Did you know...

[BlackCurtains]

You can fit 14 Frances into Canada.

[Loa]

NZ has the largest parrot in the world and they are fat, flightless and less than 250 are left.
They also like to shag zoologists.

[Moonbreeze]

Did you know Platypuses glow under UV light/ Blacklight!? Their fur is biofluorescent.

[Lady Frostbite]

NZ has the largest parrot in the world and they are fat, flightless and less than 250 are left.
They also like to shag zoologists.

NZ is also home to the only alpine parrot, the Kea!

Cockatoos and cockatiels are directly related. Specifically, a cockatiel is technically a miniature cockatoo! They share traits no other parrot has like awesome hair (a crest that can stand up), a gall bladder and powder down.

Australia is home to one of the most elusive birds in the world, the Night Parrot! It's so rare, sightings that are confirmed are few and far between. One was actually caught and tagged, nicknamed 'Pedro', confirming its existence.

There's such a thing as poisonous birds! The hooded pitohui is one!

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

Loving all the animal facts in here!!!

Here's a few more.

-Birds are reptiles and even more fun and specific, they are dinosaurs. So those dinosaur chicken nuggets? Technically made from actual dinosaurs, since chickens are dinosaurs. Just in the shape of other non-chicken dinosaurs.

-Related to that, crocodilians are more closely related to birds than they are to lizards & snakes.

-Jumping spiders (Salticidae) are the largest family of spiders in number of species. There are over 6,000 species of Salticids across the world! This is about 13% of spider species. And they're all super cute!

-Salticids also have the best vision among spiders (most of them have very poor vision).

-Dragonflies are the most successful predators (95% success rate catching prey).

-Horseshoe crabs are not crabs, they aren't even crustaceans. They are chelicerates, and more specifically, may even be arachnids!

-Similarly to the birds are reptiles thing, insects may very well be crustaceans!

-"Daddy longlegs" is a very confusing common name for wildlife because it is applied to many different things, largely depending on region. It can refer to the order Opiliones (harvestmen), the family Pholcidae (cellar spiders), the family Tipulidae (crane flies), or three different species of plants (Caladenia filamentosa, Stylidium divaricatum, Brassavola cucullata).

-Scientifically, "bug" refers exclusively to insects in the order Hemiptera.

-only female mosquitoes bite, specifically only gravid ones (gravid = pregnant for egg laying animals). They feed on blood to provide nutrients to the eggs. This is also not something every species does, and otherwise these animals are eating nectar (males obviously only ever eat this as they have no need for blood).

-Honeybees are not native to the US. They are livestock animals introduced for agricultural purposes, and often have negative effects of native bees, sometimes out competing them. "Save the bees" is something we should be focusing on for sure, but on native bees, not on these invasive ones.

-Wolf spider (family Lycosidae) mothers carry around their egg sacs while the eggs are developing. After they hatch, the spiderlings (also can be shortened to "slings") ride around on their mom's abdomen until they are old enough to go off on their own! Wolf spiders are the only family of spiders to do this sort of thing.

I know a lot of these are arthropod focused, but I want to be an entomologist someday, and as a result, tend to fill my brain with much more arthropod facts compared to other animals.

Edit - wait wait one more!

-"Fish" is not one group. If one were to make a monophyletic group containing each group we call "fish", it would just include all vertebrates.

[DreamvalleyMLP]

I agree with all the animal facts being so interesting!

Poisonous birds... makes me look at FairyTails in a whole different way. (I'm looking at you, creepy tropical birds)

And biofluorescent platypus!

Had to look it up a visual
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[Ponyfan]

A giraffe has the same number of vertebrae in its neck as humans.

orcas/killer whales are not actually whales.  They are dolphins.

Ponyfan

[mlp4me]

The first snowplow in the United States was used in Wisconsin in 1847.

The Sputnik satellite crashed in a farm field near Manitowoc, Wisconsin in 1962.

Some of the most popular attractions of Wisconsin are the buildings that were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This was a native of Wisconsin and one of its most ever prominent citizens.

The first American Girl doll was created in Middleton, Wisconsin in 1986.

It was in Ripon, Wisconsin that the Republican Party was founded.

In the 1800s, Ed Bermers was the proprietor of a soda fountain shop in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. At the time, serving soda on Sunday was illegal for religious reasons. A customer by the name George Hallauer came to the shop one Sunday. He wanted a dish of ice cream. He asked to try the sauce on top used for ice cream sodas. That was the birth of the *first ice cream sundae*, and it cost just a nickel.

Wisconsin isn’t just known for all the nice things. It also has a history of gangsters. They used to like Waukesha County a lot, specifically Oconomowoc. Some notable members included John Dillinger, Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, and Bugs Moran.
I've visited some cabins in northern WI where these guys hung out near where my mother-in-law was living...

https://thefactfile.org/wisconsin-facts/

[BlackCurtains]

^ My dad was a Teamster!

More Wisconsin facts - My hometown Kenosha is the only Kenosha in the whole world. It means 'great fish' after the pike that can be found all over, including Lake Michigan.

The name Wisconsin is a butchered word that was originally Native then "translated" by the French, then finally went back to resembling the first name. The meaning is uncertain but "a winding river" seems to be the closest meaning.

Wisconsin has rare bioluminescent lizards.

[Ponyfan]

I was reading in a magazine that people with latex allergies shouldn't drink mulberry tea, because mulberry trees have latex in them.


Ponyfan

[kestral_kitsune]

humans have stripes

They're called Blaschko's Lines and are in our genetic code and can only be seen under UV light! They're usually a V Pattern that kind of swirls down our backs and wraps up our neck and around our arms. Supposedly cats can see our stripes!

[Pokeyonekenobie]

humans have stripes

They're called Blaschko's Lines and are in our genetic code and can only be seen under UV light! They're usually a V Pattern that kind of swirls down our backs and wraps up our neck and around our arms. Supposedly cats can see our stripes!

I wonder if we have our own stripe patterns like Zebras.

[Pokeyonekenobie]

I found a book of "quite interesting facts" in the library.  It includes gems like:

The offspring of a polar bear and a grizzly bear is called a pizzly bear.

Splenda was an insecticide that became a sweetener when an assistant misheard an order to "test" it as "taste" it.  (Maybe that's why it gives me hives!)

Lalochezia is using swearing to relive stress or pain.

and Play-Doh was originally designed as wallpaper cleaner.

[kestral_kitsune]

did you know deviled eggs are just handheld egg salad.



-runs for it-

[mlp4me]

^ My dad was a Teamster!

More Wisconsin facts - My hometown Kenosha is the only Kenosha in the whole world. It means 'great fish' after the pike that can be found all over, including Lake Michigan.

The name Wisconsin is a butchered word that was originally Native then "translated" by the French, then finally went back to resembling the first name. The meaning is uncertain but "a winding river" seems to be the closest meaning.

Wisconsin has rare bioluminescent lizards.

OOO GITD lizards for the win!

(ADD moment, regarding glowing things I saw my first firefly of the season last night!)