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If you’re a parent who doesn’t always have time for a bedtime story, or your children have memorized Goodnight Moon after hearing it 17 times, allow us to present you with an alternative to a simple pre-sleep story: telling your kids a new fun fact each night!

One parent on Reddit recently asked others to share the best, simple fun facts that can satiate a child’s curiosity at bedtime, and readers did not disappoint. Below, you’ll find all of the best facts that both kiddos and adults can enjoy, so be sure to upvote the info you can’t wait to share with your little ones!

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#1

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within "Arctic" means "Bear" "Antarctic" means "No Bear". Not because polar bears live in the arctic and no bears live in the antarctic, but because to get to the arctic you follow the bear constellations, the Big and Little Dipper, and to get to the antarctic you go away from them.

Maur2 , flickrfavorites/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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#2

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within In Switzerland, it's illegal to own just one guinea pig; if you have any, you have to have at least two. They get lonely!

Tiffany-899 , David/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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#3

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within A flock of sheep in North Wales had to be quarantined because they'd learnt to lay down and roll over cattle grids. If they'd made contact with other sheep they might have passed the behaviour on, and all the cattle grids in Britain would become ineffective.

Norman-Wisdom , Pixabay/ Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Lotekguy
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It was easier than jumping over fences at night just so humans could fall asleep.

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#4

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of a blue whale!

_Fire_Sign_ , Rachel Claire/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Loverboy
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It makes sense, they weight upwards of 300,000 pounds/140 kilos and their tongue alone is 20 feet long.

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#5

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within The rarest precious jewels in the universe are not diamonds or rubies, they're pearls and amber.. Most precious stones just need minerals and pressure, and that's found everywhere. Amber needs trees, and pearls need oysters, and those are only on earth.

_SkullBearer_ , Khairul Onggon/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#6

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Did you know that there are colors that humans can't see? Animals like the mantis shrimp can see a lot more colors than we can, which means that there are "secret colors" that we will never get to know about. Non 4-year-old explanation: the vast majority of humans see things in "channels" of red, green and blue. Some humans are lucky and are born with four "channels", called [tetrachromats]. Mantis shrimp see things in TWELVE different "channels", and can even see ultraviolet and polarized light.

Kewkky , Elias Levy/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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#7

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Its funny how all of these end up being animal facts.

While sea otters sleep, they hold paws so they don't float away from each other.

Also, sugar is pretty much tasteless to cats. They don't have taste buds for sweetness.

punninglinguist , USFWS/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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9 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One of our cats, Poppy, loves to lick round the rim of my empty coffee cup. I have it black with sugar. My wife doesn't have sugar and hers doesn't get licked. There's a taste and smell of coffee+sugar that clearly this one at least has the sensors for.

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#8

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.

Might be kind of “big thinking” for a 4y but that has always stuck with me.

mpmp4 , Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#9

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Butterflies taste with their feet. When they land on a flower, they can tell if it's good to eat just by standing on it.

Always_Boring_Girl , nola.agent/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Loverboy
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9 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Ay, that looks like a mighty fine plate of pasta. *Takes off his f*****g shoe and steps on it.* nevermind, I'm good."

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#10

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Birds are dinosaurs.

Whales and dolphins are more closely related to hippos than fish.

A cartoonist named the spikes on the stegosaurus tail.

gamaliel64 , Karen/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Scary Laugh
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The Thagomizer! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer

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#11

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within There are more plastic flamingo lawn ornaments in the US than there are wild flamingos in the entire world.

SnowDemonAkuma , Don Graham/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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#12

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Horses can't throw up and will get sick from tummy aches to potentially need surgery.

99centmilk , isamiga76/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Jeevesssssss
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And it can be fatal. Also, instead of having multiple stomachs and ruminating, they have a 4ft long chamber in their intestine called the caecum, filled with bacteria that breaks down their roughage. Changes to a horse's diet must be made slowly so the bacterial strains have time to adapt. Lastly, if they don't chew their food properly (say, if they rush their meal or they have bad teeth) they can get 'choke'. Not the same as in humans, it's a function of having a long and horizontal oesophagus. A food bolus can get stuck partway to the stomach and causes a bulge into the trachea (windpipe), severely restricting breathing. The vet will try 'drenching' (forcing liquid down) but it's not always successful. Very traumatic all around. My local yard lost a pony to choke a couple of weeks ago, devastating.

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#13

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within 1. Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and still perfectly edible!
2. Penguins waddle because their legs are short and their bodies are chubby. It helps them balance on the ice.
3. The sound a giraffe makes is called a "bleat." It's sort of like a sheep's sound but much quieter.
4. A group of flamingos is called a "flamboyance." Isn't that a fun word?
5. Octopuses have three hearts! Two pump blood to the gills, and one pumps blood to the rest of the body.
6. Lightning is like a giant spark of electricity. It happens when tiny ice crystals bump into each other in a cloud.
7. Bees dance to tell other bees where to find yummy flowers. It's like a bee dance party!
8. Cats have a special "meow" just for humans. They learned that we pay attention when they make that sound.
9. Your fingerprints are unique. No one else in the world has the same fingerprints as you!

eastbayted , Petras Gagilas/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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#14

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within The fruit orange was named before we had named a color orange

Fartboyxx99 , Jennifer C. Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Lotekguy
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Orange you glad to learn this. (Sorry. It's late and I'm getting flaky.)

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#15

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Did you know that cats aren't technically domesticated? They're still technically wild.

jugtooter , Xiahong Chen/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Kirsten Kerkhof
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9 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually, not exactly. The house cat (Felis Silvestris Catus) descended from the African Wild Cat (Felis Silvestris Lybica), and is now a separate species that is considered domesticated. True wild cats cannot be domesticated. That said, house cats (FS Catus) can become feral and do pretty well in the wild (except for my dumb cat who once lost his food bowl while sitting next to it).

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#16

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Tell them "Right now, as you are going to bed at night in the middle of winter, there is another little child somewhere else walking up in the morning where it is summer".

Coffeman94 , RDNE Stock project/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Loverboy
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I always used to wonder what it'd be like to have Christmas in the summer on another side of the world.

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#17

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within * William I of England was too fat to fit in his coffin.
* Platypus lay eggs and make milk. 
* Cows have 4 stomachs. 
* Lots of fish can feel electricity 
* Cheetahs mew like cats. They can't roar. 
* Red seaweed lives deeper in the sea than green seaweed. 

Glad_Possibility7937 , Klaus/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Platypuses also have 80 different kinds of neurotoxins, and are amphibious animals

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#18

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within The Flemish giant rabbit can grow to be the size of a dog

Vast_Parfait_726 , richie graham/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My uncle used to breed them in the garden in the Netherlands during WWII. They provided a decent amount of food and certainly supplemented food stolen from the back of Nazi supply trucks.

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#19

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within We are all made from star dust.

03Pirate , Beyza Kaplan/ Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#20

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.

cloudsinmycoffe , Frank Cone/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#21

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Wombats poop cubes.

TheProtoChris , Christina Hendricks/ Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Pieter LeGrande
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Looks just like the wombats that live in the nature reserve behind our fence in Australia.

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#22

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Owls cannot turn their eyes in their sockets, they are fixed in place which is why they do the goofy little head rolls/bobs. Its their method of depth perception.

FIREBIRDC9 , DSD/ Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When owls bob their heads when zeroing on a prey target, their heads move in a triangle shape. It's believed they're using trigonometry to calculate.

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#23

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within tell her about those butterflies that have wing patterns that look like eyes that makes animals think they're a predator

a zebra's stripes are as unique as a human's fingerprints.

ok, let's try for a non-animal fact. the planet Venus spins in the opposite direction of other planets

a word spelled the same way forward as it is backwards is called a "palindrome." Mom, dad, and racecar are examples.

turboshot49cents , BRIJESH EP/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Lotekguy
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Before discovering the planet's reverse rotation, it was called Sunev.

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#24

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within When it's Winter in the United States, it's Summer in Australia. When it's Winter in Australia, It's Summer in the United States.

If a month begins on a Sunday, it will have a Friday the 13th.

hgswell , Rene Schwietzke/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Kirsten Kerkhof
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Cue the Bluey episode where they celebrated Christmas by the pool with a barbecue, and my niece and nephew were thoroughly puzzled (we're in Europe).

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#25

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Sloths hair grows from their belly.

Sloths climb down from their tree about once a week to poop.

Kangaroos can pause their pregnancy.

Sharks sink if they stop swimming.

A giraffe has a nerve that goes from under their tongue alllllll the way down their neck down near their heart and then back up.

Only a small part of your eye can detect color. (Cones)

Smell is the strong scent tied to memory because the nerve that manages smell goes directly to the brain instead of having a connection along the way.

The tongue is the strongest muscle in the body by size to weight standards.

ThoseTruffulaTrees , Régis Leroy/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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#26

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within There’s a SKELETON hiding inside everyone you know!

BlueCoatEngineer , Andrew Malone/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Jared Robinson
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I heard that on average there is more than one skeleton inside people

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#27

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within While a zebra is smaller than a horse, a zebra can kick with more power than a horse (I think a horse generates about 2000 psi with a kick, while zebras are closer to 3000 psi).

DarkMatterMinx , Amy the Nurse/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Jeevesssssss
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

However, domesticated horses are often shod, which makes their kicks much more nasty than being kicked by a bare hoof. Speaking from experience...

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#28

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within the US government has a federal reserve of 1.4 million lbs of cheese

2-Minute-Ad , Jeremy Keith/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Loverboy
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What. Oh my gods. Ferb I know what we're gonna do today

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#29

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Sure I have some suited for children.

* not all ladybugs, are ladies.
* locust are just hungry hungry grasshoppers.
* Most of the fruit we eat is bought from other nations during the winter.
* with each mile you go into the earth, the more warm it gets.
* There is no pasta at the center of the earth.
* Many house cats wandering neighborhoods are more likely to visit a neighbor if they use the same detergent as their owners.
* Dogs will wait for you, almost forever.
* Tomatoes, Cassava root, potatoes, corn and supposedly ~~earthworms~~ ~~apple pie~~ Navy bean soup… are all from the American continent.
* Exercise allows you to become smarter and faster.

GreenMirage , Bernal Saborio/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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arthbach
arthbach
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Apple pie - the first apple trees were taken to the Americas in 1620. The first written recipe for apple pie is in the 1321 book, " Forme of Cury". Apple pie is most definitely not American.

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#30

30 Simple Facts About The World To Entertain The Inner Child Within Start with a subject and do facts for a week then switch it up. For example
Dinosaur facts for a week, then space, then history, then geography. 

Fishwater024 , jeanmartin/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

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Lotekguy
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9 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Then the history of how dinosaurs launched themselves into space in search of more favorable geographical environs. They must be a lot happier there since none bothered to come back.

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Note: this post originally had 55 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

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