illuminating science

Well, we don’t get to celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia, so no turkey for me this weekend. But that doesn’t stop me reading a comic about turkeys which suggests a bizarre fact - do turkeys drown (or otherwise perish) by looking up when it’s raining? I’d never heard of this before, and nor do I have any feel for why turkeys would look up while it’s raining, and why they would consequently drown. Sounds suspiciously like an urban legend - but you never know. So, it’s to Google I go, and specifically Snopes, my source for legend-busting - and the verdict is false. But Google provides still more information, since someone has already done some research. Their conclusion? Pretty much false, but with a couple of dissenting opinions found.

The basic idea of the legend is that turkeys are so stupid that they look up when it rains and are so fascinated by the raindrops, they sit with their beak open until they drown. However, turkeys don’t have binoccular vision - their eyes are on the sides of their head! So they’d never look up to see the rain - if anything they’d tilt their head sideways. It seems that there’s no evidence that this has actually ever happened, although it’s vaguely possible that it could have - apparently turkeys’ nostrils are just the right size to be blocked by raindrops! Nonetheless, I think we can safely assume that any turkey casualties over the weekend were the result of dining requirements, rather than moisture!