Pet & Animal Facts Page 6
- The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
- The Pacific Giant Octopus, the largest octopus in the world, grows from the size of pea to a 150 pound behemoth potentially 30 feet across in only two years, its entire life-span.
- The penalty for killing a cat, 4,000 years ago in Egypt, was death.
- The pigmy shrew - a relative of the mole - is the smallest mammal in North America. It weighs 1/14 ounce - less than a dime.
- The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.
- The poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
- The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History houses the world's largest shell collection, some 15 million specimens. A smaller museum in Sanibel, Florida owns a mere 2 million shells and claims to be the worlds only museum devoted solely to mollusks.
- The theobromine in chocolate that stimulates the cardiac and nervous systems is too much for dogs, especially smaller pups. A chocolate bar is poisonous to dogs and can even be lethal.
- The turbot fish lays approximately 14 million eggs during its lifetime.
- The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be its country of origin.
- he underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
- The venom of a female black widow spider is more potent than that of a rattlesnake.
- The world record frog jump is 33 feet 5.5 inches over the course of 3 consecutive leaps, achieved in May 1977 by a South African sharp-nosed frog called Santjie.
- The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons.
- The world's largest rodent is the Capybara. An Amazon water hog that looks like a guinea pig, it can weigh more than 100 pounds.
- The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
- There are around 2,600 different species of frogs. They live on every continent except Antarctica.
- There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
- There are more than 900,000 known species of insects in the world.
- When a female horse and male donkey mate, the offspring is called a mule, but when a male horse and female donkey mate, the offspring is called a hinny.
- When a queen bee lays the fertilized eggs that will develop into new queens, only one of the newly laid queens actually survives. The first new queen that emerges from her cell destroys all other queens in their cells and, thereafter, reigns alone.
- When ants find food, they lay down a chemical trail, called a pheromone, so that other ants can find their way from the nest to the food source.
- Worker ants may live seven years and the queen may live as long as 15 years.
- You're more likely to be a target for mosquitoes if you consume bananas.
Pet & Animal Facts Page 7
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