviour, not threat display
Black bears occur in black, brown, cinnamon and blonde phases; 75 to 90 percent of the diet is plant material and standard encounter guidance is to stand ground and appear large
Western coyotes weigh 20 to 35 pounds and stand circa 24 inches at the shoulder; eastern coyotes with wolf and dog ancestry reach 35 to 45 pounds. Grey wolves weigh 70 to 120 pounds
A border collie weighs 30 to 45 pounds and a labrador 60 to 80; long legs on a light frame, winter coat and poor distance scaling cause systematic overestimation
Coyote group howling causes small groups to sound far larger; coyotes hunt alone or in pairs on rodents, rabbits, fruit and carrion and occur in every state except Hawaii
Turkey vultures weigh 3.5 to 5 pounds with a circa 6 foot wingspan, giving very low wing loading; the dihedral wing position and rocking flight provide self-righting stability
Turkey vultures have an unusually developed olfactory system and locate carrion by scent beneath canopy; black vultures follow them. Circling vultures have been used to indicate gas pipeline leaks
Turkey vulture feet are weak and unsuited to gripping; defence is projectile regurgitation, and stomach acid is strong enough to destroy botulism toxin and anthrax spores
Indian vulture populations collapsed by over 95 percent in the 1990s after diclofenac use in cattle, with documented increases in feral dog numbers and human rabies
Bull moose stand 6 to 7 feet at the shoulder with a record over 7.5; riding horses stand circa 5 feet at the withers. Bulls weigh 800 to 1,600 pounds with a record over 1,800
Mature bull antlers spread 4 to 5 feet with a record over 6.5 feet and weigh 25 to 40 pounds, grown and shed annually
The moose is the second largest land animal in North America after the bison and the tallest; in collisions the body passes through the windscreen rather than over the bonnet
#Moose #BaldEagle #BlackBear #Coyote #NaturalHistory
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5 American Animals Whose Size You Get Completely Wrong (Documentary)
America's Lost Wild
915 views
A bald eagle weighs between eight and fourteen pounds. That is the national symbol of the United States, the bird on the seal and on the money, and a large one weighs about as much as a house cat. Almost everything you are looking at is feathers and air, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game puts its practical lifting capacity at four or five pounds. Every video of an eagle carrying off a dog is either fake or badly described.
This full documentary covers five American animals people consistently get wrong, in both directions. A black bear is regularly called enormous, and a typical adult female weighs less than the person describing her. A coyote weighs about twenty-five pounds, which makes it smaller than a labrador and roughly the size of a border collie, and the reason it sounds like a pack of ten is that a small group of coyotes genuinely does sound like a pack of ten. A turkey vulture spans six feet and weighs under five pounds, less than a gallon of milk, with stomach acid strong enough to destroy anthrax spores.
And at number one the direction flips completely. A bull moose stands six to seven feet at the shoulder. A riding horse stands about five. It is a foot to a foot and a half taller than a horse before anything on its head is counted, it weighs up to sixteen hundred pounds, it runs at thirty-five miles an hour through forest, and it carries forty pounds of antler that it grows from nothing every spring.
You can watch the full documentary about any of these animals here: America's Prehistoric Animals Documentaries
CHAPTERS
00:00 Less Than a House Cat
01:09 It Cannot Carry Your Dog
06:28 Lighter Than the Person Describing It
10:48 The Size of a Border Collie
15:00 Six Feet of Wing, Four Pounds of Bird
19:50 Taller Than a Horse
25:18 Reputation Is Not Size
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Adult bald eagles weigh 8 to 14 pounds with a wingspan of 6 to 7.5 feet; females are larger than males and northern birds larger than southern
A bald eagle carries circa 7,000 feathers and the feather coat weighs more than the skeleton; avian skeletons are hollow and account for circa 5 to 6 percent of body weight against circa 15 percent in humans
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game puts practical eagle lifting power at circa 4 to 5 pounds; lift depends on airspeed so a diving snatch permits slightly more than a standing takeoff
Eagles that seize prey too heavy to lift row to shore using the wings; talon grip is largely passive through tendon arrangement, which is why the bird cannot simply release
The screaming call associated with bald eagles in film is a red-tailed hawk; the largest recorded eagle nest, in Florida, was nearly 10 feet across and estimated near 3 tons
Adult female black bears generally weigh 90 to 180 pounds and males 130 to 300; shoulder height on all fours is circa 3 feet and grizzlies weigh two to three times more
Autumn coat and fat substantially increase apparent size; bipedal standing is investigative behaviour, not threat display
Black bears occur in black, brown, cinnamon and blonde phases; 75 to 90 percent of the diet is plant material and standard encounter guidance is to stand ground and appear large
Western coyotes weigh 20 to 35 pounds and stand circa 24 inches at the shoulder; eastern coyotes with wolf and dog ancestry reach 35 to 45 pounds. Grey wolves weigh 70 to 120 pounds
A border collie weighs 30 to 45 pounds and a labrador 60 to 80; long legs on a light frame, winter coat and poor distance scaling cause systematic overestimation
Coyote group howling causes small groups to sound far larger; coyotes hunt alone or in pairs on rodents, rabbits, fruit and carrion and occur in every state except Hawaii
Turkey vultures weigh 3.5 to 5 pounds with a circa 6 foot wingspan, giving very low wing loading; the dihedral wing position and rocking flight provide self-righting stability
Turkey vultures have an unusually developed olfactory system and locate carrion by scent beneath canopy; black vultures follow them. Circling vultures have been used to indicate gas pipeline leaks
Turkey vulture feet are weak and unsuited to gripping; defence is projectile regurgitation, and stomach acid is strong enough to destroy botulism toxin and anthrax spores
Indian vulture populations collapsed by over 95 percent in the 1990s after diclofenac use in cattle, with documented increases in feral dog numbers and human rabies
Bull moose stand 6 to 7 feet at the shoulder with a record over 7.5; riding horses stand circa 5 feet at the withers. Bulls weigh 800 to 1,600 pounds with a record over 1,800
Mature bull antlers spread 4 to 5 feet with a record over 6.5 feet and weigh 25 to 40 pounds, grown and shed annually
The moose is the second largest land animal in North America after the bison and the tallest; in collisions the body passes through the windscreen rather than over the bonnet
#Moose #BaldEagle #BlackBear #Coyote #NaturalHistory