Fun Facts

Body-builders like to show off their muscles but as far as the number of muscles to show, they are no match to the humble caterpillar which has about 4 times the number of muscles possessed by humans.

It is difficult to believe that the neck of a giraffe and the neck of a man has the same number of bones – seven in total.

When we think of large animals that have appeared on earth, the dinosaurs come to our mind. The heaviest dinosaur was Brachiosaurus at 80 tons and the longest was Seismosaurus, related to Diplodocus, which could be 130 ft. long from tip of nose to tip of tail. But the largest animal that ever lived is in our present day world. The Blue Whale can reach a length of about 110 ft. and weigh as much as 180 tons which equals the weight of about 30 African elephants! A Blue Whale at birth weighs about 3 tons, as much as an adult hippo!

There are plenty of records of human beings who have lived more than 100 years. At this level, they can claim to be the longest living mammals! Compare this with the life span of 90 years for Blue Whale, 70 years for Indian elephants, 50 years for their African cousins, with other mammals all of whom live for lesser periods.

Which mammals lay eggs? Everyone knows about Platypus but there is another – it is Echidna or Spiny Anteater.

Talking of Platypus, do you know that when its description reached from Australia to Europe, many scientists there believed it to be a hoax! Could a mammal have a beak and webbed feet like a duck, a body with fur and tail like a paddle, laid eggs but suckled the baby when it emerged from the egg? But another less known fact about them is that the Platypus may be the only venomous mammal! We are not talking of mammals transmitting fatal diseases like rabis or plague, but about having a venomous sting! On the back legs of mature male platypus, there are a pair of short spurs connected to a venom gland producing viciously painful toxin. People who have experienced the sting (often fishermen trying to free the creature from their nets) claim that the excruciating pain can induce vomiting persisting for weeks and cannot be relieved by morphine or other pain-killing drugs. Fortunately, Platypus uses this possibly as a defence mechanism only.

Which animal grows the maximum from birth to adulthood? Though a male kangaroo can be about 7 ft. tall and weigh 90 kg, at birth they are about 2 cm tall and weigh a few grams only! After birth, the baby has to climb about 6 inches along the furs of its mother’s abdomen to reach the edge of the pouch and enter into it. It is equivalent to a human baby climbing about 10 ft.! The infant kangaroo is suckled inside its mother’s pouch, where it completes its development to emerge when it weighs more than a kg.

Who is the high jump champion of the animal world? Men’s high jump record holder Javier Sotomayor standing 6′-5″ tall cleared a height of a little above 8′. If he had the jumping prowess of the humble flea, he would be able to jump from the ground to the top of the GE Building in New York (approx. 840 ft. tall)!

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We believe that cat’s have the best vision, dog’s have the best smell but now look onto some of the false beliefs of the society.

Myth: Bats are blind

Fact: Bats are not blind but see better in dark then in normal daylight.

Myth: Monkeys remove fleas from each others fur.

Fact: They do remove something similar, they remove dead skin, which they like to eat.

Myth: A Porcupine throws it’s quills at you when provoked.

Fact: No they don’t shoot it at anyone as a projectile, if caught they just tighten it.

Myth: Whales spout water from their blowholes.

Fact: No actually it is Air that they release but with all the water on it’s back it propels the water too. Making it look lie he’s releasing water.

Those are just a few of the most often ones I hear and wanted to clear out.

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Early history tells that animals can sense earthquakes and this has been discovered centuries ago.  Historians revealed that animals such as rats, snakes, and weasels abandoned the Greek City of Helice in large groups for 2-3 days prior to a devastating earthquake.

This was followed by stories of the same nature in other foreign lands for centuries.  It was observed that catfish was moving restlessly, chickens stopped laying eggs and bees left their hives showing extreme panic that something violent will occur.  A lot of pet owners have noticed that their cats and dogs were very restless and continuously making noises without transparent reasons.

However, no one could tell exactly what was happening.  No one could tell precisely that the animals acted in a strange way because of an incoming ground tremor.  In fact, some people said it was more of mystery rather than prediction.

One theory that surfaced is that wild animals can sense underground vibration than human beings.  Other concepts attributed the actions of animals to an electrical reaction in the wind or gas coming from the ground.  Earthquakes are still under question even today.

Even seismologists have no means of detecting in advance the date or place of coming earthquakes and where they would exactly occur.  Approximately 500,000 earthquakes were detected each year around the world; 100,000 sensed by humans and many of them caused tremendous damage to properties.

Japan is frequently experiencing earthquake as an earthquake-prone country and devastation took its great toll in human beings and properties.  Scientists in Japan have long been trying to discover the method of predicting earthquakes.

They have carefully studied the reactions of animals in the hope of finding a clue as why these animals display a strange behavior days before an earthquake will occur.

On the other hand, American seismologists doubt the veracity of attributing the prediction to animals.  Even if there are a lot of documented films and stories about this phenomenon, American scientists dismiss the idea as plain myth.  Researchers said that the relation between the occurrence of earthquake and animal behavior has not been established to-date.

They argue that animals react to so many things like when they get hungry, in defense of their territories, mating process and predators.  So there is no valid proof that indeed animals can predict earthquakes.

However, researchers around the world do not stop discovering the truth.  In the year 1975, after sensing the movements of animals strangely, Chinese officials ordered families to evacuate Haicheng city a few days before the killer earthquake struck the city with a 7.3 magnitude.

If no people were evacuated ahead of the killer earthquake during those days, the victims could have exceeded 150,000.  They traced the prediction from continuous howling of dogs in the night, restless birds in cages and cats hiding, just days before the big disaster.

In spite of this, however, geologists do not agree to this concept and state that it’s just a sort of psychological effect where people tend to remember facts and events only when they recur.  If it did not occur, people will totally forget the past events.

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