Americans
spend $1b/year on feeding birds. Squirrels appreciate the gesture.
Cold water turns male salmon into
female.
The plural of moose is moose,
not meese.
The peregrine falcon can clock speeds of 250 mph making it the fastest
self-propelling creature on earth. Thank goodness it's in the air and not on
the highway.
There is approximately one cat
for every 5 people in the U.S.
The UN
estimates that that there will be 9 billion people on earth by 2150. Up from approximately 6
billion today.
Normal body temperature ranges
from 100 to 103.2 but can become slightly elevated during exercise or when the
cat is excited.
Adult fleas suck blood from cats, dogs and humans. The blind larvae though drop
off and eat organic stuff in the carpet, ground and other places.
There can be nearly 20,000 (yep, let's not count them) dust mites in a gram of
dust. Usually there aren't anywhere near that many but...there could be.
According to the pet industry
organization, APPMA, 16% of dog people and 2% of cat people have traveled with their
pets.
Florida has 14 million people cohabiting
(more or less) with 1 million alligators and friends.
African penguins have the highest density of
feathers of any bird in the world.
Pythons do not have eyelids or ears.
Armadillos can inflate themselves with air in
order to float in the water while swimming.
Female kangaroos
are called does.
All indoor/outdoor cats (and
dogs) have cat-lover Sir Isaac Newton to thank. He's the inventor of the cat flap,
also known as the doggie door. He even created a lighter weight kitten door within
the cat flap so that the tiniest tykes would have easy access to the great outdoors.
Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national
bird. He objected to the eagle because he thought it represented a certain moral
laxity.
According to a major trade magazine, here are some stats for
US pet guardians. This is not a scientific, random survey. It's just funny.
91% have pets because of the unconditional love they receive
80% boast about their pets to others
79% let their pets sleep on the bed
37% carry photos of their pets in their wallets
33% communicate via ESP with their pets
22% watch TV shows their pets enjoy
19% choose restaurants for the doggy bags they can take home to doggy
OK, we would have gotten that question wrong...a group of
leopards is a leap!?! Further proof that English is a truly arbitrary collection of
words passing as a language.
Dogs have sweat glands only on the bottoms of their
feet. When it's warm, they will feel moist to the touch. They're also a little
stinky!
A twit is a pregnant goldfish.
Yosemite Park Rangers have decided that it's
easier to teach tourists to lock up their food properly (not in their cars or tents or
sleeping bags) than it is to teach bears not to go after it!
The mouths of fish
can usually tell you how they feed. Upturned mouths feed at the surface of the
water, downturned mouths are bottom-feeders and a mouth that is neither feeds somewhere in
between.
The
Saluki is the oldest known breed of dog with evidence of its existence
dating back to ancient Egypt several thousand years B.C. The
modern version of the breed, however, is likely to be only about 100
years old.
For the first few
weeks of life, all kittens have blue eyes.
Chimpanzees share
99% of our genes but only 87% of a gorillas.
Americans spend more on cat food every year than on baby
food.
The lifespan of a large Parrot could be as long as 80-100
years!
There are fewer germs in a dog's mouth than in a human's.
It looks like a lot of free lunches. Growing large
quantities of the same plant in an area can encourage overpopulation of some
insects. Since this is how agriculture basically works, this is one way insects turn
into pests.
There are an astonishing 2,200+ species of fleas in the
world!
Horses have legs that cannot move laterally. They can,
however, move back and forth very quickly while carrying a lot of weight.
Cat fleas are very democratic. If they can't find a
feline host, they'll dine on dogs, rabbits, birds and humans.
Ever wonder why your cat
basks under a hot table lamp? Humans think temperatures above 112°
Fahrenheit are too warm whereas cats feel comfortable up to 126°.
You can't see me but I
can see you! Cats can see in just
one-sixth the amount of light we require. That's probably one reason he's bouncing
off the walls while you're trying to get some shut eye.
Do people say you eat
like a bird? Wouldn't that be nice! A small bird can eat 20% or more of
its body weight a day. Eating like a bird would mean a 125 lb. human could wolf down
25 pounds and still be light enough to fly.
How do songbirds find worms? Chances are
they see them wiggling between the blades of grass or emerging from wet soil. They
find more worms in short grass and after a rain when worms come to the surface.
The large-winged mallard duck can leap off the
surface of a pond and be airborne. Ducks with smaller wings have to run along the
surface while flapping in order to get enough lift for takeoff.
I thought I just needed glasses. American
TV transmits at too slow a rate for dogs to see the picture clearly. Cats, however,
have no problem and frequently try to catch birds on wildlife shows. Since they also
try to catch speeding race cars, maybe they're the ones who need reading glasses.
No bees no
beauty? The cosmetics industry is the number one user of beeswax.
The giraffe has
the largest heart of any land mammal. Otherwise, they would never get blood up to
their heads and would end up fainting all the time.
Gee, thanks
bee. That busy bee visited some 4,000 flowers in order to get you one spoonful of
honey.
How do vultures capitalize on increasingly wide-ranging
human habitation? Cars leave road kill on asphalt highways. Not only is this
dinner but the warm currents rising from the road provide lift for takeoff. The big
trees uprooted for suburban sprawl are replaced by rooftops for perching and
sunning. Homeowners have even taken to putting sprinklers on the roof to chase off
the buzzards.
Why do birds preen? One reason is that individual feathers
actually "zip" together with tiny barbules. This allows air to be caught
against the feather and the bird can fly. Fluffy feathers, like down or ostrich
plumes, don't have that quality and won't be flying anytime soon.
Where do cars swerve to avoid poop? Drivers
are cautious in the Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa. The Eastern Cape
elephants walk the asphalt roads because they're convenient and obviously made just for
them. The flightless dung beetle follows the elephants because it rolls their
droppings into big (from a beetle perspective) balls. It lays eggs inside the ball
and then rolls it to a suitable burial site. The larvae hatch and eat the ball from
the inside out. The beetle itself is a rare species so cars avoid rolling over dung
just in case.
Now isn't that convenient? Horses can sleep while
standing. Their heads droop, their eyes close and they just drift off.
Luckily, they can lock their stifle joints to steady themselves. This is the joint
that attaches their back legs to their hips.
A three-pound ostrich egg, from the largest
bird in the world, can withstand the weight of a full grown person. The smooth,
tough shell helps protect it from smaller predators like jackals although larger ones can
break the shell with their teeth. One egg can make a dozen omelets. Chicks
start off the size of a bunny but can grow at the rate of 1 foot per month! Before
their first birthday, they tower over us at around 7 feet tall.
No, they don't stick their heads in the ground but they do lie down and take cover
in tall grass. That's no mean feat for such a large bird. A final note, the
ostrich brain is as big as its eye. We're not really sure what that means but it is
interesting.
