From snails that sleep 3 years straight to blue whale tongues that weigh more than grown elephants these are 25 reasons the animal kingdom is more ridiculous than you thought.
25
The blue whale’s tongue weighs as much as an adult elephant
24
Male emperor penguins will stand without eating for up to two months in the Antarctic elements while the female goes to feed
23
The 2-inch-long golden poison dart frog has enough venom to kill 10 adult men
22
Galapagos tortoises sleep for 16 hours a day and can go a year without food or water.
21
Once a giant clam picks a spot to live on a reef, it does not move for the rest of its life
20
Anteaters can eat up to 35,000 ants a day.
19
Houseflies hum in the key of F
18
A beaver’s teeth never stop growing. It needs to chew on tree trunks and branches to keep them from getting too long
17
Fleas can jump distances 100 times their body length
16
Polar bears have black skin under their white fur to better absorb the rays of the sun
15
The venomous Portuguese-man-of-war is actually an animal made up of four separate organisms, known as a siphonophore
14
Butterflies can taste with their feet
13
Dolphins have names for one other
12
They also name objects
11
Aside from nesting, common swift spend their entire lives in the air, living on insects they catch in flight
10
Goldfish lose their color if kept in dim light. Similar to humans, they need sunlight to keep their pigment
9
A flamingo can only eat when it’s head is upside down.
8
All polar bears are left-handed, or rather, left pawed
7
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave
6
The hummingbird is the only animal that can fly backwards
5
A hammerhead shark can be rendered completely immobile for 15 minutes by turning it over and tickling its tummy
4
Squirrels can remember the hiding places of up to 10,000 nuts
3
The oldest known animal in the world was Ming, the 405-year old clam, discovered in 2007
2
A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from starvation!
1
A snail can sleep for 3 years at a stretch
