It all started when they went to the zoo. For Harry it wasn't the animals that made it a fun day out. It was the opportunity for mis information infront of children. This was usually started by mentioning to Draco that "not many people know this but".
1) Penguins can fly, but the zoo puts a weighted ring on their foot, because it's cheaper than putting a roof on the enclosure. Told to Draco in the vicinity of a small child. Now while Draco had grown up in the Wizarding world he new about animals in the Muggle world.
2) The zoo drugs the sloths, because they're actually a lot faster than we are led to believe. The name is ironic, because the first one they saw and reported about was slow, because it was drunk as it had eaten a huge amount of fermented fruit.
3) Bats attack people who have on strong perfume, they think you're marking their territory. This was mentioned loudly near a woman who was wearing strong perfume, who was also terrified, and in the bat house.
4) Only wild lions have mains. That the zoo puts a wig on the male lion every morning. "It's like how captive orca whales in the likes of sea world have a bent fin, wild orca whales don't". This is the thing Harry often added a fact that was true, to add volition to his lie. He also said that a few times the zoo accidentally put the wig on the female lion. Luckily very few people had noticed.
5) Captive zebras don't have stripes, no one's sure why, but it's thought to be because they don't need to camouflage themselves anymore. So the zoo paints the stripes on so that they'll look like wild zebras, and people will be able to recognise a wild zebra.
6) The bubbles that come up when penguins dive, is them basically farting. If they didn't fart they'd float. Technically their fart powered. All the fish they eat makes them very gassy.
7) Wild flamingos are gray if you see a pink one in the wild it's escaped from a zoo. There pink because people thought they were boring being gray, and a lot of the time they just blended in to their enclosure. A survey on favourite colours was completed, and pink was the most chosen colour.
8) Hippo's and rhinos are the same animal. If a rhino is deemed too dangerous, the zoo gives them tablets and its horns falls off, and it becomes a hippo. In the wild their horns often fall off after a fight, their skin goes looser, and you get a naturally occurring hippo.
9) the elephant strew is called that because elephants are scared of them. This particular lie was added to with the outright lie that when the animal was seen by an elephant it made a noise that sounded like the word strew.
10) the zoo purposefully keeps the kiwis on the chubby side because there amazingly clever, and kept escaping. The zoo's found out that the kiwis are voracious eaters.
11) the tortoises are given the equivalent of human speed, because otherwise they will literally just sleep all day and night. So there actually more active in zoos. In the wild their the equivalent of living rocks.
12) a lot of the monkey enclosures have one way mirrors so the animals can only see themselves. This was because they were starting to copy the humans. Some people were trying to teach them to swear.
13) the zoo sometimes has to make new shells for the turtles in the aquarium. Wild turtles are like those little crabs that live in shells then move out when they get too big. So the zoo sometimes makes new shells from plastic if they haven't got any real shells to give them. They drop the fake shells into the water and the turtles move in.
14) in the natural world there is no such thing as a leaf cutter ant. There just regular ants, but a worker accidently spilt a steroid mixture on the ground. Some normal ants eat it and were seen carrying large bits of leaf. "The zoo has to be careful that the ants don't have to much of the steroid mixture, because people will get suspicious if the ants start carrying whole leaves".
15) said at the panda exhibit "if people saw them sober the panda's are completely different. No way near as wobbly, but people find the way they stumble about endearing".
16) apparently having the porcupines here was a nightmare for health and safety, because they'd shoot there quills at the public. So the zoo puts a light coating of glue on them so they can't fire, and harm the public. There were many lawsuits.
17) in the wild camel's store fat in there humps. They eat a pacific type of plant that is basically fat but on steroids, but the plant doesn't travel well at all it rots really quickly, so the zoo feeds the camels on a diet of lard.