Prior to embarking on the writing of this listicle we thought we knew just how cruel people could be to animals (what with the factory farming, habitat depletion and extinction-causing), but oh how we were wrong. In many cases, apparently, that cruelty comes with a copious helping of humiliation, which is how we get mental_floss’s 10 Great American Animal Races. We probably feel worse for the pigs, porcupines, armadillos, but their races aren’t very entertaining, so we share with you the tragic plight of the ostrich: