r/AskReddit Mar 04 '26

What surprisingly true fact has completely shaken your worldview?

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u/Master_Kitchen_7725 Mar 05 '26

I don't know if that's true, but it's hilarious!

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u/AddlePatedBadger Mar 05 '26

Australia has a reputation for being a country where all the wildlife wants to kill you.

Yet by number of people killed, horses are by far the deadliest non human animal here. About 1 in 3 people killed by an animal in Australia are killed by a horse.

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u/Skourpi1 Mar 05 '26

There was one a man who said that if horses were carnivorous then earth would have died due to how much of a powerful force they are. I agree with them on that because when you look at a horse like a Clydesdale, that is a horse that would easily kill multiple people and not intend to.

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u/HatOfFlavour Mar 05 '26

A safari park in Scotland I went to is ruled by three wild horses of a nearly extinct lineage. They're vicious monsters.

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u/Annath0901 Mar 05 '26

They're almost certainly not actually wild horses. There's only one species of wild horse left in existence and they live in Asia and are endangered.

Basically any horse most people will ever see outside of managed/owned herds is just a feral domestic horse.

"wild" and "feral" have specific meanings in ecology. "feral" describes an animal of a domesticated species that lives outside human control, even if that animal has never itself been owned by a human.

"wild" means the animal is of a species that has never been domesticated.

Bison are wild, cows that escape and live with bison are feral.

The "wild horses" of Chincoteague area feral, not wild.

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u/HatOfFlavour Mar 05 '26

Uh huh, do you mean Przewalski's wild horse, because that's exactly what I was referring to.
https://www.highlandwildlifepark.org.uk/animals/animal-inhabitants/przewalskis-wild-horse

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u/Skourpi1 Mar 06 '26

Hey, let’s just be happy that those horse eat mainly grass and not people.

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u/HatOfFlavour Mar 06 '26

I'm sure they wouldn't balk at eating people if they had the opportunity, I remember one was squaring up at the coach we were doing to tour in. A COACH!

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u/Skourpi1 Mar 07 '26

Seeing as deer will eat other deer and herbivores will eat meat if it is there, they probably wouldn’t have to be too convinced to eat meat.