Random Animal Trivia
Posted on Jun 02, 2007 - 1:43am by John P. in Trivia
Here are a few fun / interesting facts about animals:
- Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
- The placement of a donkey’s eyes in its’ heads enables it to see all four feet at all times.
- On average a hedgehog’s heart beats 300 times a minute.
- In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child.
- Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
- The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds.
- The elephant is the only mammal that can’t jump.
- Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.
- A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
- An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
- A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.
- A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
- A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
- A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
- Chocolate affects a dog’s heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.
- Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
- In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
- It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs – but not downstairs.
- Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark’s stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
- Polar bears are left-handed.
- Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
- The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
- Starfish have no brains.
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You’ll probably find a few of those are myths. MythBusters is a fantastic program, and claims to have shown a ducks quack does echo, and a goldfish has a memory span of much more than three seconds.
If you believe that memory is the ability to contain ‘memories’ information (like that we get from our senses) one would realize that they fish do indeed have a longer memory span… I know for a fact that our fish at home (tropical fish… but they are the small kind) know that the food comes from an hand that does up near the top of the tank, and thus swim to the top of the tank read to get the food they know must be coming, however this is not alway the case (look up Pavlo’s Dog)(ie sometimes we are just pointing at them they are and they don’t get the food).
Jamie,
You are absolutely correct. On my other little trivia pages I normally put that I haven’t researched them thouroughly or anything, so they shouldn’t actually be relied upon as fact. I forgot to put it on this one, so thanks for reminding me!
Oh, and Mythbusters kicks ass!!!
John
Well the Starfish one is correct. I found it at: http://www.faculty.washington.edu/chudler/invert.html
On the Hedgehog I found 190 beats a minute at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/193.shtml
Somebody else can check the rest!
I know several people I think this applies to as well…
Kim:)