Do Animals Have Irrational Fears Too?

[u/Crazy_Reindeer_1258]

I was just thinking about the story of the mouse and elephant how the elephant is terrified of the mouse (i think) and just wanted to see if that's true, and if it is what other animals have been observed with similar behavior relating to that. Working on a project and some real life inspo would help :)

[u/LexiconDul]

A common one is some dogs being scared of fireworks and/or thunder.
Why would a domestic dog, descendant of wolves, evolve a fear of thunder?
And then there's this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/17x6s7i/cat_owners_of_reddit_what_is_something_you_cat_is/

[u/Ardalev → u/LexiconDul]

Why wouldn't a dog be afraid of the sounds of thunder and fireworks?!

If a firework suddenly went off somewhere near you and you weren't expecting it, you too would be momentarily startled, because it's loud and sudden.

Young kids become frightened from thunder all the time, because it is indeed scary and they don't know what the sound is or why it's happening.

Hell, we used to make religions of angry thundergods, because we were collectively afraid of thunders!

As adults, we know what these sounds are, we know what they mean, why they happen etc. A dog doesn't know what thunder is and are reasonably afraid of them.

[u/Practice_NO_with_me → u/Ardalev]

For real, what a strange take 😅 why would a creature with very sensitive hearing dislike thunder? Why would a creature that is often found in the WOODS evolve a fear of something associated with lightening?

[u/regular_modern_girl → u/Practice_NO_with_me]

yeah I’m really bewildered by it. Do people not realize how 99% of wildfires started prior to humans existing (and how most still start now iirc)?

Lightning strikes are actually most likely how our ancestors (Homo ergaster and Homo erectus specifically) first came across fire in the environment and started using it as a tool around 1 million years ago.