40 Lesser-Known Facts About Animals That Made People Say ‘Aww’ (New Pics)

Since r/Awwducational suggests avoiding sharing trivial animal facts with the community, I was curious to learn more about where the line between something trivial and, well, rarer lies, and whether it's all subjective. However, moderator u/AGreatWind told Bored Panda that things aren't quite as subjective as they might seem at first glance.

"This rule applies to posts that are a better fit for /r/Aww such as 'this cat and dog are friends' or 'tigers have beautiful stripes.' Those are facts, but they are trivial and a better fit for the pure cuteness subreddits. Such posts would be removed under the trivial fact rule," the mod explained.

"The rule is to cull very low effort posts rather than differentiate between common and lesser-known facts/posts. After modding here for 7+ years, a lot of animal facts begin to feel like common knowledge to me, but it would be unfair to remove posts solely on that basis! So the trivial post rule is limited to removing posts that are objectively trivial (Deer eat plants) rather than subjectively so."

Meanwhile, u/AGreatWind also went into detail about the need to add sources to back up your awwducational animal facts. "Sources and Removals: Our removal trends go through waves of frequency. For the last several months I would say that we have not removed many posts for poorly cited sources," they shared with Bored Panda.

Post removals are more common on r/Awwducational than on most other subreddits because posting a fact the right way takes more effort. However, new users aren't penalized if they make a mistake: it's all part of the learning curve. "We understand that it takes more effort on the part of the users to post on this sub, so with new users, we try to err on the side of encouragement. If a new user makes a post with dubious sources we will try to provide a verifiable source along with a warning to be mindful of source material rather than a straight removal. Like a science classroom, we aim to be difficult but fair. It usually only takes one warning before new users grasp the format, which is always encouraging to us!"

The moderator confirmed to me that they have some actual real-life scientists among the redditors who help manage the community. "I am a researcher in Infectious Disease, for example. We have ecologists, biologists, and grad students on the team as well as enthusiasts and animal lovers from other backgrounds. Reddit is a platform with anonymous users, as such, we try to keep our real lives and identities separate from our Reddit modding activities," they said. "It is certainly plausible that members of the modteam are producing or contributing to research that could be used as a source on /r/Awwducational, but I cannot say for sure. None of my stuff would be a good fit, that's for sure."

Learning all about rare and elusive animal facts is all very well and good, but sometimes it’s good to have a refresher about the basics. That’s why I reached out to the PDSA, the UK’s leading vet charity, to have a chat with them about dogs. A whopping 33 percent of British households keep dogs as pets. That number is slightly higher (38.4 percent) in the US. Naturally, with so many dogs going on walkies all the time, it’s important to know a bit more about them as animals and when to know if we can approach and pet them. (They might look cute but they’re not always in the mood for a stranger to ruffle their fur and scratch their bellies!) PDSA Vet Anna Ewers Clark told Bored Panda that dogs often show early signs that they don’t feel comfortable.