1. Flamingoes are born grey, after a year or two, they turn pinkish-red. They are also born with a straight bill that curves with age.
2. Cockroaches are one of the fastest insects on land. They can travel 4 miles per hour.
3. The first-ever photos of a live Giant Squid was taken in 2004. A Giant Squid was filmed for the first time in December 2006.
4. Giant Squids live 650 to 3,000 ft below the surface of the world's oceans. They range in size from 20 to 60 ft long and weigh up to half a ton or more.
5. Moth taste with their feet. Atlas moth is the largest Lepidoptera in the world with 65 sq in wingspan.
6. Dogs can see blues but not greens.
7. Labrador retriever is the most popular breed of dog in the US followed by Yorkshire terrier, Golden retriever and German shepherd.
8. Stick insect can grow up to 15 in long but the African Goliath beetle weigh nearly a quarter of a pound.
9. Penguins in the wild are found only in the Southern Hemisphere. The smallest is the fairy penguin which stands only about 1 foot and weighs about 2 pounds. The largest is the Emperor penguin with a height of about 4 ft and weighs up to 90 pounds.
10. Emperor penguins can dive as deep as 1,500 ft and stay underwater for 18 minutes.
11. Spiders, which have 8 legs, are arachnids, not insect. There are 750,000 species of insects while there are only 35,000 species of spiders.
12. Insects have 3 pairs of walking legs and they lack lungs. They breathe through tubes that open directly onto surface of their bodies.
13. All ants in a colony are female. Male ants survive only long enough to mate. Garbage and dead ants are kept in a separate chamber.
14. Homing pigeons are pigeons that have been bred for speed and the ability to fly long distance. They are trained to fly back to their home, sometimes over hundred of miles, after being released from another location.
15. There are 1.1 million species of arthropods, 24,500 species of fish, 9,000 species of mammals and birds, 8,000 species of reptiles, 5,000 species of amphibians and 260,000 species of plants.
16. 95% of all known living species are invertebrates.
17. Snakes are not found naturally in the wild in Ireland, Iceland, Greenland and Antarctica.
18. Macaw can live up to 50 years, periodical cicada for 17 years, tarantula and lobster for 15 years.
19. The most popular pets in the US are the ff; freshwater fish with about 139 million, cats - 90 million, and dogs - 73 million.
20. Box Jellyfish also known as Sea wasp and scientifically called Chironex fleckeri lives in the waters of northern Australia. Its box-shape bodies can grow 15 in across but its stinging tentacles can measure 10 to 15 ft long. Its venom can kill a human in minutes.
Interesting and Random Facts About Animals
1474 megapixel inauguration photo
Here is a photo taken using a panorama image capturing device called gigapan created by the Carnegie Mellon University and a Canon G10 camera.
The photographer had to click 220 snaps from that camera to get this complete view of the Obama’s inaugural address. It took a MacBook Pro around 7hrs to process the complete image. The final size of the image is over 2GB.
Click Here to view this Picture
Body Facts
What causes goose bumps?
Goose bumps (scientific name: piloerection) pop up when you're cold or afraid. A tiny muscle at the base of each body hair contracts; together, they appear as naked bumps on the flesh. They made sense eons ago, when humans still had a natural "fur coat." Back then, fluffing your ruff would warm the body by trapping an insulating layer of air between the hairs. And standing your hair on end was intimidating to predators or enemies (picture a cat facing off with a dog).
Why does chopping onions make you tear up?
When you cut into an onion, you rupture its cells, releasing enzymes that produce a gas called propanethial sulfoxide. Once that gas reaches your eyes, it reacts with tears to produce a mild sulfuric acid. And that hurts. The brain then signals the eyes' tear glands to produce more liquid to flush the stuff out.
Is it true that your ears grow throughout life?
Yes, the outer ears do. Starting at birth, the ears are, proportionally, the body's largest feature, with a Spock-like prominence. They grow rapidly until about age 10, then slow to the languid pace of about 0.22 millimeter per year, according to a study by Britain's Royal College of General Practitioners.
You have 2 million tiny hairs in your inner ear.
Unlike hair growing on the surface of your ears, the presence of hairs, or "stereocilia," deep inside your head aren't considered a hygiene lapse. Instead, they're a vitally important part of your ability to hear, responsible for changing physical sound waves into electrical signals that can be understood by your brain, according to the British Hearing Research Trust.
