“Ever heard the saying ‘it’s never too late to learn’? It’s more than just a saying; it’s a guiding principle for many. Take, for instance, the findings by the Pew Research Center: 73% of American adults embrace lifelong learning, with 74% exploring personal interests through specialized reading, courses, or events in the past year.
Why this thirst for knowledge? Well, 80% of these ‘personal learners’ aim to spice up their days with newfound knowledge. Sounds tempting, right? Let’s jump in and be part of this learning wave!
Today we are going to go through online posts about obscure animal facts as shared in a Reddit thread initiated by “KnightsWhoSayKni” I think this is a great way to start in order to become part of this greater curious community.
Scroll down below to enjoy!
1. Tarantulas operate smarter than you think.
Some species of burrowing tarantula let tiny frogs live in their burrows. The frogs are kept safe by the big, mean-a*s spider, and in exchange, they keep the burrow free of pests too small for the tarantula to deal with. This is pretty much how cats were domesticated.
Tiny frogs are tarantula cats.
Source: The_First_Viking, Image
2. Crows have a very strong social circle.
We all know they have very good problem solving skills, like throwing a nut onto a road and picking the remains when the lights turn red. But they have social structure. They punish crows who have stolen food from younger crows. They avoid areas where a lot of crows have d*ed. They don’t caw during funereals. And when a crow d*es, its buddies come examine the corpse to see how it d*ed so they can avoid a similar fate. Yes, crows understand the concept and are afraid of death and try to avoid it at all times.
3. Sloths have to relax themselves to close their fists, opposite to the way hands work in humans.
Sloth hands work opposite to ours. They have to exert energy to open their “fist” and relax to close it. This is how they can hang from trees while they’re sleeping and not fall off.
4. Greenland sharks have ample time to enjoy afterward given the long life span so it is okay.
The Greenland shark reaches s*xual maturity at 150 years old and lives 300-500 years. Always fascinates me that theres something that can live that long
5. There is a lot that goes behind a dog’s decision-making process than we thought.
Dogs may make social judgements about people based on how those people treat their owners. A study out of Japan had dog owners asking two people for help opening a container. There were three possible outcomes. A person reacting negatively by refusing and turning away, a person remaining neutral and a person helping. The dogs were then offered food from the people the owner had approached for help. Dogs were much much less likely to accept food from the people who had refused to help their owners, and much more likely to accept food from those who had been neutral or who had helped.
Source: LogicalMess, Image
6. Humans call themselves a “community” for no reason. This is how you define a community.
Cheetas are so closely related to each other that you can freely transplant organs between all members of their species without needing immunosuppression.
Source: Lord_of_Hedgehogs, Image
7. Remember to never feed a beef burger to a squid that has a donut-shaped brain. You might give it brain damage.
Some squid have toroid shaped (donut) brains, and their esophagus (throat) passing through it. If they eat something too big they can get brain damage.
8. Some of the males pretend to be females so males bring them food. They have hacked the system.
There’s an insect called the scorpiofly that impresses mates by bringing them prey to eat. The bigger the meal, the better. Only, some scorpionflies aren’t that great at catching food. So some of these males will imitate females, and wait for other males to bring them their gifts. Then they take the gift, fly away, and give it to an actual female.
Source: smiffypiffy, Image
9. Wow! They really can sprint.
A green sea turtle can swim faster than Usain bolt can sprint. An animal out there with a house for a body can swim at speeds we don’t allow in playground zones 35MPH.
10. Give them what they want and we might get an interesting new breed, maybe?
On ostrich farms, some farmers have a hard time with breeding because the ostrich is more attracted to humans than other ostriches. That’s right, somewhere out there an ostrich wants to f**k you.
Source: cleancutPunk, Image
11. Fish are so intelligent.
Fish have been seen using tools – deliberately hitting a clam with a rock to get it to open so they can eat it. Some fish (eels and groupers) form hunting partnerships where they communicate across the species barrier with specific signals to put their individual strengths to work (the eels chase prey out of crevices to where the groupers are waiting in open water). They also get fooled by illusions in the same way we do, meaning that their brains are processing and interpreting their environment in a similar way to us.
That’s technically three facts but I like fish.
Source: BoldlyGone1, Image
12. Coral is an animal? What?
Coral is an animal, related to jellyfish. Many coral species have a symbiotic relationship with a microorganism called zooxanthellae, which lives in their tissue and photosynthesizes like a plant, converting light into organic energy. Corals also deposit calcium carbonate and build huge geological structures, called reefs. The most massive structure ever created by any living organism on planet earth is a coral reef.
Corals are like a cross between animals, plants, and rocks, and they’re incredibly important for the health of our oceans, because reefs serve as a “nursery” for many, many marine species. Save the reefs.
13. Some crazy animal facts.
A horse can outrun a bear.
If you see a mountain lion, it has already decided to eat you.
If you’re camping and you hear an animal moving around, it’s probably a skunk or a beaver or a porcupine. Bears, moose, and other large animals are surprisingly snarky.
Source: makesitallup, Image
14. This has got to be a typo. I refuse to believe this.
Snails can sleep up to three years.
Source: ninelove9, Image
15. Squirrels are the reason why we are still alive.
Squirrels are responsible for thousands of new trees every year. They collect and bury their nuts all over the place so they’ll have food to last thru winter, but they forget about most of them.
Source: southwycke75344, Image
And I thought I knew all about animals. Turns out, we know nothing. This is a very small list and there are millions of animals out there that we have yet to see, let alone have any information about them. And these unique facts situation isn’t even the scenario for those animals. Nature is vast and I love it.
Great to know these facts about animals. I hope you guys are enjoying them too.
16. Aphids are ant cows…I never thought of them this way.
Ants breed and domesticate aphids around their colonies, so they can drink their milky secretions. Aphids are ant cows. So ladybugs, then, would be like ant chupacabras.
17. Gerbils can get very lonely.
Some stores will only sell gerbils in pairs because they get very lonely.
Source: soda_cookie, Image
18. After all that, naked mole rats still manage to live for 30 years.
Naked mole rats are very fkn weird animals.
They dont feel pain at all, except for chilli.
They can survive 30min without oxygen.
They cant regulate their body temperature.
Their incisors can work independently.
Noone has ever found cancer in a mole rat. They are thought to be immune to it.
They can live for 30 years.
19. I won’t lie, that is a pretty weird way to live.
There’s a parasite that needs to get inside a warm-blooded animal. Problem is, it lives in fresh water. It waits to get swallowed by a fish, then it attaches itself inside, “takes over” a part of the hosts brain, adjusting it’s behavior so the fish is not longer afraid of shadows. The fish is then more likely to get eaten by a Heron (large bird that stalks fresh water fish). And the parasite gets inside it’s warm-blooded host and does lord knows what
Thanks to Ricky Gervais for that (I think I might have butchered it a bit but it’s roughly along those lines)
Here’s a bonus one. Researchers took a leech, put it in a maze and put food at the other end. Eventually the leech figured out the route. They then liquidised the leech, fed that leech to other leeches, and those leeches were able to complete the maze on the first try. They had “acquired” the other leech’s memory
20. The tensile strength of a spider web is off the charts.
SPIDER FACT: Did you know that spider webs are initially liquid? Upon coming into contact with the air, the web hardens, creating a substance that is 5x stronger than steel. It is believed that, if a spider could produce threads as thick as a pencil, they would be strong enough to stop a plane in flight. However, farming silk from spiders was largely impossible, both due to the quantity of the silk, and due to the fact that the spiders would attack one another. For this reason, scientists have genetically engineered goats with spider DNA that can produce silk through their milk. They are called spider goats, and they are chimeras—a creature with the genetic information of two animals. In this case, the genetic information comes from two different species.
21. Thank god my experiential brain never made me curious to try polar bear meat.
Polar bears are so efficient at storing Vitamin A, consuming polar bear liver can cause de*th….one polar bear liver contains enough Vitamin A to k*ll 52 adult humans.
Source: quantumguy, Image
22. It’s a freaking tooth? No way!
A narwhals “horn” is actually an overgrown canine tooth. Also some narwhals can have 2 “horns”!!
Source: cheechiie, Image
23. Man! I kinda want to see a tall penguin. I wonder how that would feel.
Ancient penguins could have been up to 7 feet tall.
Source: StarsandstampS, Image
24. I always knew avocados had a specific purpose. I didn’t know this was it.
Both animal and plant fact.
Avocados were evolved to be eaten by the giant ground sloth. Imagine a sloth, but so massive it could only live on the ground. The flesh attracted the sloth and the very large seed was “designed” to travel through their intestinal tract for re-seeding or whatever plants do.
Humans k*lled the sloth but loved the avo. We domesticated the avo to increase the yummy flesh. The pit has gotten smaller but is still very large. Whenever you eat an avo, think of the long extinct giant sloth.
Source: quokkafarts, Image
25. I didn’t expect that from a water animal.
Seals will get seasick if you put them on a boat.
Source: The-Goat-Lord, Image
26. I want one.
There’s a thing called a deer mouse that is a type of mouse and a mouse-deer which is like a minature deer.
Mouse-deers are freaking adorable.
Source: stormythrows, Image
27. Giragge facts!
Giraffes have the same number of cervical vertebrae as humans!
28. Got to stay away from Armadillos.
Armadillos are the only animals aside from humans that can contact and spread leprosy
29. A Porcupine’s tail often betrays it.
Porcupines climb trees and come down backwards and use their tail to feel for the ground. Sometimes their tail will hit a branch and they will think it is the ground and so they will jump off and impale themselves. Over time they evolved to have antibiotics in their quills so when they fall out of trees they don’t d*e.
Source: otterdragon, Image
30. Now we know why so many plants in Australia are red.
There aren’t a lot of bees in Australia, so for pollenation plants relied on birds. Birds see the colour red better, which in turn increased the flora reproduction rate – this is why a lot of plants are red in Australia.
Source: spacedoutletterz, Image
I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Stay tuned for more stories!
Via callmeanightmare
Cat tax.
“Okay, let me introduce you to the crackhead living in my flat: Jax. Caught him in our sauce.”