Did you know that snails have teeth? Or that bees have hair on their eyes? Yep, on their eyes! Stick around if you want to add 12 interesting facts about animals to the random trivia that already lives in your head. Your kids will love them just as much as you do.
1. Polar Bears Aren’t White
Polar bears are known for their white appearance. But get this: there’s not a single white thing on a polar bear’s body. Not their eyes, those are black. Not their teeth, those are yellowish. Not their skins, that would be jet black. And not their fur, that happens to be translucent. So, what makes the polar bear appear white isn’t its white fur, it’s actually the light that reflects on the fur.
Thanks to their translucent fur, their black skin is able to absorb heat from the sun. This is why they can stay warm in their icy habitats.
2. Octopuses Have Three Hearts
Octopuses have three hearts to help them survive underwater. Two of the hearts are smaller, which pump the blood to their gills for oxygen and to release carbon dioxide. They’re known as the branchial hearts. The larger heart circulates the oxygenated blood throughout the rest of the body. It’s known as the systemic heart.
Another fun fact about octopuses is that their blood is blue. That’s because the protein, hemocyanin, which carries the oxygen through their bodies, has copper in it. That’s different from our blood, which has iron.
3. Butterflies Taste with Their Feet
Butterflies are special in every way. But did you know they have the ability to taste with their feet? They’ve got taste receptors, known as chemoreceptors, right at the end parts of their legs. This helps them to figure out if a plant is a good food choice for their caterpillars. If it is, they lay their eggs on that plant, so it’s an important decision. They’ve also got receptors on their antennae, but the majority are on their feet. Don’t worry, they don’t eat with their feet because they’ve got a proboscis, which is a tube-like mouth that they use to suck up nectar.
4. Fleas Can Jump Really Far
Fleas are great jumpers. In fact, they can take leaps as far as 200 times the length of their own bodies. That’s a 13-inch jump! If you want to compare that to something in the human world, that’s the same as a person jumping right over a skyscraper or the Eiffel Tower. Not even Tom Cruise could manage a jump like that. Fleas have many things that help them jump this far, including three pairs of legs, resilin protein, and impressive speed.
5. Rats Are Ticklish
Rats make some interesting sounds and one of those is a high-pitched squeak that resembles a laugh. They especially save this sound for when you tickle them on their belly or back. We know this is true because researchers found an area in the rat brain that gets activated when they get tickled or playful. Plus, just like with humans, stressed and anxious rats don’t laugh when you tickle them.
6. Flamingos Are Born White
Flamingos aren’t born pink. They start out as gray or white chicks that look pretty dull. They only start getting pink when they start molting and eating algae and brine shrimp. It’s the beta-carotene in these foods that give them the pink color. Their livers break it down and then it gets deposited into the skin and feathers of the flamingo. Mother flamingos also lose their color as they feed their newborns and go through the normal ups and downs of being a new mom. As soon as the chicks are independent, the mothers regain their pink.
7. Bumblebees Have Fuzzy Eyes
Bumblebees have little hairs, called pile, on every part of their body, and that includes their eyes! And no, it’s not that they don’t like grooming. It actually helps them navigate to find pollen. The rest of the hairs on their bodies are there to collect the pollen when they brush against flowers and to keep them warm.
8. Male Seahorses Give Birth
Seahorses are interesting fellas. It is so interesting that they defy the laws of science, biology, and gravity. Female seahorses deposit their eggs into the male seahorse’s abdominal pouch. They then use their sperm to fertilize the eggs. The rest of the process is your average incubation process, but it all happens in the male seahorse. It takes 10 days to 6 weeks and then the male gives birth to the young, or fry. He squirts out up to 2,000 baby seahorses at a time. Seahorses, seadragons, and pipefish are the only species in the world where the male takes care of the birthing duties.
9. Owls Don’t Have Eyeballs
Owls don’t have normal round eyeballs like humans and other animals. They actually have long tubes in their sockets that are fixed into place with sclerotic rings. They can’t move these tubes to watch something, which is why they turn their heads Instead.
10. Rodents Can’t Vomit
Rodents, like squirrels, chipmunks, rats, and mice, are incapable of vomiting. They have a longer esophagus and a diaphragm that isn’t muscular enough to handle the act of vomiting. They also don’t have the brainstem circuitry that triggers the gagging or vomiting reflex. That’s why rat poison is such an effective pest control method.
11. Sea Otters Hold Hands When They Sleep
Sea otters live in the water, where they eat and sleep. To prevent drifting away from each other, they hold hands when they are sleeping. This is called rafting, and it can range in sizes. Sometimes, it’s 2 otters, other times it’s an entire group. Mother otters also do this to help their pups, who can’t swim right after birth. So, what do they do if there are no other otters around? It’s simple! They hold onto kelp forests or seaweed.
12. Garden Snails Have Thousands of Teeth
Snails don’t have feet, but they do have teeth. A lot of them! Like, thousands. Garden snails have about 14,000 microscopic teeth that are located on a flexible structure that’s called a radula. They’re placed in perfect rows, and they use them to scrape and rasp food. As the teeth wear down and fall away, they regrow at the back of their mouth and move forward. Other snails have about 20,000 of those tiny teeth.
