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The name comes from the common (but false) legend that ostriches bury their heads in the sand to avoid danger. This effect is a cognitive bias where people tend to “bury their head in the sand” and avoid potentially negative but useful information, such as feedback on progress, to avoid psychological discomfort. [1]
Ostriches do not stick their heads in the sand to hide from enemies or to sleep. [63] This misconception's origins are uncertain but it was probably popularized by Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), who wrote that ostriches "imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed". [64]
Ostrich policy is a metaphoric expression referring to the tendency to ignore obvious matters and pretend they do not exist; [1] the expression derives from the supposed habit of ostriches to stick their head in the sand rather than face danger. [2] Ostriches do not actually bury their heads in the sand to avoid danger. [3]
Birds cannot use their beaks to apply preen oil to their own heads. Instead, many use their feet in an action called scratch-preening. Once they have gathered preen oil on their beak, they scrape a foot across their bill to transfer the oil, and then scratch the oil into the feathers on their head. [28] Longer-necked birds may rub their head ...
The Somali ostrich occurs in the Horn of Africa, having evolved isolated from the common ostrich by the geographic barrier of the East African Rift. In some areas, the common ostrich's Masai subspecies occurs alongside the Somali ostrich, but they are kept from interbreeding by behavioral and ecological differences. [15]
A bizarre and relatively new tradition in the Netherlands has it that, every 29 November, Dutch families should sit down for dinner with a pancake on their heads in order to wish one another “a ...
The ostrich instruction is a jury instruction that the requirement of knowledge to establish a guilty mind , is satisfied by deliberate ignorance - deliberate avoidance of knowledge. [1] This principle became established in British courts in the 1860s, and became widespread in the United States in the late 19th century. [ 2 ]
The common ostrich is the largest and heaviest living bird. Males stand 2.1 to 2.75 m (6 ft 11 in to 9 ft 0 in) tall and weigh 100 to 130 kg (220 to 290 lb), whereas females are about 1.75 to 1.9 m (5 ft 9 in to 6 ft 3 in) tall and weigh 90 to 120 kg (200 to 260 lb). [20]