It is a testament to my fertile brain that I am constantly fascinated by trivia, and in particular, a few gems I have amassed about animals are listed below for your enlightenment and edification.
A duck’s quack doesn’t echo
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds
All porcupines float in water
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain
A study finds that if a cat falls off the 7th floor, it has about 30% less chance of survival than a cat that falls form the 20th floor. It supposedly takes about 8 floors for the cat to realize what’s happening , relax and correct itself
A snail can sleep for 3 years
Frank Sinatra had a dog called Ringo who had 3 gold fillings
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs, but not downstairsA 1,200-pound horse eats about seven times it’s own weight each year.
A bird requires more food in proportion to its size than a baby or a cat.
A capon is a castrated rooster.
A chameleon can move its eyes in two directions at the same time.
A chameleon’s tongue is twice the length of its body.
A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can’t.
A Cornish game hen is really a young chicken, usually 5 to 6 weeks of age, that weighs no more than 2 pounds.
A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
A father Emperor penguin withstands the Antarctic cold for 60 days or more to protect his eggs, which he keeps on his feet, covered with a feathered flap. During this entire time he doesn’t eat a thing. Most father penguins lose about 25 pounds while they wait for their babies to hatch. Afterward, they feed the chicks a special liquid from their throats. When the mother penguins return to care for the young, the fathers go to sea to eat and rest. So how can they call them Happy Feet?
A father sea catfish keeps the eggs of his young in his mouth until they are ready to hatch. He will not eat until his young are born, which may take several weeks.
A female mackerel lays about 500,000 eggs at one time.
A Hindu temple dedicated to the rat goddess Karni Mata in Deshnoke, India, houses more than 20,000 rats.
A Holstein’s spots are like a fingerprint or snowflake.
No two cows have exactly the same pattern of spots.
A leech is a worm that feeds on blood. It will pierce its victim’s skin, fill itself with three to four times its own body weight in blood, and will not feed again for months. Leeches were once used by doctors to drain “bad blood” from sick patients.
A newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch in length.
A normal cow’s stomach has four compartments: the rumen, the recticulum (storage area), the omasum (where water is absorbed), and the abomasum ( the only compartment with digestive juices).
A polecat is not a cat. It is a nocturnal European weasel.
A quarter of the horses in the US died of a vast virus epidemic in 1872.
Now who the heck researches all this stuff?
