ANIMAL FACTS

• Gorillas stick out their tongues to show anger.



• An elephant has no bones in its trunk.



• Sparrows cannot walk they can only hop and fly.



• Hummingbird can fly backwards and can hover while they feed.



• Some very small reef fishes live only a few weeks or months, but sturgeons can live to be more than 50 years old. Rough eye rockfish can live to be 150 years old.



• The largest fish is the whale shark, which can be more than 50 feet long and can weigh about 2 tons.



• Dogs sweat only through their tongues.



• A kangaroo can jump 45 feet!



• A rabbit's teeth never stop growing.



• A mosquito flaps its wings 500 times a second.



• Only male crickets can chirp.



• Dogs can't see colors. They're color blind.



• Squirrels can't remember where they hide half of their nuts.



• Bats always turn left when they leave their caves.



• Octopuses have 3 hearts.



• Giraffes have black tongues which can measure 21 inches.



• Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day!



• The first animal sent up to outer space was a dog.



• The chameleon has a tongue that is 1.5 times the length of its body!



• The smallest frog is less than 3/8 of an inch in length.



• The smallest cat is the Singapuras and weighs only 4 pounds.



• Skunks can shoot their bad-smelling spray only about two yards, but you can smell it up to two and a half miles away.



• Night butterflies have ears on their wings so they can avoid bats.



• The common garden worm has five pairs of hearts.



• Most hamsters blink one eye at a time.



• The smallest breed of dogs is the chihuahua. They are so small that scientists consider them as rodents.



• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.



• Cows have four stomachs.



• Only one mammal can't jump -- the elephant.



• Dragonflies can fly up to 50 miles per hour.



• A goldfish can live up to 40 years.



• One way to tell the age of a fish is by looking at its scales. They have growth rings just like trees. These are called circuli. Clusters of them are called annuli. Each annuli show one year.



• Did you know porpoises could surf? They are frequently seen riding the bow wave of a ship. They make no swimming motions and can ride the wake for more than an hour. They can also turn on their side or flip completely around. Surf’s up porpe!



• You may have heard someone say, "It’s raining cats and dogs." There have been actual documented cases from all over the world of fish, frogs, dead birds, snakes, snails, beetles, worms and jellyfish raining down from the sky in great numbers, but no reports of showers of cats or dogs.



• The blue whale, the largest animal to have ever existed, is 96 feet long and weights 125 tons. This is as much as 4 large dinosaurs (Brontosauri), 23 elephants, 230 cows or 1800 men.



• Some animals produce their own lights, called bioluminescence. The Brazilian railroad worm has a red light on its head and green lights down its side. All it needs to drive on the street is a turn signal.



• The fastest bird is the peregrine falcon. It can fly at a speed of 168-217 miles per hour.



• The largest egg laid by a living bird is that of the North African Ostrich. It is 6 to 8 inches in length and 4 to 6 inches in diameter. The smallest is that of the hummingbird. It is less than 0.39 inches in diameter.



• Whether an alligator is a male or female is determined by the temperature of the nest where the egg is hatched – 90 to 93 degrees will make it a male; 82 to 86 degrees will turn it into a female.



• Animals with some of the longest lives are the Marion’s tortoise (152 years), the fin whale (116 years) and the deep-sea clam (100 years).



• An electric eel can produce a shock of 600 volts. That’s enough to stun large animals – even knock a horse off its feet.



• Cows can sleep standing up.



• A Giant squid's eye can be as big as a basketball.



• Salamanders are known to come out of wood when it was burning inside a fireplace, this is because salamanders hibernate in wood.



• Some frogs can pull their eyes into their throat and help push food down!



• An African adult elephant eats about six hundred pounds of food a day; that’s four percent of the elephant’s body weight!



• The smallest fish in the world are the pygmy goby and the Luzon goby, from the Philippines, which are only one-half-inch long when they are full grown.



• The 14-foot-long narwhal is a whale whose tooth can reach up to eight feet long!



• Chimpanzees use tools more than any other animal except man.



• Elephants purr like cats do, as a means of communication.



• The mandrill baboon has a red nose, blue cheeks, and an orange beard!



• The faster kangaroos hop, the less energy they use.



• The flying fox of Africa has a wingspan of fifty inches!



• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.



• An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.



• Some frogs can be frozen solid, then thawed, and continue living.



• Ostriches stick their heads in the sand to look for water.



• A duck's quack has no echo.



• Cats can make over 100 vocal sounds, while dogs can only make 10.



• Texas horned toads can shoot blood out of the corners of their eyes.



• Starfish have eight eyes--one at the end of each leg.



• Honeybees have hair on their eyes.



• Female lions do 90% of the hunting.



• Alligators cannot move backwards.



• A duck has three eyelids.



• A starfish doesn't have a brain.



• Flamingos can only eat with their heads upside down.



• Hummingbirds flap their wings between 50 and 70 times a second!



• When an octopus gets angry, it shoots a stream of black "ink".



• There are about 100 billion birds in the world.



• The emperor penguin is playful, and often times lies on its chest and side to slide along the ice and snow.



• The leatherback is the biggest sea turtle, and it can weigh as much as 1,500 pounds.



• The snapping shrimp, only 1 1/2 inches long, makes a noise with its one big claw, which sounds exactly like a firecracker.



• Starfish can have up to 16 arms!



• Flying fish actually glide on wind currents above the surface of the water, sometimes up to 20 feet above the surface.



• Sea snakes are the most poisonous snakes in the world.



• Adult male giraffes bang their long necks together in a form of ritual fighting, during which no harm is done to either giraffe.



• The stonefish, which lives off the coast of Australia, is the most poisonous fish in the world.



• The black-necked cobra, which lives mostly in Africa, spits its venom into the eyes of its victim, to cause it blindness.



• The honeybee has to travel an average of 43,000 miles to collect enough nectar to make a pound of honey!



• A bird called the bee eater in areas of Africa thinks that riding around on the backs of other animals is fun!



• The dipper bird builds nests behind waterfalls for protection.



• Vultures can soar for hours without one beat of their wings.



• Sea horses pull themselves around with their chins leading them.



• Sometimes birds show anger towards humans by taking out its feelings on other birds nearby, because they are too afraid to attack humans.



• Foxes sometimes nip at the heals of cattle so the stomping of the cattle makes mice and other rodents come out of the ground, for the fox to eat.



• Salmon and tuna fish do contain more fat than some leaner fish but the type of fat is mostly omega-3 fatty acids. This type of fat is protective against heart disease and should be encouraged in those that have higher risk of coronary heart disease, including individuals with high cholesterol.



• A group of twelve or more cows is called a flink.



• A caterpillar itself has a total of 2000 muscles in its entire body.



• Porcupines float in water.



• Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows!



• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.



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



• Pigs can become alcoholic.



• A Blue whale's tongue weighs more than an elephant.



• Ferrets sleep for about 20 hours a day.



• An elephant can be pregnant for up to two years.



• Slugs have four noses.



• A snail can sleep for three years.



• A blind chameleon still changes color to match its environment.



• The female angler-fish weights up to half a ton.



• The female starfish produces two million eggs per year.



• The owl is the only creature able to turn its head in a complete circle.



• Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants.



• Most lipstick contains fish scales.



• Butterflies taste with their feet.



• On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.



• All polar bears are left handed.



• A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
  



• The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

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