Fun Facts About Amazing Animals

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Every creature, big and small, has something awesome to offer! Help your kids learn to appreciate the special contributions that animals bring to our wonderful world. Here are some neat facts about all kinds of animals to get you started!

Pets

• Although cat whiskers might just look like silly moustaches, they’re actually used for sensing information!
• A rabbit on the run often hops in a zig-zag pattern.
• Some Dalmatians have spots that are orange, yellow, or even gray-blue.
• A fish’s scales work like a set of armor!
• Get a whiff of this: A dog’s sense of smell is believed to be 40-50 times stronger than a person’s!

Barn Animals

• A newly born horse is able to get up and walk around after only about 20 minutes!
• Cows can produce 50-100 glasses of milk in just one day.
• A hen’s earlobe color can often indicate the color of eggs it lays.
• In one day, a horse drinks about 10-20 times as much as the average grown-up!
• Sheep aren’t the only animals with wool: Llamas, alpacas, goats, and even rabbits produce wool too.
  
  

Safari Animals

• Some rhinos mark their territory with urine and mounds of dung as big as three feet high!
• Most giraffes’ necks are about six feet long – bigger than most of the grown-ups you know.
• An adult elephant can weigh as much as three or four cars!
• Baboons use their pink butts as cushions.
• Hyenas can hear each other’s laughs from up to 3 miles away.
  
  

Birds

• Ducks can swim in cold water because their feet don't have any nerves.
• Ostriches are the biggest birds in the world and can weigh over 300lbs. (By comparison, a blue jay weighs about three ounces!)
• A bird's beak will continue to grow for its entire life.
• Birds sometimes “kiss” by touching their beaks together!
• Adult penguins feed their babies by coughing up food from their own stomachs!
  
  

Fish & Water

• The “whiskers” on a catfish contain most of its taste buds.
• Dolphins can use their blowholes to whistle.
• Tiger sharks have been known to eat some pretty funny things -- like license plates!
• Jellyfish aren't made from jelly, and technically they aren't fish, either!
• It takes about 11-16 weeks for a tiny tadpole to become a full-grown frog.
• The Tasmanian crab can weigh up to 20lbs – that’s about as much as a car tire!
  
  

Insects

• Many types of butterflies taste with their feet!
• Rollie pollies are more closely related to shrimp and lobsters than to beetles.
• Millipedes move slower than centipedes, even though they have more legs.
• Boy honeybees don’t have stingers. Only the girls do!
• Some kinds of roaches are actually very clean.
• An ant can lift up to 20 times the weight of its own body! That’s like the equivalent of a person picking up one or two horses!!