ANIMAL FACTS

Tunas will suffocate if they ever stop swimming. They need a continual flow of water across their gills to breathe, even while they are resting.

 If a cat falls off the 7th floor of a building, it has about 30 percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the 20th floor. It supposedly takes about 8 floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.

 The blue whale is the loudest animal on earth. The call of the blue whale reaches levels up to 188 decibels. This extraordinarily loud whistle can be heard for hundreds of miles under water.

 The second loudest animal on earth is the howler monkey.

 The bumblebee does not die when it stings. It can sting again and again. In bumblebee hives, the entire colony except for the queen dies at the end of each summer.

 Each year, an entirely new colony of bees must be produced.

 Elephant tusks grow throughout an elephant's life and can weigh more than 200 pounds. Among Asian elephants, only the males have tusks. Both sexes of African elephants have tusks.

 The oldest known goldfish Iived to 41 years of age. Its name was Fred.

 Rats can swim for half a mile without resting, and they can tread water for three days straight.

 Elephants only walk on their tip toes. This is because the back of their foot is made of complete fat. Their feet have no bones to give them support at the back.

 Mosquito repellents do not actually repel. They simply hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.

 Mussels can thrive in polluted water because of an inborn ability to purify bacteria, fungi and viruses.

 Weighing approximately 6 kg at birth, a baby caribou will double its weight in just 10 days.

 Did you know that the human tongue constitutes only capillaries and muscles? And that it tastes bitter things with the taste buds towards the back? Salty and pungent flavours are detected by the middle of the tongue and Sweet flavours by the tip.

 Goldfish have a memory span of about 3-5 seconds. That's why you can leave them in a small jar and they won’t get bored. You can also overfeed them till they die.

 Mother prairie dogs will nurse their young only while underground in the safety of the burrow. If an infant tries to suckle above ground, the mother will slap it.

 The world chicken population is more than double the human population, while the world cattle population outnumbers the population of China.

 The first chimpanzee to travel into space was named Ham. He got the name from the laboratory he was raised in.

 Ham flew in a space capsule in 1961. His trip also proved that space travel was safe for animals.

 The Egyptian vulture, a white bird about the size of a raven, throws stones with its beak to open ostrich eggs to eat. This bird is one of the very few animals that, like man, manipulate objects as tools.

 A common honeybee kills more people worldwide than all the poisonous snakes combined.

 Pet parrots can eat virtually any food eaten by humans except for chocolate because it is highly toxic and can be fatal for the parrot.

 When a predator is chasing an impala, a type of antelope, it runs in a zigzag formation, jumping as high as 3 meters.

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

 The bombardier beetle, when disturbed, defends itself by emitting a series of explosions, sometimes setting four or five in succession. The noises sound like miniature popgun blasts and are followed by a cloud of reddish-coloured, vile-smelling fluid.

 Alligators and old people have something in common, at least auditorily.

 They can hear notes only up to 4,000 vibrations a second.

 The largest known egg ever laid by a creature was that of the extinct Aepyornis of Madagascar. The egg was 9.5 inches long. It had a volume of 2.35 gallons.

 Grey whales migrate more than 19,000 km each year, farther than any other mammal.

 The average cow spends 13 hours a day lying down.

 Antlers and horns are not the same. Horns grow throughout an animal's life and are found on both the male and female of a species. Antlers, composed of a different chemical substance, are shed every year.

 Mallard nests are sometimes built at a height of 40 feet above the ground. Surprisingly, when leaving their nests for the first time, chicks are very rarely hurt due to falling to the ground.

 Australian scientists have identified some species of baby spiders that bite mothers and slowly dine on them over a period of weeks. The researchers hypothesize the material sacrifice keeps the young from eating one another.

 The Alaskan moose is the largest deer in the world. Its maximum height can sometimes exceed seven feet and, when fully grown, it weighs up to 1,800 pounds.

 In 1958, the Crayola crayon colour "Prussian Blue" was changed to "Midnight Blue" at the behest of teachers as kids could not relate to Prussian history.

 Due to a retinal adaptation that reflects light back to the retina, the night vision of tigers is six times better than humans.

 Cats have no ability to taste sweet things.

 Cats have over 100 vocal sounds, whereas dogs have only 10.

 There are some 50 different species of sea snakes, and all of them are venomous. They thrive in abundance.

 In 1997, the record for highest skydive by a dog at 4,572 feet, was set by a dog named Brutus.

 Biologists have discovered that cockroaches can change course as many as 25 times in one second, making them the most nimble animals known.

 A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

 A group of kangaroos is called a mob.

 Did you know that a dragon fly has a lifespan of just 24 hours?

 It takes 110 domestic silkworm cocoons to make a man's tie and 630 to make a woman's blouse.

 A spider's silk is stronger than steel.

 The black bear is not always black. It can be brown, cinnamon, yellow and sometimes, a bluish colour.

 When a shrimp is born, it is male, and it gradually evolves to female, as it matures.

 Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

 Butterflies taste with their feet.