Animal Trivia
Both humans and chimpanzees have equal
amounts of hair per given surface area. A chimp's is just heavier.
You have a 1 in 3.000.000 chance of
getting killed by a snake.
In Massachusetes, it is illegal to
feed ducks on Sunday between the hours of 5am and 12pm while humming.
In the town of Blythe, Ca., It is
illegal to wear cowboy boots on Main Street if you do not own at least 5 head of
cattle.
In the coastal provinces of Canada it is
illegal to shoot whales from a moving automobile.
If an average man had a metabolism
comparable to that of a hummingbird he would have to eat 285 pounds of hamburger
every day to maintain his weight.
Turtles can recognize faces. They are
one of the few reptiles that can be trained to do "tricks".
The ant can lift 50 times its own
weight, can pull 30 times its own weight.
In Minnesota it is illegal to cross
state lines with a duck on your head.
The smallest fish in the world is the
Trimattum Nanus the Chagos Archipelago. It measures 0.33 inches. It broke the
record of the so- called "sinarapan" of Buhi, Camarines Sur,
Philippines.
The only marsupial with a pouch on its
back is the bandicoot.
Ferrets sleep for about 20 hours a day.
The opening to the cave in which a
bear hibernates is always on the north slope.
Bowerbirds of Australia and New
Guinea decorate their courting grounds with everything from beetle wings to car
keys.
Since 1600, 109 species and subspecies
of birds have become extinct.
Jackals have one more pair of
chromosomes than dogs or wolves.
Cochroaches & Lobsters are
kissing cousins.
A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a
minute on average.
Mongooses were brought to Hawai'i to
kill rats. This plan failed because rats are nocturnal and while the mongoose
hunts during the day.
A tiger's paw prints are called pug
marks.
All elephants walk on tip-toe, because
the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.
A Cornish game hen is really a young
chicken, usually 5 to 6 weeks of age, that weighs no more than 2 pounds.
A quarter of the horses in the US died
of a vast virus epidemic in 1872.
According to ancient Greek literature,
when Odysseus arrived home after an absence of 20 years, disguised as a beggar,
the only one to recognize him was his aged dog Argos, who wagged his tail at his
master, and then died.
All pet hamsters are descended from a
single female wild golden hamster found with a litter of 12 young in Syria in
1930.
Aphids are born pregnant without the
benefit of sex. Aphids can give birth 10 days after being born themselves.
At 188 decibels, the whistle of the
blue whale is the loudest sound produced by any animal.
George Washington's favorite horse was
named Lexington. Napoleon's favorite was Marengo. U.S. Grant had three favorite
horses: Egypt, Cincinnati, and Jeff Davis.
In 1888, an estimated 300,000 mummified
cats were found at Beni Hassan, Egypt. They were sold at $18.43 per ton, and
shipped to England to be ground up and used for fertilizer.
The English Romantic poet Lord Byron
was so devastated upon the death of his beloved Newfoundland, whose name was
Boatswain, that he had inscribed upon the dog's gravestone the following:
"Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without
ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices."
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 catgut formerly used as strings in
tennis rackets and musical instruments does not come from cats. Catgut actually
comes from sheep, hogs, and horses.
The turkey was named for what was
wrongly thought to be its country of origin.
There is no such fish as a
"sardine." Canned sardines are generally young herring.
You're more likely to be a target for
mosquitoes if you consume bananas.
The poison-arrow frog has enough poison
to kill about 2,200 people.
Snails produce a colorless, sticky
discharge that forms a protective carpet under them as they travel along. The
discharge is so effective that they can crawl along the edge of a razor without
cutting themselves.
Goldfish lose their color if they are
kept in dim light or are placed in a body of running water, such as a stream.
Australian termites have been known to
build mounds twenty feet high and at least 100 feet wide.
Jackals have one more pair of
chromosomes than dogs or wolves.
Dogs and humans are the only animals
with prostates.
Mr. Snuffleupagas' first name was
Alyoisus.
The sea wasp is half an inch long at
best and more poisonous than any other jellyfish known to man.
Tigers have striped skin, not just
striped fur.
The name of the dog from The Grinch Who
Stole Christmas is Max.
Goat's and octopus' eyes have
rectangular pupils.
A robin's (the bird) egg is blue, but
if you put it in vinegar for thirty days it turns yellow. Don't try this at home
please!
On an American one-dollar bill, there
is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the
"shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
Armadillos get an average of 18.5
hours of sleep per day.
Armadillos can walk underwater.
Starfish don't have brains.
Shrimps' hearts are in their heads.
When a giraffe's baby is born it falls
from a height of six feet, normally without being hurt.
Most armadillos seen dead on the road
did not get hit by the wheels. When an armidillo is frightened it jumps straight
into the air.
The anteater, aardvark, spiny anteater
(echidna), and scaly anteater (pangolin) are completely unrelated - in fact, the
closest relatives to anteaters are sloths and armadillos, the closest relative
to the spiny anteater is the platypus, and the aardvark is in an order all by
itself.
The Sanskrit word for "war"
means "desire for more cows."
Ants cannot chew their food, they move
their jaws sidewards, like a scissor, to extract the juices from the food.
Most spiders belong to the orb weaver
spider family, Family Aranidae. This is pronounced "A Rainy Day."
The dalmatian dog originate from
Dalmatian coast of Croatia.
Felix the Cat is the first cartoon
character to ever have been made into a ballooon for a parade.
The cheetah is the only cat in the
world that can't retract it's claws.
The pH of cow's milk is 6.
The world's smallest mammal is the
bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a
minute on average.
The common goldfish is the only animal
that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.
The pet ferret (Mustela putorias furo)
was domesticated more than 500 years before the house cat.
The Pug dog is thought to have gotten
it's name from looking like the pug monkey.
On Sesame Street, Bert's goldfish
were named Lyle and Talbot, presumably after the actor Lyle Talbot.
The Beatles song "Martha My
Dear" was written by Paul McCartney about his sheepdog Martha.
The name of the dog on the Cracker
Jack box is Bingo.
The average garden variety caterpillar
has 248 muscles in its head.
The gene for the Siamese coloration in
animals such as cats, rats or rabbits is heat sensitive. Warmth produces a
lighter color than does cold. Putting tape temporarily on Siamese rabbit's ear
will make the fur on that ear lighter than on the other one. Don't try this at
home folks!
Emus have double-plumed feathers, and
they lay emerald/forest green eggs.
The fingerprints of koala bears are
virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be
confused at a crime scene.
There were no squirrels on Nantucket
Island, Massachusetts until 1989.
Other than humans, black lemurs are
the only primates that may have blue eyes.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in
its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times.
Kermit the Frog is left handed.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs
but not downstairs, because a cows' knees can't bend properly to walk back down.
The names of the three wise monkeys
are: Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.
Camels have three eyelids to protect
themselves from blowing sand.
It takes forty minutes to hard boil an
ostrich egg.
Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after
Mickey Rooney, whose mother he dated for some time.
Assuming Rudolph was in front, there
are 40320 ways to arrange the other eight reindeer.
The underside of a horse's hoof is
called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
The shortest French word with all five
vowels is "oiseau" meaning bird.
The United States has never lost a war
in which mules were used.
According to tests made at the
Institute for the Study of Animal Problems in Washington, D.C., dogs and cats,
like people, are either right-handed or left-handed --- that is, they favor
either their right or left paws.
Americans spend more annually on cat
food than on baby food.
At birth a panda is smaller than a
mouse and weighs about four ounces.
Armadillos are the only animal besides
humans that can get leprosy.
Armadillos can be house broken.
Anteaters prefer termites to ants.
Ants stretch when they wake up. They
also appear to yawn in a very human manner before taking up the tasks of the
day.
An elephant can smell water three miles
away.
An elephant may consume 500 pounds of
hay and 60 gallons of water in a single day.
About 70% of all living organisms in
the world are bacteria.
An estimated 80% of animals on Earth
have six legs, i.e., are insects. The more than 10 quintillion bugs fall into
some 800,000 species.
According to Genesis 1:20-22 the
chicken came before the egg.
A woodchuck breathes only 10 times
during hibernation.
A zebra is white with black stripes.
According to Genesis 7:2, God told Noah
to take 14 of each kind of 'clean' animal into the ark.
A species of earthworm in Australia
grows up to 10 feet in length.
A starfish can turn its stomach inside
out.
A strand from the web of a golden
spider is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.
A snail can have about 25,000 teeth.
A snake has no ears. But its tongue is
extremely sensitive to sound vibrations. By flicking his tongue, a snake can
pick up sound waves - so a snake 'hears' with his tongue... sort of.
A shark can detect one part of blood in
100 million parts of water.
A shark can grow a new set of teeth in
a week.
A rat can last longer without water
than a camel.
A rhinoceros' horn is made of compacted
hair.
A rodents teeth never stop growing.
They are worn down by the animal's constant gnawing on bark, leaves, and other
vegetables.
A millipede has 4 legs on each segment
of it's body.
A mole can dig over 250 feet of tunnel
in a single night.
A monkey was once tried and convicted
for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
A lion's roar can be heard from five
miles away.
A large swarm of locusts can eat 80,000
tons of corn in a day.
A kangaroo can hop thirty feet at
once.
A kangaroo can't jump unless its tail
is touching the ground.
A horse has 35 square feet of skin.
A house fly only lives for two weeks.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough
to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
A hippo can run faster than a man.
A hippopotamus is the heaviest of all
land mammals, except for an elephant - around 8,000 pounds.
A horse can sleep standing up.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its
21-inch tongue.
A giraffe can go without water longer
than a camel can.
A dragonfly has a lifespan of
twenty-four hours.
A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one
knows why.
A crocodile always grows new teeth to
replace the old teeth.
A crocodile can't move his tongue.
A crocodile does not chew his food,
just swallows it whole.
A crocodile will eat other crocodiles
sometimes.
A crocodiles tongue is attached to the
roof of its mouth.
A cow produces 200 times more gas a day
than a person.
A chameleon's tongue is twice the
length of it's body.
A cat uses his whiskers to determine if
a space is too small to squeeze through.
A blind chameleon still changes colors to
match his enviroment.
A blue whale's heart beats only nine times
per minute.
A 2 year old horse has 6 incisors.
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan are the
only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don't
die throughout the movie.
Worker bees are female.
In Egyptian times, the penalty for
killing a greyhound was equivalent to that of killing a man.
More than 40% of pet owners talk to
their pets on the phone or through an answering machine.
Source: American Animal Hospital Association
Twenty-five persent of pet owners
blow-dry their pet's hair after a bath.
Source: American Animal Hospital Association
More than 50 percent of dog and cat
owneres give theirpets a human name, such as Molly, Sam or Max.
Source: American Animal Hospital Association
Nearly 60% of owbers bury their pets
on family property when they die; 25 percent have them cremated.
Source: American Animal Hospital Association
Domesticated cats are never mentioned
in the Bible. Dogs are mentioned 14 times, lions 55 times.
An old custom in Holland explains why
we have piggy banks. At the beginning of the year, children were given pig
shaped earthenware containers (known as "feast pigs") to save their
pennies in. The following Christmas, they got to open them up.
Average number of nonnative insect
species entering Hawaii each year : 17.5
Portion of New England's feral
honey-bee population lost to Asian mites since 1995 : 9/10
Portion of Yellowstone's bison herd
killed after straying beyond park boundaries this year (1997) : 1/3
Number of buffalo-meat hot dogs sold
per baseball game at Atlanta's Turner Field last summer : 2,350
Rank of chicken feet among Chinese
moviegoers' favorite snacks : 1
The gestation period for pigs ranges
from 110 to 120 days, with an average of 115 days. Litters average a dozen, but
the world record is 34, born to a sow in Denmark in 1961.
Cat scratch disease, a benign but
sometimes painful disease of short duration, is caused by a bacillus. Despite
its name, the disease can be transmitted by many kinds of scratches besides
those of cats.
According to researchers, over a
60-plus-year period the Groundhog Day animal has accurately predicted the coming
of spring only 28% of the time.
In the United States, documented cases
of showers of frogs have been recorded since 1794, usually during heavy summer
rainstorms. Whirlwinds, waterspouts, and tornadoes are given as the conventional
explanation. Falls of fish, birds, and other animals have also been reported.
In mythology, the cat is believed to
have great influence on the weather. Witches that rode on storms were said to
take the form of cats. The dog is a signal of wind, and a dog was an attendant
of Odin, the storm king. So cats symbolize down-pouring rain, and dogs symbolize
strong gusts of wind.
Gelatin is one of the commoner
proteins, but it cannot be prepared from animal horns, hoofs, lungs, muscle
tissue, or blood. It is derived from collagen, which is the prime constituent of
a white, fibrous connective tissue occurring in the animal body (in the form of
cartilage, sinews, skin, and bone protein). Upon hydrolysis, collagen yields a
series of products, including gelatin.
The common belief that dogs are color
blind is false. Dogs can see color but it is not as vivid a color scheme as we
see. It is much like our vision at twilight.
A group of youngsters [kittens] is
called a kindle; those old-timers [adult cats] form a clowder.
There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.
When a giraffe's baby is born it falls
from a height of six feet, normally without being hurt.
Black cat superstitions are as
American as apple pie. In Asia and England, black cats are considered lucky.
A cat's tongue consists of small
"hooks," which come in handy when tearing up food.
When a domestic cat goes after mice,
about one pounce in three results in a catch.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals
have been domesticated.
The cat lover is an ailurophile, while
a cat hater is an ailurophobe.
The color of the points in Siamese cats
is heat related. Cool areas are darker. In fact, Siamese kittens are born white
because of the heat inside the mother's uterus before birth. This heat keeps the
kittens hair from darkening on the points.
Giraffes have no vocal cords.
The anteater, aardvark, spiny anteater
(echidna), and scaly anteater (pangolin) are completely unrelated - in fact, the
closest relatives to anteaters are sloths and armadillos, the closest relative
to the spiny anteater is the platypus, and the aardvark is in an order all by
itself.
The common goldfish is the only animal
that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.
A baby eel is called an elver, a baby
oyster is called a spat.
The Ganges River in India boasts the
only genuine fresh-water sharks in the entire world.
An animal epidemic is called an
epizootic.
In World War II, the ninety million
dollars worth of National Biscuit Company products furnished to the U.S. Armed
Services included thousands of cases of MILK-BONE BRAND Dog Biscuits, earmarked
(no pun intended) for the dogs of the Army and Marine Corps.
A cockroach can live for nine days
without its head.
Dragonflies can fly at speeds up to
30 miles per hour.
All the swans in England are property
of the Queen. Messing with them is a serious offense.
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy )
are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and
don't die throughout the movie.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue
out.
The ant can lift 50 times its own
weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side
when intoxicated.
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds,
that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds.
The flea can jump 350 times its body
length, that is like a human jumping the length of a football field.
The color a head louse will be as an
adult can depend on the color of the person's hair in which it lives.
The cochineal insect, which lives on
the prickly pear cactus in the southwestern United States, is an excellent
source of natural red dye. The insects are dried and ground into a powder that
is cooked to release the maximum amount of color. The powder is then used as a
dye for fiber, fabric, and basketry materials. It has also been approved by the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in food and cosmetics. Most brands of
lipstick and some kinds of fruit drinks are tinted with cochineal extract.
In the 1960s, animal behavior
researchers studied the effects of various substances on spiders. When spiders
were fed flies that had been injected with caffeine, they spun very
"nervous" webs. When spiders ate flies injected with LSD, they spun
webs with wild, abstract patterns. Spiders that were given sedatives fell asleep
before completing their webs.
The bombadier beetle defends itself by
firing a boiling hot spray from the rear of its abdomen. The spray is formed at
the moment of firing by mixing chemicals from two glands in the beetle's
abdomen. The spray changes instantly into a gas and is directed away from the
beetle. The gas irritates the eyes of the enemy and forms a smoke screen which
helps the beetle to escape while the enemy is confused.
Descartes came up with the theory of
coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.
If a statue in the park of a person on
a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse
has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in
battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural
causes.
Unlike lions, adult Tigers live alone
with the exception of a mother Tiger and her cubs. This is because a lone tiger
can sneak up better on prey, rather than in a group.
Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
Tigers can see in the dark six times
better than humans can. They can also see in color!
The heaviest tiger recorded in the
Guiness Book of World Records is a 1,025-pound male Siberian tiger!
More people are killed annually by
donkeys than die in air crashes.
Carnivorous animals will not eat
another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
It only takes a male horse 14 seconds
to copulate.
An ostrich's eye is two-times bigger
than its brain
A group of unicorns is called a
blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink." A group of frogs
is called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is
called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of geese is called a
gaggle. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a
mess.A group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a
parliament.
Studies show that if a cat falls off
the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of
surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes
about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct
itself.
Smartest dogs: 1) border collie;
2)poodle; 3)golden retriever
Percentage of bird species that are
monogamous: 90
Percentage of mammal species that are
monogamous: 3
Dumbest dog: afghan
The very first bomb dropped by the
Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The world's smallest mammal is the
bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
On a large sea otter, there are
approximately 650,000 hairs per square inch.
The common little brown bat of North
America is the world's longest-lived mammal for its size, with life spans
sometimes exceeding 32 years.
Cows clean their noses with their
tongues.
The Pilgrims refused to eat lobsters
because they believed they were really big insects.
Fleas have changed history. More human
deaths have been attributed to fleas than all the wars ever fought. As carriers
of the bubonic plague, fleas were responsible for killing one-third of the
population of Europe in the 14th century.
Certain frogs can be frozen solid then
thawed, and continue living.
There are no SNAKES in Alaska!
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs
but not downstairs.
There are three species of bear in
Alaska: grizzly, black, and polar.
A cow's spots are like a fingerprint or
snowflake. No two cows have exactly the same pattern of spots.
A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of
milk in her lifetime.
A tiger's paw prints are called pug
marks.
Only bird that can fly backwards:
Hummingbird
Ostriches stick their heads in the
sand to look for water.
An eagle can kill a young deer and fly
away with it.
In the Caribbean there are oysters that
can climb trees.
Polar bears are left-handed.
A group of gnats is called a cloud.
A group of chickens is called a peep.
In cats, the calico and tortiseshell
coats are sex-linked traits. All cats displaying these coats are female... or
occasionally sterile males.
The average person swallows three
spiders annually.
Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was
allergic to carrots.
A skunk will not bite and throw its
scent at the same time.
The woolly mammoth, extinct since the
Ice Age, had tusks almost 16 feet long.
Armadillos can be housebroken.
The giraffe has a black tongue that is
14 inches long and about no vocal cords.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A Poland China hog named "Big
Bill" weighing 2,552 pounds and measuring 9 feet long with a belly that
dragged the ground, owned by Burford Butler of Jackson, Tennessee in 1933.
The giraffe has a black tongue that is
14 inches long and about no vocal cords.
Starfish have eight eyes--one at the
end of each leg.
Giraffes have no vocal cords.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
Many hamsters only blink one eye at a
time.
It takes a lobster approximately seven
years to grow to be one pound.
Cat's urine glows under a black light.
An iguana can stay under water for 28
minutes.
The heaviest cat ever recorded was 46
lbs.
A baby rabbit is called a Kit.
Llamas hum.
Llamas have a communal dung pile with
very little odor, unlike other animals that go all over the pasture and smell
terrible.
Llamas have a soft pad on the bottom of
their foot, not a hoof, so they were gentle on the ground.
Greyhounds can run up to 45 miles an
hour for very short periods.
When a wolf howls it is either marking
it's territory, telling other wolves to stay away, trying to find a lost wolf
from the pack, or looking for a mate.
If NASA sent birds into space they
would soon die; they need gravity to swallow.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's
brain.
Ben and Jerry's send the waste from
making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff,
except for one flavor: Mint Oreo.
The longest recorded flight of a
chicken is thirteen seconds.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
It was discovered on a space mission
that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up it's stomach first, so the stomach
is dangling out of it's mouth.Then the frog uses it's forearms to dig out all of
the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.
Studies show that if a cat falls off
the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of
surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes
about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct
itself.
Armadillos have four babies at a time
and they are always all the same sex.
Armadillos are the only animal besides
humans that can get leprosy.
To escape the grip of a crocodile's
jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs-- it will let you go instantly.
A cow chews its cud 42,000 times a day.
Reindeer like to eat bananas.
Dogs have 42 teeth, cats about 30.
Electric light or light from your TV
set will make your cat shed her fur.
Cats purr at about 26 cycles per
second, the same frequency as an idling diesel engine.
Cats have a third eyelid called a haw
and you will probably only see it when kitty isn't feeling well.
A cat sees about six times better than
a human at night because of the tapetum lucidum , a layer of extra reflecting
cells which absorb light.
In 1987 cats overtook dogs as the
number one pet in America.
Adult cats with no health problems are
in deep sleep 15 percent of their lives. They are in light sleep 50 percent of
the time.
Flea larvae (those little black
squiggly things that hatch from those teeny white eggs) live on the undigested
blood in "flea dirt" and dead skin.
Cats are the only animal that walk on
their claws, not the pads of their feet.
Female fleas consume fifteen times
their weight daily.
Cats step with both left legs, then
both right legs when they walk or run. The only other animals to do this are the
giraffe and the camel.
In ancient Egypt, entire families would
shave their eyebrows as a sign of mourning when the family cat died.
