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The planet we inhabit is truly incredible.
And sometimes, we need to take a step back to truly appreciate the world around us, especially when it comes to animals.
You could spend your entire life learning about animals and you still wouldn’t learn everything about them.
Let’s take a little time today to educate ourselves!
Here are some great animal facts from AskReddit users.
1. I did not know that!
“An octopus can fit through any opening large enough for its beak to pass through.
Also, octopuses have beaks.”
2. Very smart.
“Gorillas, along with other primates, can learn sign language to the point where even if they do not know a specific word for a specific object they can use their previous vocabulary to describe the word accurately.
Like for example, Koko the gorilla never learned the word for “ring”, so one day she pointed at a ring and signed the words; “finger-bracelet””
3. Some spider stuff.
“Gladiator spiders have the largest eyes of all other spider species. This is kinda disadvantageous though because they go blind everyday due to not being able to close them. However they regenerate their eyes every evening/night so they can survive.
Also “New World” Tarantulas has a defence mechanism where they use their back legs to rub off and kick hairs from their andomen at their attackers. They are super itchy and a pain in the ars* to get rid off.”
4. Those tiny birds.
“A hummingbird weighs less than a penny and is the only bird who can fly backwards.
And is always two hours away from starvation.”
5. That’s amazing!
“The Greenland shark reaches sexual maturity at 150-years-old and lives 300-500 years.
It always fascinates me that there’s something that can live that long.”
6. Cover your ears.
“Sperm whales can click so loud, that it can kill you. It can reach 230 decibels. They’re the loudest animals alive. Louder than a jet engine. Louder than you can comprehend.
Scientists think that sperm whales understand that they can hurt us with their vocalizations, and are intentionally quieter around humans. Even then, it will still fuck you up.”
7. Millions and millions of years.
“In eleven million years time the Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur will have been extinct for 77 million years.
This is way less time than the time the Stegosaurus had been extinct when the T Rex was alive 66 million years ago.”
8. Clever little things, aren’t they?
“Ants will always find the fastest route back to their hill.
You can pick up an ant and drop it somewhere totally new away from its anthill, and it will always immediately find the fastest way home.
6 legged GPS.”
9. At close range.
“Cats have terrible vision at short distances (under about 15-20cm). Their retinas have far more ‘rods’ to ‘cones’, which gives them amazing sight in low light, but not great for close range/colours.
That’s why they often seem like they can’t see something you put in front of them, they often can’t.”
10. Did you know that?
“Koalas are not born being able to digest the poisonous eucalyptus leaves. From birth they must build up the bacteria in their gut to enable them to properly digest the leaves.
In order to do this, they eat their mothers feces. Not just any poo — a specially made, creamy, extra “wet” kind of poo, called pap. The leaves are really hard to digest, they’re tough and fibrous.
So once the joey feeds on pap it allows them to get that gut bacteria into their stomach, so they can then digest these eucalyptus leaves.”
11. Let’s get dirty.
“The Bonobo, probably the horniest animal known to man. They spend most of their adult life having as much sex with as many as possible, A bonobo pack is essentially a mobile orgy.
The most sexually active animal is the marsupial mice, During mating seasons, males will spend as much as 14 hours having non-stop sex with as many as possible, Females will have so many partners, it is normal for a litter to include mice from several different fathers.
Males will keep going until they literally die from exhaustion. They will fuck so much and so hard they have a bigger chance of dying from exhaustion and all the sex than they have to survive until next breeding season.”
12. Really?
“Rattlesnakes can catch bullets. A bunch of them curled up on some farming equipment we had parked in a field. One of the drivers pulled out a rifle from the truck and said watch this. He took a shot and it looked like the snake jumped off the hood in this weird way that seemed fake.
Turns out if you take a shot with a low powered rifle and place that shot within a foot of it the snake it will strike at it thinking the bullet is food, usually killing the snake in the process. Have to admit that it scares the hell out of me that they can do that.”
13. Quite a long time…
“Snails can hibernate for up to three years without any food.”
14. Hauling ass.
“Grizzlies have been clocked at 30 miles per hour over a quarter mile.
You think of bears are sort of slow moving lumbering scavengers but they can haul ass.”
15. Here’s one more for ya.
“Most elephants weigh less than a blue whale’s TONGUE.”
I sure learned a lot from those facts!
How about you?
Why don’t we keep this rolling, okay?
In the comments, please share more amazing animal facts with us.
We look forward to hearing from you!
