Animal Facts
- The anaconda, one of the world’s largest snakes, gives birth to its young instead of laying eggs.
- The average adult male ostrich, the world’s largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.
- The biggest members of the cat family are Siberian and Bengal tigers, which can reach over 600 pounds.
- The blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of lobsters is blue.
- The bloodhound is the only animal whose evidence is admissible in an American court.
- The blue whale is the loudest animal on Earth. The call of the blue whale reaches levels up to 188 decibels. This extraordinarily loud whistle can be heard for hundreds of miles underwater. The second-loudest animal on Earth is the Howler Monkey.
- The bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers.
- The calories burned daily by the sled dogs running in Alaska’s annual Iditarod race average 10,000. The 1,149-mile race commemorates the 1925 “Race for Life” when 20 volunteer mushers relayed medicine from Anchorage to Nome to battle a children’s diphtheria epidemic.
- The Canary Islands were not named for a bird called a canary. They were named after a breed of large dogs. The Latin name was Canariae insulae – “Island of Dogs.”
- The cat lover is an ailurophile, while a cat hater is an ailurophobe.
- The catgut formerly used as strings in tennis rackets and musical instruments does not come from cats. Catgut actually comes from sheep, hogs, and horses.
- The chameleon has several cell layers beneath its transparent skin. These layers are the source of the chameleon’s color change. Some of the layers contain pigments, while others just reflect light to create new colors. Several factors contribute to the color change. A popular misconception is that chameleons change color to match their environment. This isn’t true. Light, temperature, and emotional state commonly bring about a chameleon’s change in color. The chameleon will most often change between green, brown and gray, which coincidently, often matches the background colors of their habitat.
- The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can’t retract its claws.
- The Chinese, during the reign of Kublai Khan, used lions on hunting expeditions. They trained the big cats to pursue and drag down massive animals – from wild bulls to bears – and to stay with the kill until the hunter arrived.
- The elephant, as a symbol of the US Republican Party, was originated by cartoonist Thomas Nast and first presented in 1874.
- The English Romantic poet Lord Byron was so devastated upon the death of his beloved Newfoundland, whose name was Boatswain, that he had inscribed upon the dog’s gravestone the following: “Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices.”
- The expression “three dog night” originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night – so cold that you have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.
- The fastest bird is the Spine-tailed swift, clocked at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour.
- The fastest -moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph.