Interesting Facts about Animals Under the Water

Dolphins sleep with one eye open.  

Dolphins sleep at night just below the surface of the water. They frequently rise to the surface for air.

A goldfish has a memory span of 3 seconds.

A squid has 10 tentacles.

A scallop has 35 blue eyes.

The Sea Horse is the slowest fish, drifting at approximately 0.016 km/h. 

The small car on the road is probably the size of the heart of a blue whale. 

The length of an elephant is the same as the tongue of a blue whale. 

The crocodile's tongue is unmovable, as it is attached to the roof of its mouth. 

Sharks apparently are the only animals that never get sick. As far as is known, they are immune to every known disease including cancer.

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.

An electric eel can produce a shock of up to 650 volts.

Goldfish lose their color if they are kept in dim light or are placed in a body of running water, such as a stream.

Intersting Facts about Reptiles Amphibians and Insects

The average garden-variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.

Mosquitoes have 47 teeth.

The Poison Arrow frog has enough poison to kill 2,200 people.

A snail's reproductive organs are in its head.

When a horned toad is angry, it squirts blood from its eyes.

Snakes can see through their eyelids.

The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head 360 degrees. 

The strongest animal in the world is the rhinoceros beetle. It can lift 850 times its own weight. 

Katydids have ears in their front legs. 

A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.

A Chameleon can focus its eyes seperately to watch two objects at once.

Many snakes never stop growing. That's one reason they must shed their skin.  

A leech is a worm that feeds on blood.

All clams start out as males; some decide to become females at some point in their lives.

Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed and continue living.

Dragonflies are one of the fastest insects, flying 50 to 60 mph.

In its entire lifetime, the average worker bee produces 1/12th teaspoon of honey.

The fastest -moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph. 

Interesting Facts about Mammals and Birds

Mammals are the only creatures that have flaps around their ears.

Cows can have regional accents.

Bulls are color blind.

A cow's only sweat glands are in its nose.   

An elephant can be pregnant for up to 2 years.    

A mule won't sink in quicksand but a donkey will.

More people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes.

Pigs can cover a mile in 7.5 minutes when running at top speed. 

The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal.

Zebras can't see the color orange.

It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.

A rat can go without water longer than a camel can.

Polar bears are left handed.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

A domestic cat can frighten a black bear to climb a tree.

The typical hen lays 19 dozen eggs a year.

A swan is the only bird with a penis.

The left leg of a chicken in more tender than the right one.

The only dog that doesn't have a pink tongue is the chow.   

Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.

Chickens can't swallow while they are upside down.  

A dog was the first animal to up in space. 

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
The bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers.
The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract its claws.
The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
The penalty for killing a cat, 4,000 years ago in Egypt, was death.

A sheep, a duck and a rooster were the first animals to fly in a hot air balloon. The oldest breed of a dog known to mankind is the ‘Saluki’. 

Hippos have killed more than 400 people in Africa - more than any other wild animal.
Rats can't throw-up.

The largest egg from a living bird belongs to the ostrich. It is more than 2,000 times larger than the smallest bird egg, which is produced by the hummingbird. 

A group of owls is called a parliament.

A group of ravens is called a murder.

A group of bears is called a sleuth.

 

We are BIG!

The largest tree dwellers: Orangutans.
The largest animal on land: Africal Elephants.
The largest creature on earth: Blue Whales(even bigger than the biggest dinosaurs!).
The largest living marsupial:  Red Kangaroos.
The tallest living land animal: Giraffes.
The most heavy weighted:  Hippopotamus.
The largest carnivores:  Pinnipedias, the Southern Elephant Seals.
The largest living land carnivores:  Polar Bear and the Brown Bear.
The largest whale:  Baleen Whales.
The largest bat: Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox.
The largest ungulates:  White Rhinoceros.
The largest living primates:  Eastern Lowland Gorillas.
The largest living rodent: Capybaras.
The largest living reptile: Saltwater Crocodiles.
The largest living turtle: Leatherback Sea Turtle.
The largest animals to ever live on land: Sauropoda.
The largest living bird: Ostrich.
The largest bird in the fossil record: Elephant Birds.
The largest living amphibian: Chinese Giant Salamander.
The largest living bony fish: Ocean Sunfish.
The largest living Cartilaginous Fish: Whale Shark.
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Elephants Do Addition.

     Elephants are famous for their supposedly superb memory. Now it seems that they are good at simple maths too. 




Counting Game

     Researchers at the University of Tokyo have found an Asian elephant named Ashya can add small quantities together and correctly identify which is larger.
     For example, when researcher Naoko Irie-Sugimoto dropped three apples into one bucket and one apple into a second, then four more apples into the first and five into the second, Ashya correctly identified that the first bucket contained more apples and began munching on her tasty prize.
      Ashya and her companions chose the correct bucket 74% of the time. "I even get confused when I'm dropping the bait," Irie told New Scientist magazine.

      The elephants' counting abilities are far from unique. Chimps, salamanders and pigeons have shown numerical abilities in lab tests, but what is more impressive for the elephants is that their ability to distinguish between two figures does not get worse when those numbers are more similar.

Why Good at Math?

      The elephants that Irie-Sugimoto tested were as good at telling the difference between five and six as they were at distinguishing between five and one.
      She presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology's annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.
      It is not obvious why elephants should need this mathematical faculty in the wild. "It really is tough to figure out why [elephants] would need to count," said Mya Thompson, an ecologist at Cornell University who studies elephants.

      One possibility is that they use it to keep track of other members of their herd so that no individual is left behind. Asian elephants live in close-knit groups of six to eight. "You really don't want to lose your group members," she said.

      Another possibility is that a propensity for simple maths might be a by-product of natural selection for a larger brain, said Irie-Sugimoto.