14 Bizarre And Interesting Animal Facts

Posted by taloringer

1

When turkeys are scared or excited—like when the males see a female they're interested in—the pale skin on their head and neck turns bright red, blue, or white. The flap of skin over their beaks, called a "snood," also reddens.

Via Reader's Digest
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2

Most of the volcanoes probably stopped one billion years ago, but new NASA findingssuggest there might still have been active lava flow 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs were still roaming.

Via Reader's Digest
3

Dogs normally start sniffing with their right nostril, then keep it there if the smell could signal danger, but they'll shift to the left side for something pleasant, like food or a mating partner.

Via Reader's Digest
4

Those 457,000 calories are more than 240 times the energy the whale uses to scoop those krill into its mouth.

Via Reader's Digest
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5

The mother spends six months so devoted to protecting the eggs that she doesn't eat. The babies are the size of a grain of rice when they're born.

Via Reader's Digest
6

One Texas man was hospitalized when a bullet he shot at an armadillo ricocheted off the animal and hit him in the jaw.

Via Reader's Digest
7

Despite physical length, there are more bones in the neck of a sloth than a giraffe. There are seven vertebrae in the neck of giraffes, and in most mammals, but there are only 10 in a sloth.

Via Reader's Digest
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8

Like most four-legged mammals, they have five toes on the front, but their back paws only have four toes. Scientists think the four-toe back paws might help them run faster.

Via Reader's Digest
9

Bees can fly higher than 29,525 feet above sea level, according to National Geographic. That's higher than Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.

Via Reader's Digest
10

In Ancient Egypt, people put a dead mouse put in their mouth if they had a toothache, according to Nathan Belofsky's book Strange Medicine: A shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Age. Mice were also used as a warts remedy during Elizabethan England.

Via Reader's Digest
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11

The man, Tim Storms, can't even hear the note, which is eight octaves below the lowest G on a piano—but elephants can. Check out these 16 little-known facts about the greatest songs of all time.

Via Reader's Digest
12

Pig bladders were used in the 19^th century to store an artist's paint. The bladder would be sealed with a string and then pricked to get the paint out. This option wasn't the best because it would often break open. American painter John G. Rand was the innovator who made paint tubes from tin and screw cap in the 19^th century.

Via Reader's Digest
13

In France, there's a biogas plant that manages waste from a Mars chocolate factory, where M&Ms are made. Beekeepers nearby noticed that their bees were making "unnatural shades of green and blue" honey, reported BBC. A spokesperson from the British Beekeepers' Association predicted the bees eating the sugary M&M waste caused the colored honey.

Via Reader's Digest
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14

Feeding your cat milk could be making them sick. Like some humans, adult cats don't have enough of the lactase enzyme to digest lactose from milk, causing them to vomit, have diarrhea, or get gassy. Cats only have enough of that enzyme when they're born and during the early years of their life.

Via Reader's Digest