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In his book My Family and Other Animals, British writer and naturalist Gerald Durrell wrote that as a young boy, he found studying very boring. His favorite subject, obviously, was zoology; everything else was just a torture until he got a homeschooling teacher who found a brilliant solution. He started adding animal facts to everything young Gerry had to study. From that moment on, every math problem involved animals, and in every historical battle there was at least one horse who they knew by name. Durrell admitted that this method indeed boosted his enthusiasm towards studying.
Many teachers confirm that adding fun facts for kids to classes is a great way to help them take more interest in learning and also remember the information they get. I personally think it’s a pity teachers don’t do it more often. Imagine how much more fun your biology classes would have been if alongside things like physical characteristics or area of habitat, your teacher added some fun facts about animals. I know I would have enjoyed it so much more.
But what if you don’t have to go to school and study anymore? The good news is that as an adult you can still enjoy reading interesting facts about animals, even if you don’t have to worry about grades. There are still lots of things to know about animals, and nature will keep surprising you with its diversity.
Enjoy this collection of cute, cool, and very interesting facts about animals. You can share them with friends or even your kids. What other nature facts are you absolutely glad that you learned?
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#2
Elephants mourn their dead.
Deborah Harris 2 years ago
Sad but true. They have such long lives and are social animals in their herd. Beautiful noble creatures ❤️
#4
Roosters prevent themselves from going deaf due to their own loud crowing, by tilting their head backs when they crow, which covers their ear canal completely, serving as a built-in ear-plug.
#5
Baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort.
Bouche Clay 2 years ago
There are pictures on two current threads on BP showing this. I can't remember which threads, sorry, but only in the last few days.
#6
Koala fingerprints are so close to humans that they could taint crime scenes.
#7
Orcas can learn to speak dolphin.
#8
Greenland sharks are the longest living vertebrates on earth, with one individual thought to be over 400 years old.
#10
A whale’s heart beats only nine times a minute.
#12
And the oldest evidence of domesticated cats dates back 9,500 years.
Bouche Clay 2 years ago
There would be evidence from even earlier, but the cat knocked it off the table and broke it.
#13
Frogs can freeze without dying.
#14
Reindeer eyes turn blue in the winter.
Bouche Clay 2 years ago
All the better to see to fly. Yes, I know real reindeer don't fly, but has anyone ever enrolled them in flight school?
#15
Dogs sense of smell is about 100,000 times stronger than humans.
Deborah Harris 2 years ago
Yet they'll sit there oblivious to their own love puffs whilst I gag ...
#16
Parrots will selflessly help each other out.
Sydney Smith 2 years ago
"The team found African grey parrots helped their neighbours by passing tokens to their neighbour when a human held out their hand, allowing the second bird to drop it through the hole and receive a tasty treat." https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/09/feathered-friends-study-shows-selfless-parrots-helping-peers#:~:text=All%20were%20trained%20individually%20to,and%20receive%20a%20tasty%20treat.
#17
Young goats pick up accents from each other. This means they join humans, bats, and whales as mammals known to adjust their vocal sound to fit into a new social group.
#22
A grizzly bear's bite is strong enough to crush a bowling ball.
Bouche Clay 2 years ago
If I were a grizzly bear, I'd probably rather bite the person taunting me with a bowling ball.
#23
Alligators can grow for more than 30 years.
#24
Rats laugh.
doubledutch 2 years ago (edited)
My boys brux and boggle! Bruxing is when they chatter/grind their teeth together when they're happy/relaxed. If they're feeling suuuuper chill (and I'm giving them really good pats) they boggle too, which is when their eyes bulge in and out. It looks bizarre but I love knowing they are happy. Oh and they also vibrate sometimes when they "feel something too intensely to express",😂 like fear/stress, or pleasure.
#26
Snails have the most teeth of any animal.
Sydney Smith 2 years ago
"A garden snail has about 14,000 teeth while other species can have over 20,000. But that's not even the most shocking part: The teeth of an aquatic snail called the limpet are the strongest known biological material on Earth, even stronger than titanium!" - https://www.exceptionalsmiles.dental/blog/10-interesting-weird-fun-facts-animals-teeth-exceptional-smiles-family dentistry/#:~:text=Snails%20have%20the%20most%20teeth%20of%20any%20animal&text=A%20garden%20snail%20has%20about,Earth%2C%20even%20stronger%20than%20titanium!
#27
Hummingbirds are the only known birds that can also fly backwards.
#29
Pigeons can do math.
#30
A Rhinoceros‘s horns are made of ‘keratin’, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails.
#31
Even after having its head cut off, a cockroach can still live for weeks.
Sydney Smith 2 years ago
Those f*****g things can survive any and everything except a stomp from a foot, but the crunch sound from that stomp turns my stomach.
#32
Polar bears have jet black skin under their white fur coats.
#34
Alligators will let manatees swim ahead of them.
#36
The largest insect to ever live was a “dragonfly” with a wingspan of over 75cm (2 and a half feet) across.
#37
Butterflies taste with their feet.
Tabitha Frost 2 years ago (edited)
I'm so glad humans don't do this. Imagine if you stepped in dog shiz.
#38
Catfish have taught themselves how to kill pigeons.
#39
Rabbits don’t have pads on their paws. Only fur.
#40
Swifts spend most of their lives flying in the air, and can fly for almost an entire year, without ever landing.
#41
Ghost crabs growl using teeth in their stomachs.
#42
Painted turtles survive winter by breathing through their bums.
#44
Chimpanzees are very intelligent and make all kinds of tools.
#45
Grey-headed Albatross can circle the globe in only 46 days.
King Arthur 2 years ago
African swallows, while non migratory, could carry a coconut by gripping it by the husk and carry it to Mercia England. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second.
#48
Prairie dogs kiss.
#49
Otters have the world's thickest fur.
lol.litl.owl 2 years ago
I love otters! They hold hands when floating to keep from being separated from their life partner..
#51
The pangolin is able to roll up into an armour-plated ball, so lions can’t eat them.
Deborah Harris 2 years ago
I read this as penguins then thought how the heck are lions in Antarctica...Time for bed I think lol
#52
Cows painted with zebra-like stripes can avoid being bitten by flies.
#53
Elephants are covered with hair.
#55
Vampire bats share blood with their friends.
#57
The Naked Mole-Rat can live in an almost zero oxygen atmosphere.
#60
Sloths can take up to a month to completely digest a single leaf.
#61
Axolotls can regenerate their parts.
Sydney Smith 2 years ago
How can something so ridiculously cute when they're small, be so damn ugly as adults?!
#62
Some worms can jump.
#64
The world's oldest known breed of domesticated dog dates back to 329 BC.
#65
Adult cats only meow at humans.
Deborah Harris 2 years ago
Not true, our male cat Link frequently meows at the other two in the same voice he meows to me ( I sound nuts lol )
#66
An octopus has three hearts.
lol.litl.owl 2 years ago
3 hearts, 8 arms, no mouth .... Sounds like something went horribly wrong somewhere
#67
There are no male mourning geckos. The entire species is female.
Deborah Harris 2 years ago
I had to look this up, Mourning geckos are parthenogenic, which means that males are not necessary for reproduction. As such, while males do exist, they are very rare and often sterile. Females lay 1-2 eggs at a time and glue them to surfaces in protected locations.
#68
The fastest land animal on the planet is a cheetah. It can reach speeds of up to 75 mph.
Alana Voeks 2 years ago
And they have to say "land" because fastest in general, I believe, is the peregrine falcon.
#69
A group of parrots is known as a pandemonium.
#70
African buffalo herds display voting behavior, in which individuals register their travel preference by standing up, looking in one direction and then lying back down. Only adult females can vote.
#71
Honeypot ants swell up to a huge size with food.
#73
Honeybees can flap their wings 200 times every second.
#74
The bone-house wasp stuffs the walls of its nest with dead ants.
#75
The mantis shrimp has the world's fastest punch.
#77
Baby Tasmanian devils make life-long friendships.
#78
Zebra stripes act as a natural bug repellant.
lol.litl.owl 2 years ago
.... So says the fact about painting a cow like a zebra to repel insects...
#79
Pea Crabs are miniature crabs that spend their whole lives inside oysters, clams, and mussels.
#80
The longest living, verified animal is a Madagascar radiated tortoise, which died at an age of 188 years in May 1965.
Tito Goon Goon Smith 2 years ago
Now I know no one is factchecking these things. Someone already said (#18) the Greenland Shark lives to be 400 years old and I read an article yesterday about a 190 year old tortoise...
#81
Bottlenose dolphins are even more right-handed than humans.
#82
Koalas sleep up to 22 hours a day.
FrillyDragon 2 years ago
Their diet is so nutritionally lacking they kind of need to sleep a lot. Also a lot of them have chlamydia. :|
#84
Elephants and humans have similar self-soothing techniques.
#85
There are an estimated 8.7 million species on earth and more than 80% of them are undiscovered.
#86
The Yangtze giant softshell turtle is the biggest freshwater turtle in the world.
#87
Some corvids (crows, rooks, ravens etc) can understand physics.
#90
Octopuses can taste with their arms.
#91
Female bats give birth to babies that weigh up to a third of their weight.
#92
Moths experience love at first scent.
#94
Only 3-5% of mammals are monogamous.
#95
The Mariana snailfish is the deepest fish in the ocean, living up to around 8,000m below the surface.
#96
The Edible Dormouse (Glis glis) is able to hibernate the longest – up to 11 months of the year when food availability is low.
#97
Cats and horses are highly susceptible to black widow venom, but dogs are relatively resistant. Sheep and rabbits are apparently immune.
Cassi Lyris 2 years ago
Got a BW bite the day before Halloween 2020. Left a little dip in my wrist for a solid year and a half. Didn't get horribly sick but it wasn't any fun.
#98
Moray eels have a second pair of "Alien-style" jaws.
Deborah Harris 2 years ago
When a fish bites your toe and it won't let it go .... that's A Moray ...🎵
#99
Slow lorises are the only venomous primates.
#106
The worlds deadliest animal isn’t a shark, bear or tiger, but something far smaller – the mosquito. According to the World Health Organization, 700,000 people are killed each year from mosquito-borne diseases, such as Malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever.
#107
A black panther is really a black leopard.
#109
Sea otters are adept at using tools.
lol.litl.owl 2 years ago
They also pick up their favorite rock and store it inside their little pouch/pocket ☺️
#111
Queen mole rats make other female mole rats infertile.
#114
The Patu Digua is thought to be this smallest spider in the world at just 0.37 mm.
#115
Electric eels are in fact not eels, and give a shock strong enough to knock out a horse.
#116
Tardigrades can survive in space and go without eating for more than 30 years.
#117
Animals with smaller bodies and faster metabolism see in slow motion.
Kathryn Baylis 2 years ago (edited)
Like the movie trick of filming something using a faster speed of film. It sounds counterintuitive but it’s true, faster film speed produces slower motions when replayed at regular speed, while slower film speed produces fast, often jerky motion. It’s based on the number of frames per second. More frames means more of the action is caught and slows it down. Fewer frames leave more gaps in the action, so ps speed it up and jumps too quickly over the gaps. It’s why people thought silent movies were fast and jerky. They weren’t when they were originally released. Silent movies were filmed at 16-18 frames per second, while talkies were filmed at 24 fps (and up). Play a silent movie at 24 fps or more, and the result is fast and jerky movement. Play it at its intended speed, and the movement becomes totally normal.
#118
The longest recorded life span of a slug was 1 year, 6 months.
#119
Dogs have sweat glands in between their paws.
Alana Voeks 2 years ago
Which is why it pisses me off when people walk their dogs here, in Phoenix Arizona, without booties in the middle of GODDAMN SUMMER.
#120
Puffins use twigs to scratch their bodies.
#122
Male horses have way more teeth than their female counterparts.
#123
Tigers have striped skin.
Tigara Akimoto 2 years ago
All cats' skin has the same patterns as their fur, in variations of the same colors. (There's actually a very big problem with "fake sphinx cats", regular cats that have been shaved, Naired, or in other ways depilated and sold for hundreds of dollars only to have their fur grow back after the transaction has gone through with no way to locate the sellers)
#124
Primitive crocodiles could gallop.
#125
The duck-billed platypus has no nipples to feed their offspring. Instead, milk oozes from the skin.
#126
A group of owls is called a parliament.
#128
The lesula, discovered in 2007, has giant human like eyes and a blue bottom.
#130
Yaks are specially adapted to high altitudes, with a huge lung capacity and small red blood cells.
#131
Lungfish are the only fish that have both lungs and gills.
#132
The most venonmous fish in the world is the 30 cm Stonefish.
Marek Čtrnáct 2 years ago
I once met it in Egypt. I was snorkeling in shallow water and I almost touched one. It was very well-camouflaged.
#133
A type of "immortal" jellyfish is capable of cheating death indefinitely.
Morgan Dove 2 years ago
They "Benjamin button" themselves back to polyps, grow up again, and repeat the process all over, infinitely
#136
Giant anteaters have two-foot tongues.
#137
Wombat poop is cube-shaped.
#138
Cuvier’s Beaked whales are one of the deepest diving mammals and can collapse their lungs to survive the high pressure.
#139
Emperor penguins are the world’s biggest penguins, and they trek 50–120 km (31–75 m) across the Antarctic to reach breeding colonies.
#142
The Japanese Spider Crab has the longest leg span of any arthropod.
Marek Čtrnáct 2 years ago
Their claws look really comical, they look so tiny at the end of those looooooong legs;
#144
Only 5% of cheetah cubs survive to adulthood.
#145
Giraffes are the tallest land animal in the world, reaching heights of 19ft (5.8 m).
#149
Deer can run up to 35 miles per hour.
Joan Dobbert *Wachs* 2 years ago
And the can't perceive that a car goes faster. They assume the car traveling at 65mph is moving at 35mph so they think they have time to avoid the incoming car.
#150
You can tell a dolphin’s age by its teeth.
#152
The blood ‘Dracula ant’ has the fastest recorded animal movement when it snaps its mandible.
#154
There are 1.4 billion insects per person on this planet and we need (almost) every one of them.
#155
The Inland Taipan (also known as, the Western Taipan) is the most venomous snake in the world. A single bite contains enough venom to kill at least 100 fully grown men, and can kill within just 30 minutes, if left untreated.
#156
Vultures urinate and defecate on their own legs and feet to cool off on hot days.
#158
The yellowhead jawfish incubates its eggs in its mouth.
#162
Little is known about the elusive Giant squid, however the largest squid ever found measured over 50 feet and weighed nearly a tonne.
What do you think ?
Bouche Clay 2 years ago
Surely that would be covered in the interview? Seriously, I'm totally embarrassed now, and also wondering what the disease is that I actually meant. It's in the eyes. *hides behind the nearest pole*
Bouche Clay 2 years ago
Surely that would be covered in the interview? Seriously, I'm totally embarrassed now, and also wondering what the disease is that I actually meant. It's in the eyes. *hides behind the nearest pole*
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