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Top 10 Amazing Animal Facts

By greenexpander ⋅ October 24, 2007 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

The animal kingdom is a fascinating one, there’s no doubt about it. There are many amazing animals, some of which still remain uncovered. Amazing findings came up everyday. But here is a selection of the most amazing animal facts we found.

10. What can you find in a crocodile’s stomach?

Since it’s a big animal and has no time to exactly choose what it puts in, crocodile swallows almost everything from small fish, turtles to gazelles or lions. To defend their territory, they even swallow other fellow crocs. For most of these animals, it’s a bumpy ride since crocodiles swallow stones, scientists suggesting they used them as ballast in diving.

9. Baby whales on a fatty diet
For a whale, giving birth is difficult enough; its baby is a third of the mother’s length. To feed its offspring, the mother pumps milk with muscles around the mammary glands. Whale milk is half fat, the 10 times fatter than human milk. This is used for growing up at a fast step, almost 200 pounds per day.

8. Birds and road signs
If you’re on a long trip, you can’t make it through without road signs. Birds are better at this; they can fly thousands of miles without difficulties. The Arctic tern, make a 25,000 mile round-trip journey every year. Recently, it has been found that a female shorebird has flown 7,145 miles (11,500 kilometers) nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand—without taking a break for food or drink. Most birds use ferromagnetic to detect orientation, while pigeons use familiar landmarks to get home.

7. When do beavers sleep in winter?
In order to avoid cold winters and losing energy, beavers shut in during the cold season, living on the stored foot or fat from their tail. Since no light enters, they have no clue when it’s time to sleep. In response, they develop “free running circadian rhythm” of 29-hour days.

6. Are moles really blind?
Even though they have eyes, moles only use them for detecting changes in the air rather than seeing what’s ahead. African mole-rats have a sense of sigh, even though it is limited. When seeing a ray of light, they are warned about a predator breaking into their tunnel.

5. Does altruism exist in animals?
Altruism is present mostly when this means the survival of genetic material similar to the individual’s. Baby chicks practice this “kin selection” by making a special chirp while feeding. Dolphins support injured animals by swimming under them and pushing them to the surface to breath while chimpanzees share the food with other group members. Carnivore mammals even avoid harming animals below a certain age.

4. Fish and their unique mating habits
There are plenty of sea creatures we didn’t know about but this is by far one of the weirdest animal facts under the water. Some species of fishes such as sharks and rays are born one sex and stay that sex throughout life. But for other sex such as parrotfishes or the juvenile bluehead wrasse sex change is normal. This change is done in response to hormonal cycle or certain environmental changes such as pollution. Others simultaneously possess both male and female sex organs.

3. How giraffes compensate for height
They may reach the foliage in high trees without difficulties, but this comes with its disadvantages. For the blood to reach the head, a heart twice as strong as normal is needed. Also, the blood vessel system should be complex so that the blood doesn’t rush to the head when the giraffe bents over. In addition, the skin of the legs must then be extremely tight to prevent blood from pooling at the hooves.

2. Elephants & their big brain
Weighing 11 pounds, elephants have the largest brain in the world. Intelligence in animals is measured via EQ (encephalization quotient), a ratio between brain size and the ability to go successfully through obstacles. EQ for elephants is 1.88, while humans have a maximum of 7.69 chimps 2.45 and pigs 0.27. Even though elephants often forget, they are definitely not dumb.

1. Parrots and Speech
For parrots, it’s not just squawking anymore; studies conducted over the past 3 decades have shown that they do more than just mimic the words they hear. Parrots can solve certain linguistic tasks as children aged 4 to 6, understanding concepts like “same” and “different”, “bigger” and “smaller”, “none” and numbers. A study conducted at the beginning of 2007 Language Sciences supported the idea of using patterns of parrot speech learning to develop artificial speech skills in robots.

source: LiveScience