- Giraffes can clean their ears with their half metre long tongue.
- There are an estimated five million, trillion, trillion bacteria
on Earth.
- The world's smallest winged insect, the Tanzanian parasitic
wasp, is smaller than the eye of a housefly.
- Inbreeding causes 3 out of every 10 Dalmation dogs to suffer
from hearing disability.
- When a flea jumps, the rate of acceleration is 20 times that
of the space shuttle during launch.
- Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
- Despite its reputation for being finicky, the average cat consumes
about 127,750 calories a year, nearly 28 times its own weight
in food and the same amount again in liquids. In case you were
wondering, cats cannot survive on a vegetarian diet.
- The remains of diatoms, algae with hard shells, are used in
making pet litter, cosmetics, pool filters and tooth polish.
- When a queen bee lays the fertilized eggs that will develop
into new queens, only one of the newly laid queens actually survives.
The first new queen that emerges from her cell destroys all other
queens in their cells and, thereafter, reigns alone.
- The cat was domesticated over 4,000 years ago. Today's house
cats are descended from wildcats in Africa and Europe.
- Many fish can change sex during the course of their lives. Others,
especially rare deep-sea fish, have both male and female sex organs.
- Cats step with both left legs, then both right legs when they
walk or run. The only other animals to do this are the giraffe
and the camel.
- The stuff (allergens) that people are allergic to in cats is
a protein in cat saliva. When the cat grooms and the saliva dries
it can become airborn. This protein is 1/3 the weight of ordinary
housedust, so it can travel farther. You can find this allergen
where cats have never been.
- An adult lion's roar can be heard up to five miles away, and
warns off intruders or reunites scattered members of the pride.
- The oarfish, Regalecus glesne, is the longest bony fish in the
world. With its snakelike body_sporting a magnificent red fin
along its 50-foot length_horselike face and blue gills, it accounts
for many sea-serpent sightings.
- Camel milk does not curdle.
- Australian termites have been known to build mounds twenty feet
high and at least 100 feet wide.
- The first house rats recorded in America appeared in Boston
in 1775.
- A father sea catfish keeps the eggs of his young in his mouth
until they are ready to hatch. He will not eat until his young
are born, which may take several weeks.
- Animal gestation periods: the shortest is the American opossum,
which bears its young 12 to 13 days after conception; the longest
is the Asiatic elephant, taking 608 days, or just over 20 months.
- Dachshunds are the smallest breed of dog used for hunting. They
are low to the ground, which allows them to enter and maneuver
through tunnels easily.
- The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
- Cats purr at about 26 cycles per second, the same frequency
as an idling diesel engine.
- The venom of a female black widow spider is more potent than
that of a rattlesnake.
- The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be its
country of origin.
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