Amazing Nature Facts
Mammals
-Polar Bears can run at 25 miles an hour (40 km/h) and jump over 6 feet (1.80 meters) in the air.
-Polar Bears are nearly undetectable by infrared cameras, due to their transparent fur.
-Polar Bear skin is actually black.
-To clean its ears from the dirt a giraffe uses its tongue, which is almost 50 cm long.
-A Giraffe has the same number of bones in its neck as a man.
-The horn of a rhinoceros is made from compacted hair rather than bone or another substance.
-There are more tigers held privately as pets than there are in the wild.
-In the wild, lions rest for around 20 hours a day.
-The roar of a lion can be heard from 8 kilometers (5.0 miles) away.
-Cats use their whiskers to check whether a space is too small for them to fit through or not.
-Female koalas have not one, but two vaginas.
-The hippopotamuses are so big that they can easily walk underwater, along the bottom of lakes and rivers.
-We share 98.4% of our DNA with a chimp.
-Elephants can't jump, pigs can't look up at the sky and kangaroos can't walk backwards.
-Cows from different regions have different "moo" accent.
-Rats breed so quickly that in just 18 months, 2 rats could have created over 1 million relatives.
Birds
-A commercial plane can fly at the altitude of maximum 35,000 ft (10.000 meters) and a bird can fly at the altitude of 37,000 ft (11.000 meters).
-Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards and fly in the same spot.
-Birds need gravity to swallow.
-Spine-tailed swift bird can fly as fast as 120 mph (193 km/h).
-Cuban bee hummingbird is the smallest bird with length of 5 to 6 cm.
-Ostrich's eye is bigger then its brain.
-The only known poisonous bird in the world is the hooded pitohui of New Guinea.
Fish and other water animals
-A whale can swim for 3 months without eating.
-The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car.
-The tongue of a blue whale is as long as an elephant.
-The blue whale can produce the loudest sound of any animal. At 188 decibels, the noise can be detected over 800 kilometres away.
-Dolphins have excellent eyesight and hearing as well as the ability to use echolocation for finding the exact location of objects.
-Dolphins sleep with one eye opened.
-Despite it name, the Killer Whale (Orca) is actually a type of dolphin.
-Sharks remain on the move their entire lives. This forces water over their gills, delivering oxygen. If the shark stops moving then it will die.
-The great white is warm-blooded. Great white does not keep a constant body temperature, it needs to eat in order to to regulate its temperature.
-Sharks do not have a single bone in their bodies. Instead they have a skeleton made up of cartilage; flexible tissue that makes up human ears and noses.
-Although most species of shark are less than one metre long, there are some species such as the whale shark, which can be 14 metres long.
-Sharks have outstanding hearing. They can hear a fish thrashing in the water from as far as 500 metres away.
-The goblin shark has been seen only about 50 times since its discovery in 1897.
-Sharks lay the biggest eggs in the world.
-Giant Arctic jellyfish have tentacles that can reach over 36 metres in length.
-More types of fish swim in Brazil's Amazon River than in the entire Atlantic Ocean.
-Goldfish can see both infrared and ultraviolet light.
-The star fish is actually not a fish, its an animal.
-Oysters can change from one gender to another and back again.
Reptiles, Amphibians and slugs
-Crocodile can live as long as 100 years and it can have 2,500 pounds of weight (1.130 kg).
-Turtles can live for more than 100 years.
-The largest lizard in the world is the Komodo dragon which reaches up to 3 meters it is often longer than a car.
-Even when a snake has its eyes closed, it can still see through its eyelids.
-Snails can sleep for up to three years.
-We share 70% of our DNA with a slug.
Spiders
-A single spider cocoon can produce 1,000 ft (304 meters) silk.
-Adult tarantulas can live for almost 2 years without eating a single thing.
-Most tarantulas have from 8 to 15 eyes, but still theirs only use is to detect light, not colors.
Insects and Worms
-The ant can lift things 10 times its own weigh.
-The cicada, a fly found in Africa, spends 17 years of its life sleeping and only two weeks is awake during which mates and then dies.
-A butterfly warms up its body up to 81 degrees Fahrenheit (27 Celsius) before flying.
-Male mosquitoes do not bite.
-Butterflies taste with their hind feet and their taste sensation works on touch - this allows them to determine whether a leaf is edible.
-A cockroach can live for nine days without its head.
-The Praying Mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
-Bee keepers wear white because bees can't recognize white color.
-Blood sucking hookworms inhabit 700 million people worldwide.
Mushrooms and Fungus
-The largest living thing on the face of the Earth is a mushroom underground in Oregon, it measures 3.5 miles (5.6 km) in diameter.
Plants
-The combined length of the roots of a Finnish pine tree is over 30 miles (48.2 km).
-A single rye plant can spread up to 400 miles (643 km) of roots underground.
-Giant water lilies in the Amazon can grow over 6 feet (1.80 meters) in diameter.
-The largest individual flower on Earth is from a plant called Rafflesia arnoldii. Its flowers reach up to 1 metre (3 feet) in diameter and weigh around 10 kg.
-Bamboo can be a fast growing plant, some types can grow almost a meter (3.28 feet) in just one day,
-In one year, the average tree gives off enough oxygen to allow four people to breathe for a year.
-Orchids are the largest family of flowering plants with approximately 35,000 species.
-The the oldest living thing on earth is 12,000 years old. It is the flowering shrubs called creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert.
