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Animal quick facts and oddities...did you know? |
•Clownfish live in such a rigid social structure in the wild that if one of the dominant breeding adults is removed, the size, status and even sex of the other clownfish change rapidly to return the group to the status quo. If the female of the group dies, the male changes sex and becomes the breeding female, while the largest non-breeder becomes the breeding male. Some other species of fish are known to do the same thing.
• Elephants are the only animals that can't jump, but they can smell water three miles away.
• Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
• The puma, a member of the cat family, holds the record for the highest-jumping mammal. It can leap up to 18 feet (6 metres) in the air from a standing start.
• The flea can jump 350 times its body length. That's comparable to a human jumping the length of a football field.
• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out because it's attached to the roof of it's mouth.
• A giraffe's tongue is about 21 inches long.
• A blue whale's tongue is so large that 50 people could stand on it.
• The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, but dogs only have about ten.
• It is possible for one female cat and her offspring to be responsible for the birth of 20,736 kittens in four years. Is this a good argument for spaying, or what?
• Starfish don't have brains.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• The sperm whale has the largest brain of any mammal, weighing about 20 pounds (9kg).
• A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute.
• An adult blue whale's heart beats about 6 times a minute.
• Sharks are immune to cancer.
• Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.
• The African Lungfish can live out of water for up to 4 years.
• Turtles can breathe through their butts.
• The catfish has approximately 100,000 taste buds. Humans have 10,000. Cats can't taste sweets.
• The human eye contains one lense. The common housefly has 3,000. A dragonfly eye has 30,000 lenses.
• Cats always go to the person who likes them least because there is no eye contact made with them. It makes them feel less threathened and renders the person more approachable.
• The stomach of a fully grown polar bear can hold more than 150 lbs. of food.
• Cats, camels and giraffes are the only animals in the world that walk right foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, rather than right foot, left foot.
• The duckbill platypus (male) and a small shrew are the only venomous mammals in the world.
• Guinea Pigs, absolutely NEED vitamin C. To make sure they receive a good supply, they should be fed a diet including kale, cabbage, spinach and chicory.
• Pigs are NOT the only animals that can get sunburned. Beluga whales can obtain severe sunburns and dog's noses are susceptible to sunburn.
• European explorers asked aborigines what these strange hopping animals were called, and they replied, 'Kangaroo,' which meant, "I Don't understand." Kangaroos are called wallabies by the natives of Australia.
• Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.
• The bat is the only mammal that can fly.
• The killer whale is actually not a whale at all, but is the largest member of the dolphin family.
• Did you know that a duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why?
• All polar bears are left handed.
• Butterflies taste with their feet.
• Elephants drink up to 80 gallons of water a day.
• A camel can go 5-7 days with no food or water; they have even been known to go without water for 17 days and survive.
• Cheetahs are the fastest four-footed animals. They can run over 60 mph!
• There are 233 species of primates alive in the world. One of those species is humans! |
