amazingfacts...alive
body
trunk
An elephant's trunk is equivalent to the human nose and upper lip - yet an adult elephant can carry nearly 270 kilograms with it. It can also store about 4 litres of water in it.
giraffe
A giraffe has the same number of bones in its neck as a human. They can also clean their ears with their half metre long tongue.
oysters
Oysters can change from one gender to another and back again depending on which is best for mating.
camels
Camels have three eyelids - these help protect their eyes from the sun and sand in the desert.
fish
Fish are very good at tasting. They not only have taste buds in their mouths but some species also have them on their skin and sometimes on their fins. Catfish even have taste buds on their whiskers.
jellyfish
Jellyfish are more than 95% water. They have no heart, bones, or brain, and have no real eyes. Yet the largest jellyfish, the Lion's Mane jellyfish, can reach 8 feet across with 200 feet long tentacles.
orca whale
Orcas are voluntary breathers. They have to sleep with only half of their brain at one time. The other half remains awake to regulate their breathing.
goldfish
The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light but their sight deteriorates quickly with age and UV vision is soon lost.
intestine
The number of beneficial bacteria in the human intestine is equal to the number of cells in the human body.
planet
blackberries
Batology is the taxonomic study of blackberries. Batologists classify and categorise the 1000 different species of blackberry.
earthworms
Nearly one million earthworms can be found in a single acre of land.
chicken
There are more chickens in the world than people. In the UK alone there are 30.6 million hens laying eggs - that’s half a hen for each member of the population. On top of this, 807 million chickens are consumed each year in the UK and at any one time there are 113 million of these strutting their stuff.
animals
badgers
It doesn't matter when badgers mate - the cubs are always born around February. This can happen because the female badger controls when the fertilised egg begins to develop.
pygmy shrew
The smallest mammal in the world is probably the pygmy shrew. It weighs just two grams. To stay alive its heart has to beat over 1,200 times a minute and it must eat every few hours, day and night or it will starve to death.
cold fish
Some Arctic and Antarctic fish have evolved proteins in their blood which act as antifreeze stopping their blood from freezing solid.
sperm whale
The sperm whale is the largest predator that has ever lived.
octopus
The blue ringed octopus, found in Southeast Asia, carries such a powerful neurotoxin that just one octopus contains enough to cause paralysis and death of ten adult humans.
blue whale
The tongue of a blue whale is the size of an elephant. The entire whale generally weighs the same as about 30 elephants.
spider
The pirate spider invades other spiders’ webs by creeping so slowly that the resident spider does not realise what is going on. The pirate spider can get close enough to bite, injecting a very toxic venom.
starfish
Starfish have no brain – they’re just a bag of nerves.
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