Funny Facts and Fun Trivia about Animals 03
Animal gestation periods: the shortest is the American opossum, which bears its young 12 to 13 days after conception; the longest is the Asiatic elephant, taking 608 days, or just over 20 months.
Ants are social insects and live in colonies which may have as many as 500,000 individuals.
Ants don't sleep
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.
Australian termites have been known to build mounds twenty feet high and at least 100 feet wide.
Barbara Bush's book about her English Springer Spaniel, Millie's book, was on the bestseller list for 29 weeks. Millie was the most popular "First Dog" in history.
Beaver teeth are so sharp that Native Americans once used them as knife blades.
Before the enactment of the 1978 law that made it mandatory for dog owners in New York City to clean up after their pets, approximately 40 million pounds of dog excrement were deposited on the streets every year.
By feeding hens certain dyes they can be made to lay eggs with varicolored yolks.
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
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.
Catfish have 100,000 taste buds.
Catnip can affect lions and tigers as well as house cats. It excites them because it contains a chemical that resembles an excretion of the dominant female's urine.
Cats are the only domestic animals that walk directly on their claws, not on their paws. This method of walking is called "digitigrade."
When cats scratch furniture, it isn't an act of malice. They are actually tearing off the ragged edges of the sheaths of their talons to expose the new sharp ones beneath. Cats have a third eyelid called a haw and you will probably only see it when kitty isn't feeling well.
Cats have amazing hearing ability. A cat's ear has 30 muscles that control the outer ear (by comparison, human ears only have six muscles). These muscles rotate 180 degrees, so the cat can hear in all directions without moving its head. A cat has four rows of whiskers.
Cats have better memories than dogs. Tests conducted by the University of Michigan concluded that while a dogs memory lasts no more than 5 minutes, a cat's can last as long as 16 hours - exceeding even that of monkeys and orangutans.
Cats have more than one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
Cats purr at about 26 cycles per second, the same frequency as an idling diesel engine.
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.
Cat's urine glows under a black light.
Cats, not dogs, are the most common pets in America. There are approximately 66 million cats to 58 million dogs, with Parakeets a distant third at 14 million.
The phrase "raining cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression.
The pigmy shrew - a relative of the mole - is the smallest mammal in North America. It weighs 1/14 ounce - less than a dime.
The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.
The poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
The smallest of the recognized dog breeds, the Chihuahua, is also the one that usually lives the longest. Named for the region of Mexico where they were first discovered in the mid-19th century, the Chihuahua can live anywhere between 11-18 years.
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History houses the world's largest shell collection, some 15 million specimens. A smaller museum in Sanibel, Florida owns a mere 2 million shells and claims to be the worlds only museum devoted solely to mollusks.