Animals and Creatures - Bizarre Facts Page 4

Animals and Creatures

Bizarre Fact #151:
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A nest in which insects or spiders deposit their eggs is called a "nidus".

Bizarre Fact #152:
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A parrots beak can close with a force close to 350 pounds per square inch.

Bizarre Fact #153:
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A pelican consumes about 33 and 1/3 percent of its body weight in a single meal.

Bizarre Fact #154:
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A quarter of the horses in the U.S. died of a vast virus epidemic in 1872.

Bizarre Fact #155:
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A robin's egg is blue, but if you put it in vinegar for thirty days it turns yellow.

Bizarre Fact #156:
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A skark's skeleton is made up of cartilage.

Bizarre Fact #157:
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A skunk will not bite and throw its scent at the same time.

Bizarre Fact #158:
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A swarm of Rocky Mountain locusts flew over Nebraska on July 20-30, 1874 covering an area estimated at 198,600 square miles. The swarm must have contained at least 12.5 trillion insects, weighing about 27.5 million tons.

Bizarre Fact #159:
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A top freestyle swimmer achieves a speed of only 4 miles per hour. Fish, in contrast, have been clocked at 68 mph.

Bizarre Fact #160:
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A trout swims at about 4 miles per hour which is faster than you or me.

Bizarre Fact #161:
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A typical day for a gorilla is to get up early and eat. It eats until it gets hot, then it will nap. When it gets up from its nap, they resume eating until the sun goes down.

Bizarre Fact #162:
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A typical Mayfly only lives one day.

Bizarre Fact #163:
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A winkle is an edible sea snail.

Bizarre Fact #164:
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A woodchuck breathes 2,100 times an hour, but it only breathes ten times an hour while it is hibernating.

Bizarre Fact #165:
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According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the best time to spray household insects is 4:00 p.m. Insects are most vulnerable at this time.

Bizarre Fact #166:
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According to the Wall Street Journal, the cockfighting market is huge: The Philippines has five million roosters used for exactly that.

Bizarre Fact #167:
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After mating, the female black widow spider turns on her partner and devours him. The female may dispatch as many as twenty-five suitors a day in this manner.

Bizarre Fact #168:
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All elephants walk on tip-toe, because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.

Bizarre Fact #169:
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All shrimp are born male, but slowly grow into females as they mature.

Bizarre Fact #170:
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An ant can survive for up to two weeks underwater.

Bizarre Fact #171:
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An iguana can stay under water for twenty-eight minutes.

Bizarre Fact #172:
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Ants stretch when they wake up. They also appear to yawn in a very human manner before taking up the tasks of the day.

Bizarre Fact #173:
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Any Female bee in a beehive could have been the queen if she had been fed the necessary royal jelly. All female bees in a given hive are sisters.

Bizarre Fact #174:
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Apus Australiensis, a shrimp-like crustacean of arid central Australia, survives where other water animals would perish because its eggs hatch only after they have been dried out in the sun.

Bizarre Fact #175:
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Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.

Bizarre Fact #176:
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As much as 40-percent of the entire world's varieties of freshwater fish are to be found in the Amazon River basin. There are about 8,600 species of birds in the entire world, and more than half of them are also represented in this area.

Bizarre Fact #177:
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At birth a panda is smaller than a mouse and weighs about four ounces.

Bizarre Fact #178:
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Australia has the largest sheep population.

Bizarre Fact #179:
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Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms per day.

Bizarre Fact #180:
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Baby songbirds seem to learn how to sing from the adult birds of their species, and if they are raised by other species, they don't sing the same as their ancestors. They often make strange warbling noises, but may also learn the songs of other species. In the latter case, they can pass these songs on to their offspring.

Bizarre Fact #181:
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Beavers do not eat fish.

Bizarre Fact #182:
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Because porcupines have hollow quills, they are great swimmers.

Bizarre Fact #183:
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Bees have 5 eyes. There are 3 small eyes on the top of a bee's head and 2 larger ones in front.

Bizarre Fact #184:
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Bees have been known to cure rheumatism.

Bizarre Fact #185:
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Belize is the only country in the world with a jaguar preserve.

Bizarre Fact #186:
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Between 20,000 and 60,000 bees live in a single hive. The queen bee lays nearly 1,500 eggs a day and lives for up to 2 years. The drone, whose only job is to mate with the queen bee, has a lifespan of around 24 days—he has no sting. Worker bees - all sterile females - usually work themselves to death within 40 days, collecting pollen and nectar. Worker bees will fly p to 9 miles to find pollen and nectar, flying at speeds as fast as 15 mph.

Bizarre Fact #187:
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Birds cannot go into outer space, because they use gravity to assist them in swallowing, so they'd quickly choke and die in a non-gravity environment.

Bizarre Fact #188:
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Birds do not have sweat glands, so their bodies cannot cool down through perspiration. Their bodies cool by flight or, when at rest, panting.

Bizarre Fact #189:
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Birds do not sleep in their nests, although they may rest in them from time to time.

Bizarre Fact #190:
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Boredom can lead to madness in parrots. When caged by themselves and neglected for long periods of time, these intelligent, sociable birds can easily become mentally ill. Many inflict wounds upon themselves, develop strange tics, and rip out their own feathers. The birds need constant interaction, affection, and mental stimulation; some bird authorities have determined that some parrot breeds have the mental abilities of a 5-year-old human child. Should a neglected parrot go mad, there is little that can be done to restore it to normalcy. In England, there are "mental institutions" for such unfortunate creatures.

Bizarre Fact #191:
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Butterflies taste with their hind feet.

Bizarre Fact #192:
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Catnip, or Nepeta cataria, is an herb with nepetalactone in it. Many think that when cats inhale nepetalactone, it affects hormones that arouse sexual feelings, or at least alter their brain functioning to make them feel "high." Catnip was originally made, using nepetalactone as a natural bug repellant, but roaming cats would rip up the plants before they could be put to their intended task.

Bizarre Fact #193:
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Cats can run slightly more than 30 miles per hour.

Bizarre Fact #194:
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Cats often rub up against people and furniture to lay their scent and mark their territory. They do it this way, as opposed to the way dogs do it, because they have scent glands in their faces.

Bizarre Fact #195:
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Cats purr at 26 cycles per second, the same as an idling diesel engine.

Bizarre Fact #196:
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Cats sleep up to eighteen hours a day, but never quite as deep as humans. Instead, they fall asleep quickly and wake up intermittently to check to see if their environment is still safe.

Bizarre Fact #197:
Did you know...
Certain fireflies emit a light so penetrating that it can pass through flesh and wood.

Bizarre Fact #198:
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Certain kinds of insects can live as long as a year after having their head severed. What's more, the insects can still react to stimuli, such as light and temperature.

Bizarre Fact #199:
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Certain species of male butterflies produce scents that serve in attracting females during courtship.

Bizarre Fact #200:
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Chocolate effects a dogs heart and nervous system, a few ounces enough to kill a small sized dog.