Random Animal Facts you think most people here wont know

[Milurian]

ratites independently lost the ability to fly at least 6 times. The kiwis lost it independently from the moa on new zealand, rheas lost it in south america, ostriches lost it in afrcia, emus and cassowaries lost in in australia, and the elephant bird lost it in madagascar.
Also aside from the cassowary and emu none of the ratites are related to the the others from their continent. The moa was closer to a tinamou then to the kiwi it shared a home with. The kiwi is closer to an elephant bird than any of the other oceanic ratites. The ostrich is the furthest away from any ratite and the rhea is as related to a tinamou as any other rattie.

 

[Cynogale bennettii II]

It is now thought that the goliath frog became the largest frog in the world because it digs out bespoke ponds for its young. They naturally live along fast-flowing rivers, so building a pond on the edge of the river allows the eggs and tadpoles to grow without the threat of being swept away. They use their back legs to clear away debris and move rocks over half of the frog's own weight, which obviously requires the frog itself to be big and strong.

 

[ElectricMonk]

Platypuses have 10 sex chromosomes. Echidnas have 9.

 

[ElectricMonk]

There are quite a few dasyurid* species whose males die after their first breeding season, living to less than a year old. This reproductive strategy where animals put all their energy into a single frantic breeding season before dying is called “semelparity” and is extremely rare in mammals, otherwise known only in certain species of opossum, but in dasyurids it seems to have evolved on a number of different occasions.

sometimes this is known as the ‘big bang’ reproductive strategy

 

[RightWhale]

Vampire bats are known to share blood meals! Even to unrelated members, so it’s not just familial ties. One research model released around 60 bats in pairs. The 60 bats were taken from 2 different colonies, and the paired bats would begin to groom before beginning to share blood meals. As shown in the picture, well fed bats will even go out of their way to feed a bat that hasn’t fed recently. Considering vampire bats can starve as little as 3 days in this is pretty remarkable!

 

[RightWhale]

Here is another interesting factoid I’m sure many of you heard. In some places large male humpback whales will go out of their way to save smaller animals from Orcas. Unlike in the bat example above, this is saving and helping something from a different species. These humpback whales are known to go out of their way to stop orca hunts, all they have to do is hear the calls travel through the water. Considering my name is RightWhale I should probably share more whale facts

 

[DarthQuell]

Considering my name is RightWhale I should probably share more whale facts

Ok, well then here's a Thylacine fact, since I have the purple and gold Thylacine profile:
Thylacines had one of the largest gapes of any mammals, with a degree of 120°
Compare that to the Tyrannosaurus, which had one of the strongest bites but could only open its mouth at 90°

 

[synthetase]

• Animals don't like caffeine. They say plants use it for protecting themselves from insects.

 

[Utahraptor Arcanus]

In 1959, in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, a female eastern black rhino called Cacareco that was temporally on the São Paulo zoo, won the election for councilor by 100 thousand of votes, 5 thousands more than the runner ups, obviously she didn't won, given that she wasn't a oficial candidate, but it's still interesting nonetheless.

Her candidature also inspired the rhinoceros party on Canada, and was followed by "Tião", an Chimp that lived on the Rio de Janeiro zoo (now bioparque do Rio) that gained 400 thousands votes in the mayor election, being the third most voted candidate.

 

[PlanetJameson]

Here is another interesting factoid I’m sure many of you heard. In some places large male humpback whales will go out of their way to save smaller animals from Orcas. Unlike in the bat example above, this is saving and helping something from a different species. These humpback whales are known to go out of their way to stop orca hunts, all they have to do is hear the calls travel through the water. Considering my name is RightWhale I should probably share more whale facts
View attachment 399188

I have never heard this before. That is so cool!

 

[Fini]

In 1959, in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, a female eastern black rhino called Cacareco that was temporally on the São Paulo zoo, won the election for councilor by 100 thousand of votes, 5 thousands more than the runner ups, obviously she didn't won, given that she wasn't a oficial candidate, but it's still interesting nonetheless.

Her candidature also inspired the rhinoceros party on Canada, and was followed by "Tião", an Chimp that lived on the Rio de Janeiro zoo (now bioparque do Rio) that gained 400 thousands votes in the mayor election, being the third most voted candidate.

Isn't there a golden retriever who is mayor?
Found it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_Max_II

mega funny , I heard about it in a German quiz show.

 

[Chuditch]

They're not an animal you'd normally think of as a digger, but the superb lyrebird actually moves more soil than any other land animal - on average, lyrebirds displace a staggering 155 tonnes of soil and litter per hectare per year as they forage, with each individual moving the equivalent of 11 dump trucks full of soil annually. By comparison, most digging mammals like gophers, moles and bandicoots only displace about 10-20 tonnes of soil per hectare in the same timeframe. Understandably, the immense amount of soil moved by lyrebirds means they are important ecosystem engineers in the forests they inhabit, assisting nutrient cycling by burying leaf litter and ensuring the soil remains loose and moist.

Lyrebirds have also been around for a lot longer than most other extant bird genera, with the fossil species Menura tyawanoides potentially dating back as far as 23 million years ago to the dawn of the Miocene epoch. They're the most divergent of living songbirds alongside their close relatives, the scrubbirds, which was one of the early pointers towards the theory that songbirds originally evolved in Australia before colonising the rest of the world.

 

[Spiderhawk]

Ursine and pinniped are very closely related. The skull of a bear and a seal are nearly identical, it’s said that black bears and harbor seals are more closely related.
Some sources suggest they are cousins. From what I can find on the internet, Dawn bears first appeared 20+million years ago, regarded as the first true bear. I don’t have an accurate source to determine the first pinniped and by default the first eared seal and true seal.
On my tours, when I am showing people harbor and gray seals, I usually end my talks by talking about the close relationship they have and guests are certainly surprised to learn that.

 

[Lelka]

Giant panda's pupils are vertical.

 

[Thylaco]

• Animals don't like caffeine. They say plants use it for protecting themselves from insects.

That's kind of the story of every spice or plant used by people. Plant evolves defence, often against insects, fungus or microbes, humans come along and find it useful.

• Latex is a pretty common insect defence, basically gum up their mouth to slow them down.
• Acacias recombine proteins in the stomach, making digestion take longer
• When an Acacia is being eaten, it releases an airborne tannin, which gets others to prepare the defence and do the same.
• Plants more often have a defence against mammals than birds, typically having a harsher digestive system on seeds.

Anteaters don't produce much of their own stomach acid as an adult, instead using the Formic acid from the ants they eat (a sting from an ant is enough acid to kill a similar sized ant).

Sea snakes have very narrow belly scales compared to land snakes, making them more hydrodynamic, but also making them unable to gain any traction on land. Sea kraits are the intermediate condition, clumsy on land and less efficient swimmers, as unlike sea snakes, sea kraits still lay eggs.

 

[Thylaco]

Ursine and pinniped are very closely related. The skull of a bear and a seal are nearly identical, it’s said that black bears and harbor seals are more closely related.
Some sources suggest they are cousins. From what I can find on the internet, Dawn bears first appeared 20+million years ago, regarded as the first true bear. I don’t have an accurate source to determine the first pinniped and by default the first eared seal and true seal.
On my tours, when I am showing people harbor and gray seals, I usually end my talks by talking about the close relationship they have and guests are certainly surprised to learn that.

Current consensus is that Musteloids (Weasels, Badgers, Otters, Red pandas, Raccoons & Skunks) are the sister group to pinnipeds, though bears are the next most closely related after them. The time difference between any modern bear and any modern seal is always going to be the same, being the same common ancestor (same between any two modern groups), though the number of mutations might be a little different.

Ballusia elmensis (previously Ursavus elmensis, about the size of a Lynx) is "the oldest undisputed Silesian bear" at 16-14.5 Ma, though there's teeth and a partial maxilla referred as a subspecies from Mongolia, estimated at 20-16.7 Ma (MN3), that got referred to the new species B. zhegalloi with a tooth from Siberia. There's species of Ursavus from North America that might be older too.

Quote, referencing Stehlin 1907: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...uthern-Poland-and-the-neigh-Bouring-areas.pdf

I think more material would change scientific opinion a fair bit for a lot of older Arctoidea, as it did for Kolponomos, going from bear associated to seal associated with more of the skull.

In terms of current earliest pinniped fossils:

• Potamotherium & Puijila are early branches of the Pinniped line and are quite otter-like, though the earliest current fossil looks to be Enaliarctos tedfordi from the Late Oligocene of Oregon (Late Rupelian to Early Chattian, 30.6-27.4 Ma, Yaquita formation)
• The earliest eared seals seem to be Eotaria crypta & E. citrica from the Early-Middle Miocene of California (Late Burdigalian to Early Langhian, "Topanga" formation)
• The earliest Walrus seems to be Proneotherium from the Early-Middle Miocene of Oregon [Astoria formation]
• The earliest of the earless seals and Monachinae (Monk & Southern Seals) seems to be Noriphoca from the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene of Italy (possibly earlier than Aquitanian, probably from the Bolognano formation)
• The earliest of the Northern seals seems to be Leptophoca amphiatlantica from the Early to Late Miocene of Maryland (Lowermost Aquitanian to Middle Tortonian, Calvert & St. Marys formations) and from the Early to Middle Miocene of the Netherlands (16.4-15.8 Ma, Breda formation)

Main resource: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...r-phylogeny-and-fossil-record-integration.pdf

 

[Cynogale bennettii II]

As well as some of the obvious oddities - laying eggs, being venomous, having a beak that can sense electricity - the platypus has a couple of less-well-known features that make it surely the strangest mammal on Earth.

Firstly, like the echidna and over a quarter of all bony fishes, the platypus has no stomach. Its gizzard connects directly to its intestine. They probably lost the stomach because the chalky shells of the animals they eat, as well as some materials in the silt they may accidentally swallow whilst eating, would completely neutralise stomach acid and so make having a stomach useless. They have also completely lost the genes for stomach-based digestion, so they are more than likely unable to re-evolve their stomachs: https://www.livescience.com/41661-why-platypus-wont-regain-stomach.html

Recently, it has also been found that platypus are biofluorescent - under ultraviolet light, their fur glows a bright blue-green. Biofluorescence has recently been discovered in a whole suite of animals, and may actually not be as unusual as first thought, while at first known mainly in marsupials and rodents, it has been found that dolphins, armadillos, foxes, zebras and even polar bears will glow under ultraviolet light: https://www.livescience.com/platypuses-glow-uv-light.html

 

[FlameWizard492]

Recently, it has also been found that platypus are biofluorescent - under ultraviolet light, their fur glows a bright blue-green. Biofluorescence has recently been discovered in a whole suite of animals, and may actually not be as unusual as first thought, while at first known mainly in marsupials and rodents, it has been found that dolphins, armadillos, foxes, zebras and even polar bears will glow under ultraviolet light: https://www.livescience.com/platypuses-glow-uv-light.html

Dan and Swampy were onto something.

 

[AlexSea]

Dan and Swampy were onto something.

If I recall, that was discovered after Phineas and Ferb aired. Add it to the list of prophetic cartoons.

 

[PlanetSoyJak]

Smiling at Gorillas and Chimpanzees make you go into the Gulag
[They don't care if you die, they take it as an act of aggression so they will slowly rip your limbs off like Travis the Chimp.]