No matter if you have pets or not but these animal facts will blow you away. Do you know for which animal contraceptive pills do also work and how long it takes to cook an ostrich egg? We tell you.
1. Gnats are especially attracted by people with blood type O.
2. The Bonobo Kanzi monkey is able to make its own bonfire and cook its food in it.
3. Koala bears, monkeys and humans are the only animals with an individual fingerprint.
4. The hair above a cat’s eyes is called tactile hair. Are you interested in more fun facts about cats? Just read our article with more than 50 facts about cats here.
5. The Greenland shark, among others, eats polar bears and deer.
6. Dolphins sleep with there eyes open.
7. About every eight days, sloths climb down to the ground to have a bowel movement.
8. The Titanoboa was the largest snake to ever have lived. The 46-foot-long animal, which weighed more than 1.3 tons, haunted the Colombian rainforest some 60 million years ago.
9. Octopi have three hearts. Have you ever heard about octopus wrestling? That was an unbelievable sports trend from the past. Read our article about octopus wrestling here.
10. Gray whales exclusively mate in a threesome.
11. The guide dog Kirsch has an honorary master’s degree because he attended all lectures together with his owner.
12. Adult cats exclusively meow to communicate with humans.
13. The South African rock hyrax is only 20 inches tall, weighs about 8.8 pounds and looks like a big guinea pig. Nevertheless, its closest relative is the elephant.
14. Only a few special types of piranhas eat meat. All others feed on plants.
15. A fully-grown elephant can drink about 53 gallons of water within five minutes.
16. In the state prison of Indiana, the occupants may keep cats.
17. Eating chocolate can be fatal for dogs.
18. Mangalica pigs are a rare type of pig that due to their curly, light bristles look like sheep.
19. A platypus can sense the electric field generated by the muscle movement of its prey. It can therefore sense the prey’s movement before it even happens.
20. Because emus and kangaroos are not able to walk backwards, they are officially referred to as heraldic animals of Australia.
21. A bird of paradise’s feathers are so black that they absorb 99.95 percent of all light. This is only 0.01 percentage points less than the blackest material ever created by humans.
22. It is assumed that cats are responsible for the extinction of several animal species.
23. Sharks have been living on our planet for more than 420 million years. They existed before the dinosaurs.
24. Hippopotami on average kill 2,900 humans per year, stags 130, ants 30, cows 22, horses 20 and sharks only five. But who would run away from a cow?
25. Scientists believe that it is possible to exterminate all mosquitoes, without impacting on our global ecosystem.
26. When it comes to extreme heat in Melbourne, the lions in the zoo are given frozen blood.
27. Cats have 32 muscles to move their ears. In comparison, humans only have six muscles in their ears.
28. Female lions carry out 90 percent of the lion’s hunting activities.
29. With a diameter of up to 6.6 feet and a length of up to 120 feet, the lion’s mane jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world. It is even longer than a blue whale.
30. Blue whales are the heaviest animals in the history of the earth. With a length of up to 110 feet, they weigh a total of 150 tons.
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31. The brain of an ostrich is smaller than its eyes.
32. No mammal can dive deeper than Cuvier’s beaked whale. A dive into the depth of the oceans can last up to 140 minutes and, according to measurements, reach a depth of 9,816 feet.
33. The spider species “Amaurobius Ferox” belongs to the genus of matriphages. This means that the spider female’s children eat their own mother after hatching from their eggs.
34. A liger is a cross between a lion and a tiger. They are the largest cats of prey in the world and can weigh up to 990 pounds.
35. Young elephants like to suck on their trunks just like young children like to suck on their thumbs. Looking for more facts like this? We have prepared a lot of more facts about elephants.
36. Elephants are able to recognize themselves in a mirror. Even most primates do not have this mental capacity.
37. Scorpions can survive up to two years without food.
38. Goats have rectangular pupils.
39. There are butterflies that migrate south every winter, just like birds. Every autumn, the monarch butterfly sets off on its journey from the north of the United States to Mexico, covering a distance of 2,175 miles. Every day, they cover between 44 and 186 miles.
40. The so-called urchin crab (Dorippe frascone) carries sea urchins on its back to defend itself.
41. Sharks were on the earth before trees existed.
42. With over 1,200 different subspecies, bats account for about 20 percent of all known mammal species.
43. If you cook a penguin egg, the egg white remains transparent after cooking.
44. A chameleon’s tongue can grow to up to one and a half times its body size.
45. Pandas become more fertile when they watch other pandas having sex. For this reason, pandas watch “Panda Pornos” in zoos to increase their fertility.
46. Unlike other cats of prey, the snow leopard is not aggressive towards humans. To this day, there has not been a single known case in which a snow leopard attacked a human.
47. A cross between a zebra and a horse is called a “zorse”.
48. Foxes use the Earth’s magnetic field to estimate distances.
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49. The “Gombe Chimpanzee War” describes a four-year war between two hostile chimpanzee groups in Tanzania. During this time, there were mutual killings, violence and kidnappings. The war is considered the first known situation in which chimpanzees deliberately killed another chimpanzee.
50. In Kenya, elephant droppings are used to make paper. 110 pounds of excrement can be used to produce 125 pages of paper. The proceeds from the sale of the paper are used to expand the elephant reserve.
51. According to current estimates, there are only three living Northern white rhinos left. So the species is on the verge of extinction. We also have many other rhino facts for you.
52. Without bats, there would be no tequila, as bats play a crucial role in pollinating agave plants, from which the alcohol is won.
53. Worms can have up to ten hearts.
54. The largest land animal permanently living in Antarctica is only 0.24 inches long. It is the wingless mosquito species “Belgica antarctica”.
55. A dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 times stronger than that of a human being.
56. A bite of the Brazilian wandering spider can cause men an erection that lasts for hours.
57. Just like whales, elephants and hippos can communicate with their fellow creatures over long distances via infrasound.
58. The highest jump of a llama was 3.7 feet, and the record is held by the llama “Caspa”.
59. The embryos of the Sandtiger shark fight each other in the mother’s womb. The surviving embryo will ultimately be born.
60. With one “bite”, blue whales consume up to 1,100 pounds of food or almost half a million calories. Opening the mouth and eating food alone can burn up to 2,000 calories.
61. Zebras and ostriches often stay together in the wilderness. Ostriches can see enemies at long distances, while zebras are able to hear enemies from far away.
62. There are no mosquitoes in Iceland. Scientists are not sure why this is the case, but it is suspected that the special weather conditions of Iceland have something to do with the phenomenon.
63. Cats sweat through their paws.
64. Swans only have one partner in their lifetime.
65. Male narwhals have an ivory horn with a length of up to ten feet on their head.
66. Butterflies are cannibals.
67. At the Marine Mammal Studies Institute, dolphins have been trained to get the audiences waste out of the basin. Each time they hand out trash to the animal attendants, they get food for it.
68. One bite of the Inland-Taipans – the most poisonous snake in the world – injects enough poison into its victim to kill more than 230 people.
69. Crickets consist of up to 70 percent protein, while beef steaks contain only 17 to 40 percent protein.
70. Polar bears are left-handed.
71. The chimpanzee “Congo” was able to draw abstract works of art. Even Pablo Picasso was a fan of his pictures.
72. Female skunks are able to influence the development of their embryos, in order to delay birth in times of food shortages.
73. The silk of the spider species “Caeristris darwini” is the toughest biomaterial in the world – ten times stronger than a comparable strand of Kevlar.
74. Female kangaroos have three vaginas.
75. In addition to humans, homosexuality has been discovered in over 1,500 animal species. Same sex love is therefore anything but contrary to nature.
76. The skin that snakes leave behind during moulting is called a “snake shirt”.
77. A cheetah can briefly reach speeds of up to 75 miles per hour. However, the sprint exhausts it so much that it needs between 20 and 60 minutes to recuperate before eating. Other predators therefore often try to steal its food in the meantime.
78. A type of jellyfish called the “sea wasp” is the most poisonous animal in the world.
79. The deepest species ever found is the devil worm (Halicephalobus mephisto). It was discovered in a cave in South Africa 2.2 miles underground.
80. Cats are the most popular pet in the United States. There are 88 million cats compared to 74 million dogs.
81. In summer, storks poop on each other’s feet in order to cool down.
82. Octopuses have a favorite arm. They tend to use this arm more often, for example to grab prey.
83. In Italy, a man left his cat an inheritance of about ten million Euros.
84. Dalmatian puppies are born with a white coat. The black dots only appear after a while in the course of their childhood.
85. Dogs can understand up to 250 different words and gestures and count up to five. This makes them about as intelligent as a two-year-old child.
86. Koala bears hug trees to cool down on hot days.
87. Male ants have no fathers because unfertilized ant eggs always produce male ants and only fertilized eggs produce female ants.
88. An ostrich can run a marathon in less than 60 minutes.
89. Whales can reach a volume of up to 230 decibels with their songs. That is twice as loud as a jet taking off.
90. In 1949 a boxing match was held between boxer Gus Waldorf and a bear. The bear was given a muzzle and boxing gloves to create “fair” conditions for both fighters. In the end, however, it was the bear that won.
91. First chimpanzee conspecifics now use stones as tools, for example to crack open fruit. Therefore, the Stone Age has officially begun for chimpanzees.
92. The largest ant colony in the world was discovered in 2002 and contains several billion animals. The superstate has many millions of nests and stretches over 3,580 miles from the Italian Riviera to the northwest of Spain.
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93. Vikings took cats on sea trips in order to avoid a rat problem. Nowadays, it is assumed that this prevailed the worldwide spread of cats.
94. The Indonesian chicken species “Ayam Cemani” has a genetic peculiarity that results in the animals being completely black. Not only is the plumage of the animals black, but also their eyes, skin, flesh, bones, claws and blood. The dark coloration is due to a natural genetic disposition of the chicken, which results in the animal forming more color pigments than other species.
95. Wildlife goldfishes can live up to 40 years.
96. In Iceland, Greenland and the Antarctic there are no ants.
97. The Amazon is home to pink dolphins.
98. Hummingbirds use falcons as bodyguards. They frequently build their own nest directly underneath a falcon’s nest, since falcons always look down on their prey from above and other animals therefore tend to avoid this area. Hummingbirds, on the other hand, are not hunted by falcons.
99. The spider species “Caeristris darwini”spins the largest webs in the world. Their size can reach more than ten feet.
100. There are an estimated 500 million dogs on our planet.
101. The lyrebird is capable of perfectly imitating almost any sound it hears. Birds of this species have been observed imitating the sounds of a chainsaw, a gunshot, a camera shutter or even an explosion.
102. There are green birds, reptiles and insects, but no green mammals.
103. Since 1989, the mass of all living insects has decreased by around 76 percent: The causes could be too much fertilizer in agriculture, a reduction in the amount of available green space and climate change.
104. Kiwis are among the smallest birds in the world, but they lay the largest eggs relative to the size of their bodies.
105. Slugs are able to sleep three consecutive years.
106. An octopus has its brain in its tentacles. Even if the tentacles are separated from the body, they continue to search for food for a short time and bring them to a mouth which is no longer present.
107. Australia is home to 21 of the 25 most dangerous snakes in the world.
108. Cats cannot taste sugar.
109. The first cloned cat has been called “CC” as an abbreviation for “carbon copy”‘.
110. To find out whether a female is capable of mating, male giraffes beat their heads on the female’s belly until they urinate. The male can determine the female’s fertility by the smell of her urine.
111. Sharks and rays are the only animals that cannot develop cancer.
112. The Japanese giant crab is the largest living crab and can reach a span of up to 12.1 feet. However, the body has an average diameter of only 14.6 inches.
113. An interesting new pattern of behavior was observed in Japanese crows. Nuts, which the animals are not able to crack on their own, are increasingly thrown onto roads by the crows so that cars drive over them and crack them. Afterwards, the crow flies back to the open nut and collects the contents.
114. When two wolves mate, they stay together for the rest of their lives.
115. Koalas sleep about 90 percent of their lives.
116. The Greenland shark does not reach sexual maturity until the age of 150. With an estimated life expectancy of up to 500 years, it is also the longest living vertebrate on the planet.
117. The American pygmy shrew has to eat three times its own body weight every day. For this, the animal has to go hunting again every 15 to 30 minutes, as even an hour without food would lead to its death.
118. It would require 1,200,000 mosquitoes to exsanguinate the blood out of a human.
119. Qizai is the name of the only brown panda bear in the world. Its brown coat color is due to a genetic mutation.
120. The Tammar wallaby has a weight of only one gram at birth.
121. The blue whale is the loudest animal on earth. Its cries can be heard from a distance of 373 miles.
122. Pandas are able to fake a pregnancy to get more food from the zookeepers.
123. Penguins can jump six feet high.
124. In 2007, a Greenland whale was killed during a whaling expedition. In the animal’s body, the tip of a harpoon was found which must have been there since 1885. This discovery proved that the animal must have been more than 130 years old and confirmed the hypothesis that the Greenland whale is the mammal with the highest life expectancy.
125. The largest dog in the world is 43.7 inches tall.
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126. Termite queens have the longest life expectancy of all insects. They can live up to 50 years.
127. The first successful blood transfusion took place in 1660 and was between two dogs.
128. When Komodo dragons bite their prey, they release a poison that, among other things, inhibits blood clotting. So if their prey is not killed immediately, the dragons can then track it down and feed on it after it has died from blood loss as well as from the other bacteria contained in the poison.
129. In 2002, long-distance runner Tom Johnson competed against a horse in an 50-mile race. He ran the distance in five hours and 45 minutes, arriving ten seconds ahead of the horse.
130. Until the end of the 19th century, there were so-called quaggas living in the world. Although this was not a cross between a horse and a zebra, the animals were striped in the front like zebras, while the trunk was evenly reddish-brown, therefore more closely resembling a horse. Since a quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra, South African researchers have been trying for many years to revive the breed – and their efforts have now been crowned with success.
131. Cymothoa exigua, a parasitic isopod, is the only known parasite that can replace an entire body part of its host. First, the parasite feeds on the tongue of a fish until it completely replaces it and in doing so takes over the tongue’s function.
132. Wombat excrements are cube-shaped. So far, we have not been able to determine the evolutionary advantage of excreta in this shape. It is assumed, however, that it allows the animals to better mark their territory.
133. For blind people, who are allergic to dog hair, there are blind horses. A special breed, who are extremely small and very tame.
134. The larvae of cicada of the genus Magicicada hatch only 17 years after they have been deposited in the ground and then live for only a few weeks. As a result, the United States are practically invaded by the small insects every 17 years.
135. The urine of the Asian bearcat smells like popcorn. The reason for this is that the animal’s urine contains the same fragrance that gives popcorn its distinctive smell.
136. After the last Bucardo – a special type of wild goat – had died, scientists succeeded in creating a clone of the animal in 2003, making it the first species ever to be resurrected after its extinction. However, the clone died after only seven minutes, making it also the first species to go extinct twice.
137. Although apes have already been taught sign language and thus have the ability to answer a human question, no ape has ever asked a question by itself, despite having the necessary vocabulary to do so. Researchers therefore assume that the ability to ask questions requires a high cognitive level. Apes, however, do not seem to have this ability.
138. There are about three times as many chickens on earth as humans.
139. Dogs and humans are the only mammals with a prostate.
140. The likelihood of getting bitten by a human in New York is higher than the likelihood of getting bitten by a shark in the sea.
141. At the beginning of the 20th century, horses created so much dirt with their excrements that cars were regarded as the “green” alternative.
142. Beavers have orange teeth, as they contain a lot of iron. The mineral makes the teeth particularly resistant to external forces.
143. Male kangaroos flex their biceps to impress females.
144. The parrot “Alex” remains the only animal to ever have asked a question. When he was shown a mirror, he asked, “What color?”
145. In Brazil, a termite mound was discovered that is probably up to 4,000 years old – almost as old as the pyramids in Egypt.
146. The Norwegian Lundehund is the only type of dog with six toes per paw.
147. Big Major Cay is an island in the Bahamas that is almost exclusively populated by pigs. To this day, it has not been clearly ascertained how the pigs got to the island.
148. Dogs have such a good sense of smell that they can even smell when a person’s insulin level drops too low.
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149. The scientific name for the western lowland gorilla is “Gorilla gorilla gorilla”.
150. The teeth of limpets are the hardest biological material in the world.
151. Brazilian natives used ants as wound clamps. They let the ants bite and close the wound with their pincers and then pulled off their bodies. The pincers remained wedged in the body, closing the wound.
152. Until the 1960s, pregnancy tests were carried out by injecting a frog with the test person’s urine. If the frog spawned within 12 to 24 hours, it could be assumed that the test person was pregnant.
153. Dogs are red-green blind.
154. Hippos can sleep under water. A congenital reflex lets them drift to the surface while asleep in order to breathe and then to submerge again without waking up.
155. In 1879 the Belgian mail service launched a pilot project in which cats were used to deliver the letters. The project failed.
156. Black panthers are not an actual species. Instead, these are really leopards or jaguars that due to a genetic defect have a black coat.
157. Besides humans, ants and bees are the only animals to wage war against members of the same species. Do you like this fun fact and are curious to learn more about it? Make sure to check out the article we wrote about that topic.
158. In 2009 in Florida, a man who was accused of owning child porn, said his cat had downloaded the files.
159. The WWF chose a panda for its logo, in order to save print costs and to set a sign.
160. In order to make wolf puppies urinate, their mother has to lick their bellies with her warm tongue.
161. The hawksbill turtle has probably existed since the Cretaceous period.
162. The Huntsman spider (Heteropoda maxima) is the largest spider species in the world. Adult males usually have a span of up to 12 inches. In Australia, a specimen estimated at 15.7 inches was discovered in 2017.
163. In Australia in 2009, snipers were tasked with defending a colony of penguins against possible enemies to guarantee the survival of this rare penguin species.
164. Fully-grown bears can run as fast as horses.
165. A tiger’s tongue is so rough that it can even lick meat from a bone.
166. For every human eaten by a shark, 600,000 sharks are eaten by humans.
167. Flipper was played by five different dolphins.
168. In 2008, a female shark gave birth to a pup without having been previously fertilized. So far there are only two cases of asexual reproduction of sharks worldwide.
169. Pigs cannot see to the sky.
170. In the 20th century, there were still stomach-breeding frogs living in Australia. The tadpoles grew up in the mother’s stomach and climbed out of her mouth as soon as they were big enough.
171. Japanese people believe that black cats bring good luck.
172. Termites eat their food at double the speed when heavy metal is played.
173. After the breeding season, swifts spend up to ten months in the air without landing a single time. With that, they hold the record among birds.
174. A koala’s fingerprint is so similar to that of a human being that there have been several cases in Australia with considerable confusion about the perpetrator at a crime scene.
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175. Octopus-Wrestling was a popular trend in the sixties. A diver grapples with an octopus in shallow water and tries to bring it to the surface.
176. At birth, a blue whale is already 26 feet long and weighs more than eight tons. In its first year, the newborn gains approximately 176 pounds of weight per day – 7.3 pounds per hour.
177. There is a type of fungus that grows on ants and controls their behavior. The ant then has no control over its own body.
178. Every year, about four million cats are consumed as delicacies in China.
179. Termite mounds are built in such a way that the climate inside always remains approximately the same, even if major weather changes occur. Nevertheless, fresh air constantly enters the mound while pollutants are removed.
180. The Candlefish is so oily, that it used to be burned and used as a candle.
181. The vampire bat has an enzyme that prevents its victims’ blood from clotting on wounds. As a result, the victims lose more blood that the vampire bats can then feed on.
182. Scorpions can survive for up to one year without food.
183. In 2012, a new ant species was discovered in New York City. Scientists named it “ManhattAnt”.
184. With a maximum speed of 68 miles per hour, the marlin is the fastest fish in the world. For comparison, a cruise ship travels the seas at an average speed of 19 miles per hour.
185. Under ideal conditions, two mating rats could produce 482 million descendants over a three-year period.
186. Scientists have demonstrated that cats have the same brain patterns as humans have during sleep. It is therefore assumed that cats can dream.
187. Greyhounds can reach speeds of more than 68 miles per hour and are therefore almost as fast as cheetahs.
188. The largest cat in the world had a length of 1.36 yards.
189. Crows are among the most intelligent non-primates on earth. They possess the intelligence of a toddler, can use tools, have a long-term memory, can recognize faces and understand analogies.
190. “Fox tossing” was a popular sport in the 16th century in which two people held a 23-foot-long cloth on both sides and then pulled it tight as soon as a fox ran over the cloth so that it flew into the air. The game continued until the animal broke its bones when it hit the ground and was then killed by a hunter.
191. The heart of a shrimp is located in its head.
192. Due to the decline of the lion population, there are now more lion statues worldwide than real lions.
193. In the 18th century the Briton Mary Toft became famous for giving birth to rabbits. Years later she was sentenced to death when it became clear that she just put dead rabbits in her vagina, which she pushed out later on.
194. 32-year-old Wombat “Patrick” living in Australia was the oldest animal of his species. As he was not able to find a female partner, his keepers even created a Tinder profile for him.
195. It has been scientifically proven that petting a dog can significantly reduce blood pressure in humans.
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196. When cows eat too many carrots, their milk can turn pink.
197. Mosquitoes have killed more people than any other animal. It is estimated that mosquitoes kill more people worldwide in five minutes than sharks do in a whole year.
198. Rabbits have such good peripheral sight they are able to see things behind their head.
199. The two oldest cats in the world reached an age of 34 and 38. Both belonged to the same owner. She exclusively fed her cats bacon, eggs, broccoli and coffee.
200. There is a type of jellyfish which is immortal.
201. The Hercules beetle and the Titan beetle are the two largest known beetle species. Both grow to a length of up to 6.7 inches.
202. The Malaysian kissing bug uses the remains of its prey as a shield.
203. According to scientists, the giant tortoise Jonathan was born around 1832 in the Seychelles and is therefore the oldest living reptile on earth. Some researchers even believe that Jonathan may be the oldest living land animal.
204. Araucana chickens are also referred to as Easter egg chickens, because their eggs can be blue, green, red or brown.
205. Instead of using lawn mowers, Google has about 200 goats that graze the grass on the Google site.
206. Contraceptive pills also work for gorillas.
207. Like humans, ducks have different accents.
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