I am a Taurus.
Lately I’ve been reading about the astrological signs, and it’s fascinating how accurate the descriptions can be.
Doubters and nonbelievers chock up the similarities to confirmation bias which I learned about in psychology classes, where you read your horoscope and then live the rest of the day looking for similarities to confirm your preconception of what was supposed to happen, but that doesn’t really apply here because I don’t read horoscopes (anymore). All I know is when I read the description of what a Taurus is like it sounds like me, and when I send it to my friends they say it sounds like me, and when I apply the description of a Taurus to my friends who are not Tauruses it does not sound like them.
So, in honor of us Taureans, I’ve been reading about our zodiac animal, the bull, and have found them suddenly rivaling my favorite animal of all, the bear.
- Bulls become fertile at about seven months of age. Their fertility is closely related to the size of their testicles, and one simple test of fertility is to measure the circumference of the scrotum: a young bull is likely to be fertile once this reaches 28 centimetres (11 in); that of a fully adult bull may be over 40 centimetres (16 in).
- A common misconception widely repeated in depictions of bull behavior is that the color red angers bulls, inciting them to charge. In fact, like most mammals, cattle are red-green color blind. In bullfighting, it is the movement of the matador’s cape, and not the color, which provokes a reaction in the bull. [How fun, I’m red-green color blind too, albeit mildly.]
- It is estimated that 42% of all livestock-related fatalities in Canada are a result of bull attacks, and fewer than one in twenty victims of a bull attack survives.
- Being trampled, jammed against a wall or gored by a bull was one of the most frequent causes of death in the dairy industry prior to 1940. As suggested in one popular farming magazine, “Handle [the bull] with a staff and take no chances. The gentle bull, not the vicious one, most often kills or maims his keeper”.
- Bulls have held a place of significance in human culture since before the beginning of recorded history. They appear in cave paintings estimated to be up to 17,000 years old. The mythic Bull of the Heavens plays a role in the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, dating as far back as 2150 BC.
9 notes:
![I am a Taurus.
Lately I’ve been reading about the astrological signs, and it’s fascinating how accurate the descriptions can be.
Doubters and nonbelievers chock up the similarities to confirmation bias which I learned about in psychology classes, where you read your horoscope and then live the rest of the day looking for similarities to confirm your preconception of what was supposed to happen, but that doesn’t really apply here because I don’t read horoscopes (anymore). All I know is when I read the description of what a Taurus is like it sounds like me, and when I send it to my friends they say it sounds like me, and when I apply the description of a Taurus to my friends who are not Tauruses it does not sound like them.
So, in honor of us Taureans, I’ve been reading about our zodiac animal, the bull, and have found them suddenly rivaling my favorite animal of all, the bear.
Bulls become fertile at about seven months of age. Their fertility is closely related to the size of their testicles, and one simple test of fertility is to measure the circumference of the scrotum: a young bull is likely to be fertile once this reaches 28 centimetres (11 in); that of a fully adult bull may be over 40 centimetres (16 in).
A common misconception widely repeated in depictions of bull behavior is that the color red angers bulls, inciting them to charge. In fact, like most mammals, cattle are red-green color blind. In bullfighting, it is the movement of the matador’s cape, and not the color, which provokes a reaction in the bull. [How fun, I’m red-green color blind too, albeit mildly.]
It is estimated that 42% of all livestock-related fatalities in Canada are a result of bull attacks, and fewer than one in twenty victims of a bull attack survives.
Being trampled, jammed against a wall or gored by a bull was one of the most frequent causes of death in the dairy industry prior to 1940. As suggested in one popular farming magazine, “Handle [the bull] with a staff and take no chances. The gentle bull, not the vicious one, most often kills or maims his keeper”.
Bulls have held a place of significance in human culture since before the beginning of recorded history. They appear in cave paintings estimated to be up to 17,000 years old. The mythic Bull of the Heavens plays a role in the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, dating as far back as 2150 BC.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv1f2qD4h61qzpkzqo1_1280.jpg)
