Amazing Facts - Animals

• A cat can run about 20 kilometres per hour (12 miles per hour) when it grows up.
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
• A cat sees about six times better than a human at night because of the tapetum lucidum , a layer of extra reflecting cells which absorb light.
• A cat uses whiskers to determine if a space is too small to squeeze through. The whiskers act as antennae, helping the animal to judge the precise width of any passage.
• A cat will clean itself with paw and tongue after a dangerous experience or when it has fought with another cat. This is an attempt by the animal to soothe its nerves by doing something natural and instinctive.
• A cat's jaws cannot move sideways.
• A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.
• A cheetah can run 76 kilometres per hour (46 miles per hour) - that's really fast! The fastest human beings runs only about 30 kilometres per hour (18 miles per hour).
• A cheetah does not roar like a lion - it purrs like a cat (meow).
• A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.
• A Cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.
• A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime
• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
• A crocodile's tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth? It cannot move. It cannot chew but its Digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail, Glass pieces, etc
• A dolphin can hold its breath for 5 to 8 minutes at a time
• A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
• A duck's quack doesn't echo anywhere
• A frog named Santjie, who was in a frog derby in South Africa jumped 33 feet 5.5 inches.
• A full-grown male mountain lion may be 9 feet long, including his tail!
• A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
• A hippopotamus can run faster than a man
• A jellyfish is 95 percent water!
• A rat can last longer without water than a camel can.
• A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
• A snail can sleep for three years.
• A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.
• A zebra is white with black stripes.
• All polar bears are left handed.
• Along with its length neck, the giraffe has a very long tongue -- more than a foot and a half long. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue
• An elephant can smell water three miles away
• An ostrich can run 43 miles per hour (70 kilometers per hour).
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• Animals are either right- or left-handed? Polar bears are always left-handed, and so is Kermit the Frog.
• Ants don't sleep.
• As fast as dragonflies can flap their wings, bees are even faster... they can flap their wings 435 times per second
• At 188 decibels, the whistle of the blue whale is the loudest sound produced by any animal.
• At birth, a panda is smaller than a mouse and weighs about four ounces.
• Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
• Bats can also find food up to 18 ft. away and get information about the type of insect using their sense of echolocation.
• Bats can detect warmth of an animal from about 16 cm away using its "nose-leaf".
• Bears whose brown fur is tipped with lighter-colored hairs are called grizzly bears. The smallest species of bears is called sun or Malayan bears. Male bears are called boars.
• Bears are native to the continents of North America, Asia, Europe, and South America. Alaskan brown bears, world's largest meat-eating animals that live on land, can weigh as much as 1,700 pounds (771 kilograms)
• Birds don't sweat
• Bison are excellent swimmers? Their head, hump and tail never go below the surface of the water.
• Butterflies taste with their feet.
• Camels can spit.
• Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand
• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.
• Cockroach: Can detect movement as small as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
• Cockroaches break wind every 15 minutes.
• Dalmatians are born without spots.
• Dinosaurs didn't eat grass? There was no grass in the days of the dinosaurs.
• Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil)
• Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right or left handed... or is that paws?!
• Dolphins can swim 37 miles per hour (60 kilometers per hour).
• Dolphins sleep in a semi-alert state by resting one side of their brain at a time
• Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
• Dolphins usually live up to about twenty years, but have been known to live for about forty.
• Dragonflies can flap their wings 28 times per second and they can fly up to 60 miles per hour
• Dragonfly: Eye contains 30,000 lenses.
• Every dolphin has its own signature whistle to distinguish it from other dolphins, much like a human fingerprint
• Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
• Fish scales are an ingredient in most lipsticks
• Flamingo tongues were eaten common at Roman feasts
• German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog
• How do reindeers survive in the extreme cold? Most animals don’t eat moss. It’s hard to digest, and it has little nutritional value. But reindeer fill up with lots of moss. Why? The moss contains a special chemical that helps reindeer keep their body fluids warm. When the reindeer make their yearly journey across the icy Arctic region, the chemical keeps them from freezing—much as antifreeze keeps a car from freezing up in winter
• In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
• Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump
• Male polar bears weigh 1400 pounds and females only weight 550 pounds, on average.
• Many spiders have eight eyes.
• More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
• Mountain lions are known by more than 100 names, including panther, catamount, cougar, painter and puma. It's scientific name is Felis concolor, which means "cat of one color." At one time, mountain lions were very common!
• New Zealand is home to 70 million sheep and only 40 million people.
• No two zebras have stripes that are exactly alike. Zebras enemies include hyenas, wild dogs, and lions. Male zebras are called stallions. Zebras usually travel in herds.
• Only one out of a thousand baby sea turtles survives after hatching.
• Ostriches can kick with tremendous force, but only forward. Don't Mess with them
• Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.
• Paris, France has more dogs than people.
• Penguins are not found in the North Pole
• Pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal in the world.
• Pig's Tongue contains 15,000 taste buds. For comparison, the human tongue has 9,000 taste buds.
• Porpoises and dolphins communicate with each other by squeaking, growling, moaning, and whistling. Porpoises and dolphins are mammals. There are about 40 species or kinds of porpoises and dolphins. Most porpoises and dolphins navigate by using "echolocation". The largest member of the dolphin family is called an orca or killer whale.
• Prehistoric turtles may have weighed as much as 5,000 pounds.
• Queen ants can live to be 30 years old
• Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks
• Sailor, Dead Leaf, Paper Kite, Blue Striped Crow, Julia and Great Egg Fly are all names of BUTTERFLIES. The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'!
• Sea turtles absorb a lot of salt from the sea water in which they live. They excrete excess salt from their eyes, so it often looks as though they're crying.
• Sharks are immune to disease i.e. they do not suffer from any Disease.
• Slugs have 4 noses.
• Snakes have no external ears. Therefore, they do not hear the music of a "snake charmer". Instead, they are probably responding to the movements of the snake charmer and the flute. However, sound waves may travel through bones in their heads to the middle ear.
• Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!
• The bird that can fly the fastest is called a White it can fly up to 95 miles per hour.
• The blue whale is the largest animal on earth. The heart of a blue whale is as big as a car, and its tongue is as long as an elephant.
• The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!
• The eyes of a frog flatten down when it swallows its prey
• The eyes of the chameleon can move independently & can see in two different directions at the same time.
• The fastest dog, the greyhound, can reach speeds of upto 41.7 miles per hour. The breed was known to exist in ancient Egypt 6,000 years ago
• The female lion does more than 90% of the hunting while the male simply prefers to rest. !!
• The grizzly bear can run as fast as the average horse!!
• The highest kangaroo leap recorded is 10 ft and the longest is 42 ft
• The hippopotamus gives birth under water and nurses its young in the river as well, though the young hippos do come up periodically for air.
• The large cats of the world are divided into two groups- those that roar, like tigers and African lions, and those that purr. Mountain lions purr, hiss, scream, and snarl, but they cannot roar. They can jump a distance of 30 feet, and jump as high as 15 feet. It would take quite a fence to keep a mountain lion out! Their favorite food is deer, but they'll eat other critters as well. They hunt alone, not in packs like wolves. They sneak up on their prey just like a house cat sneaks up on a bird or toy- one slow step at a time. A lion can eat ten pounds of meat at one time! That's equivalent to 40 quarter-pounder hamburgers!
• The largest beetle in the Americas is the Hercules beetle, which can be 4 to 6 inches in length. That's bigger than your hand!
• The largest bird egg in the world today is that of the ostrich. Ostrich eggs are from 6 to 8 inches long. Because of their size and the thickness of their shells, they take 40 minutes to hard-boil. The average adult male ostrich, the world's largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.
• The largest frog in the world is called Goliath frog. Frogs start their lives as 'eggs' often laid in or near fresh water. Frogs live on all continents except Antarctica. Frogs belong to a group of animals called amphibians.
• The longest life span of a frog was 40 years
• The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot
• The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'
• The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids
• The smallest bird in the world is the Hummingbird. It weighs 1oz
• The tongue of snakes has no taste buds. Instead, the tongue is used to bring smells and tastes into the mouth. Smells and tastes are then detected in two pits, called "Jacobson's organs", on the roof of their mouths. Receptors in the pits then transmit smell and taste information to the brain.
• The world's known tallest man is Robert Pershing Wadlow. The giraffe is 5.49m (18 ft.), the man is 2.55m (8ft. 11.1 in.).
• The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons i.e. 50000 Kg at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons i.e. 150000 Kg.
• The world's largest rodent is the Capybara. An Amazon water hog that looks like a guinea pig, it can weigh more than 100 pounds.
• The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
• There are 6 to 14 frogs species in the world that have no tongues. One of these is the African dwarf frog.
• There are more chickens than people in the world.
• There are more than 50 different kinds of kangaroos. Kangaroos are native of Australia. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. Young kangaroos are called joeys.
• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
• Turtles have no teeth.
• Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death
• When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red