by Don Voorhees
More than 250 bird species engage in a behavior known as anting, where they rub dead insects, usually ants, on their feathers. It is thought that the chemicals in the bugs acts to kill parasites on the birds, and the oils found in the insects may supplement the bird’s own natural oils.
Emperor penguins can dive to depths of 1,750 feet in search of food.
Only five of the seventeen penguin species live in cold climates.
“I TAWT I TAW A PUDDY TAT!”
Feral cats rival window strikes as the main killers of birds.
According to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s State of the Birds report, domestic and feral cats kill hundreds of millions of birds each year and are one of the reasons that one-third of America’s eight hundred bird species are endangered, threatened, or in serious decline.
The caracal is a cat found in Africa and Western Asia that can jump ten feet into the air from a crouching position, to grab birds in flight.
JUST DUCKY
Ducks maintain a constant body temperature of 105° F, even in the coldest winter.
The blood flowing to a duck’s feet is cooled first so that there is no loss of body heat when swimming in frigid waters.
Ducks have an oil gland on their backside that they use to waterproof their feathers while preening.
The common eiger duck eats whole mollusks, shells and all. The duck’s gizzard grinds up the shells, and the calcium they contain finds its way into future eggshells.
Ducks are one of the only birds in which males may forcibly copulate with unreceptive females if they can’t find another mate.
Ducks have antibiotics in their sperm that fight off sexual diseases in males and females. The brighter a male duck’s bill is, the stronger the antibiotics in his sperm.
LET’S TALK TURKEY
Male turkeys keep harems of up to twenty females.
Turkeys roost in trees at night.
CAT COUNTRY
A cheetah can spot a rabbit from two miles away.
The cheetah is the only cat that does not have retractable claws.
Cheetahs are one of the only cats to hunt during the day.
The binturong, also called the bearcat, is an animal from Southeast Asia that looks like a cross between a bear and a cat. It is unique in that it smells just like hot, buttered popcorn.
The palm civet, which is a relative of the binturong, can kill a cobra by running around it in circles until the snake becomes dizzy and falls over, at which point the feisty little mammal strikes.
SOMETHING’S FISHY
The snakehead is an introduced fish from Asia and Africa that invaded Maryland in 2002 and is now in seven states. Known locally as the “fish from Hell,” it can live for four days on dry land and can travel a quarter mile between bodies of water.
There are electric catfish in Africa that are capable of producing a 350-volt shock to incapacitate their prey.
Clownfish live in groups of up to six members around a single anemone. The largest and most dominant fish is always a female. The next in size is the male, and the other four smaller fish are immature, without gender. Once the immature clownfish do develop a gender, they can change their sex if one member of the mating pair dies.
A female brown trout will fake orgasms to trick males into releasing their sperm, while she does not release her eggs. This behavior causes undesirable males to leave her alone so she can find a more suitable mate.
Fish can taste with their fins and tail.
Ten thousand sea rays migrate from the waters off the Yucatán Peninsula to the coast of Florida in spring and back again in fall.
The heart of a blue whale measures nine feet across and weighs about one ton.
The spade-toothed whale is the rarest and most reclusive whale in the world. It is also probably the least understood large mammal. Two specimens that washed up on a beach in New Zealand in 2010 are the only ones ever found. The creature has never been observed in the wild. Its existence had only been conjectured from a partial jawbone found in 1872 and skull bones found in the 1950s and 1986.
Dolphins hear at least ten times better than people.
The Chinese soft-shelled turtle urinates through its mouth.
CREEPY CRAWLIES
Jurassic-era fleas were an inch long.
The Atlas moth of Southeast Asia is the largest moth in the world, with a total wing surface of sixty-five square inches and a ten-inch wingspan.
The Atlas moth does not have developed mouthparts and never eats during its one– to two-week adult lifespan, living on stored fats from the larval (caterpillar) stage.
When a caterpillar enters into its chrysalis, its body completely liquefies, and the butterfly is formed from scratch from its cells.
A virus that infects gypsy moth caterpillars causes them to climb to the top of trees, where they die and liquefy, raining down a virus-filled ooze on their brethren below.
Some ant species are incapable of foraging for food, tending their own young or their queen, or cleaning up their nests. Instead they raid the colonies of other ants and steal away their pupae, which they turn into slaves when the pupae reach adulthood.
The bite of the Brazilian wandering spider can cause painful, long-lasting erections in men, which can lead to impotence. The spider’s venom is being studied for use in erectile dysfunction drugs.
Fire ants will latch on to one another to form large rafts when floodwaters strike. Some two hundred thousand ants may link together in a mat that can stay afloat for weeks. The ants on the bottom are able to breathe from air bubbles trapped between the mass of bodies.
While they suck blood, mosquitoes must urinate to prevent fluid overloads.
The male water boatman makes the loudest mating call, for its body size, of any animal. By rubbing their penis against ridges on their body, these 2.3-millimeter insects can make a noise that reaches ninety-nine decibels. Even when they are submerged in a river, their calls can be heard along its banks.
A new species of cockroach discovered in South Africa can jump a distance of fifty times its body length.
Centipedes are flatter than millipedes, with longer legs, and they move much quicker.
Millipedes generally have between 36 and 400 legs, although one California species has 750.
The oldest known land creature is a millipede species that lived some 428 million years ago.
There were eight-foot long millipedes roaming the Earth 300 million years ago. The largest species today measures over fifteen inches and lives in East Africa.
When threatened, millipedes will emit a hydrogen cyanide gas to ward off predators.
A termite queen can live for twenty-five to fifty years.
Termite colonies also contain kings, who mate with the queens for life.
Male Australian jewel beetles can’t seem to differentiate between the dimpled, brown bottom of a beer bottle and the females of their species. The amorous males will try to mate with bottles and often die of overexertion after not being able to successfully complete the union.
JAWS
Anacondas have reverse curved teeth, and once they bite into a victim they cannot let go. They must relax their jaw for about thirty minutes to do so.
Alligator and crocodile jaws are covered with an array of tiny sensors that make them more sensitive than a human fingertip.
TONGUE TWISTERS
Anteaters belong to the taxonomic suborder Vermilingua, which means “worm tongue.”
An anteater’s tongue is coated with a sticky saliva that makes catching ants and termites easier.
To avoid wiping out a colony, and with it their source of food, an anteater will only feed a few minutes at a time at each colony.
Anteaters will occasionally dine on fruit and bird’s eggs.
Anteaters have no teeth and digest their food whole with
the aid of dirt and pebbles ingested while feeding.
TERMINEX
A numbat is a small marsupial also known as a banded anteater, found only in Western Australia, that feeds almost exclusively on termites. Adult numbats must eat at least 20,000 termites a day.
Numbats are the only marsupial that is fully active by day.
Female marsupials have three vaginas. Two receive sperm from the male and the third delivers the young.
Kangaroos cannot walk. They only can jump. They cannot jump backwards.
A LITTLE GREEN
The world’s smallest vertebrate—a frog measuring just 7.7mm—was discovered in Papua New Guinea. The little guy can fit on the face of a dime, with plenty of room to spare. Unlike other frogs, which go through a tadpole stage before becoming adults, these guys skip this stage and are born as adults.
TOP DOGS
Dogs were first domesticated in numerous places independently, as early as thirty-three thousand years ago.
Today there are 185 different dog breeds in the Westminster Kennel Club Show. Six new breeds were admitted in 2012. They are:
• The American English coonhound, which was evolved from Virginia hounds that were descended from English foxhounds
• The Cesky terrier, which is a hunting dog that originated in the Czech Republic in 1950
• The Entlebucher mountain dog, which is native to Switzerland
• The Finnish lapphund, which is a reindeer herder
• The Norwegian lundehund, also known as the “puffin dog,” which has six toes on each foot for scaling rocky coastal cliffs to hunt for puffins (though puffin hunting is now illegal)
• The Xoloitzcuintli, or “show low,” formerly known as the Mexican hairless, which is the national dog of Mexico
The top eight most expensive dog breeds are:
• Pembroke Welsh corgi: $1,000
• Saluki: $2,500
• Chow Chow: between $1,000 and $8,500
• Egyptian pharaoh hound: between $2,500 and $6,500
• Löwchen: between $5,000 and $8,000
• Canadian Eskimo dog: $7,000
• Old English bulldog: $9,000
• Tibetan mastiff: between $2,000 and $7,000. Big Splash, or “Hong Dong,” is an exceptional red Tibetan mastiff that sold for $1.6 million to a Chinese coal baron in 2012, a world record price for any dog. The breed, which weighs 180 pounds, is highly priced because these dogs are considered to be pure “Chinese” and rarely found outside Tibet. Genghis Khan and Buddha are believed to have kept them. Matings with this dog go for about $100,000 a pop.
BY A NOSE
The nose of a dog has a flap in the nostrils that deflects exhaled air to the sides, which prevents incoming scents from being blown away.
Dogs can get a sunburn on their nose.
BEWARE OF DOG
U.S. Navy Seal dogs wear protective vests that cost $20,000 and sport video cameras, microphones, and speakers, so that the dog’s handlers can give it commands remotely—even to kill.
Approximately 92 percent of fatal dog attacks involve male dogs, and 94 percent of those dogs were not neutered.
Dog bites accounted for one-third of all homeowner insurance policy claims paid out in 2011.
PAMPERED PETS
In the United States, 53 percent of dogs and 55 percent of cats are overweight; 21 percent of dogs and 25 percent of cats are obese. These weight issues shorten the animals’ lives by an average of 2.5 years.
UPON FURTHER REVIEW
Bulls cannot see the color red.
Lemmings do not intentionally commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs. They have, however, been seen to run over the edge of a precipice in unfamiliar territory. The suicide myth was promoted by the 1958 Disney nature documentary White Wilderness, where lemmings were pushed into a river by a rotating platform installed by the film crew.
ESCAPE ARTISTS
Rabbits go into a trance when placed on their back. This is a survival instinct to fool a predator into thinking they are dead, allowing them to escape.
The African spiny mouse has the unique ability to shed large amounts of its skin to escape a predator. Even more amazing is the fact that it can then regrow the lost skin perfectly with no scarring, which no other mammal can do.
The African crested rat chews on poison tree bark and then spits the saliva onto its fur, where special porous hairs absorb the poison spit. This protects the little guys from being eaten by predators.
STEWED SHREWS
The Malaysian pen-tailed shrew nightly drinks the equivalent of nine glasses of wine in the form of a naturally occurring fermented nectar.
BY A WHISKER
The whiskers on a harbor seal are known as “vibrissae.”
Moose with antlers have much improved hearing. The antlers act like a giant hearing aid, functioning like a parabolic reflector to collect and direct sound waves to the moose’s ears.
Along with giant pandas, most species of mole have six digits per leg.
The male platypus produces a venom cocktail in its ankle spurs that has eighty types of toxins that can incapacitate a human.
Wombat poop is cube-shaped.
Star Power
PACKIN’ HEAT
The following celebrities are gun owners: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Howard Stern, Joe Perry, Donald Trump, Eric Clapton, Christian Slater, James Earl Jones, and, of course, Clint Eastwood.
NAME THAT STAR
Stevie Wonder’s given name is Stevland Hardaway Morris.
Wolfgang Puck’s real name is Wolfgang Johannes Topfschnig.
Shakira’s real name is Isabel Mebarak Ripoll.
Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky.
Reese Witherspoon named her son Tennessee.
Robert Downey Jr. named his son Exton Elias.
Man vs. Wild star Bear Grylls has sons named Marmaduke and Huckleberry.
Uma Thurman’s daughter is named Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson.
Mariah Carey named her two children with Nick Cannon Monroe and Morocco (because Cannon proposed to her in a Moroccan-style room in her mansion). She calls the kids Roc and Roe.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z tried to trademark their baby’s first name—Blue Ivy—but were rebuffed by the court.
SOUNDS FAMILIAR
Mila Kunis is the voice of Meg Griffin on Family Guy.
Casey Kasem was the voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo.
Fergie was the voice of Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally on a couple of Peanuts specials.
Seth Green voiced Chris Griffin on Family Guy.
Jerry Orbach, who starred on Law & Order, was the voice of Lumiere in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
HAPPILY NEVER AFTER
Singer Sinead O’Connor married her fourth husband, Barry Herridge, from the back of a pink Cadillac in Las Vegas. The honeymoon didn’t last long. They were divorced sixteen days later.
Nicolas Cage was married to Lisa Marie Presley for 108 days.
Kenny Chesney and Renée Zellweger made it for 130 days.
Drew Barrymore was married to bartender Jeremy Thomas for fewer than two months and filed divorce papers after five months of marriage to comedian Tom Green.
Britney Spears’s marriage to Jason Alexander lasted fifty-five hours.
The only one of Elizabeth Taylor’s seven husbands she did not divorce was producer Michael Todd, who died in 1958, a year after they were married. Todd perished when his private plane, the Lucky Liz, crashed in New Mexico. The plane was overloaded, flying too high for its design, and had icy wings. Taylor had wanted to accompany him on the flight, but he made her stay home because she had a cold.
WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS . . .
Not everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Janeane Garofalo discovered in 2012 that she had bee
n married for some twenty years to writer/producer Rob Cohen. The two went to a Las Vegas drive-thru wedding chapel in a taxi in 1992. Apparently she didn’t think weddings in Vegas were legally binding.
BRING THE BLING
Movie producer Michael Todd gave Elizabeth Taylor a thirty-carat diamond engagement ring in 1957.
Jay-Z gave Beyoncé an eighteen-carat diamond when he popped the question in 2008.
Mariah Carey accepted a seventeen-carat pink diamond from Nick Cannon in 2008 after dating for six weeks.
Donald Trump gave Melania Knauss a twelve-carat rock in 2004.
Grace Kelly got a ten-and-a-half-carat ring from Monaco’s Prince Rainier III in 1955.
HERE’S JOHNNY!
Johnny Carson’s television career began in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1950. He hosted a local show called The Squirrel’s Nest, where one of his bits was interviewing pigeons on top of the courthouse about the political corruption they had seen.
Carson’s big break came in 1954, when, as a writer for the popular Red Skelton Show, he was asked to fill in at the last minute after Skelton had accidentally been knocked out just before airtime.
Johnny at first turned down hosting The Tonight Show, but after Joey Bishop, Jackie Gleason, Groucho Marx, and Bob Newhart also declined, NBC convinced him to accept.
HOLLYWOOD CONFIDENTIAL
Director Tim Burton once played water polo and was on his high school swim team.
Sarah Jessica Parker’s tenth great-grandmother was accused of being a witch in the Salem witchcraft trials.
Director James Cameron was once a school bus driver, as was John Malkovich.
Cuba Gooding Jr. was a backup dancer for Lionel Richie.
Brad Pitt had his front teeth chipped for his role in Fight Club, then had them redone afterward.
Mick Jagger studied at the London School of Economics and had planned on being an accountant.
Ken Jeong of The Hangover is a medical doctor who studied at the University of North Carolina. He broke into comedy by doing stand-up in his spare time.