Animals

Flying fish are a family of marine fish called Exocoetidae with about 64 species that can be found in oceans all over the world, and common in tropical waters. The scientific name Exocoetidae comes from the Greek ‘εξωκοιτος which means “sleeping under the stars”, and described some flying-fishes believed to leave the water to sleep … Read more

It isn’t that hard to train animals and even killer whales. Animal trainers observe natural behaviors and reward those they seek to get the animal to perform again on cue. But when in nature would killer whales encounter a situation where they would deliberately beach themselves and still survive? After all, whales that beach themselves … Read more

A red herring is not a specific type of fish, but refers to any herring that’s been smoked. The meat turns red and gives off a pungent odor, sending any but the truest lover of the dish running for fresh air. Hunters learned that dogs could easily follow the scent of smoked herring for long … Read more

The Crabeater Seal is the most numerous seal species in the southern ocean with a population nearing 50 million. It is the second most numerous large species of mammal on Earth, after humans, but there are much fewer than the 1.3 billion domesticated cattle in the world. More than one in every two seals in … Read more

Krill are various small shrimp or crustaceans that live in great swarms in the ocean and have a biomass that is twice as big as all the humans on earth. It’s ironic that whales, the world’s biggest mammals, can exist on some of ocean’s smallest creatures. Krill feed on phytoplankton and some zooplankton, converting these … Read more

To our best knowledge, we believe the modern and humble blue whale is the biggest animal in the world of all time to have ever lived on earth. The huge blue whale is a marine mammal that is long and slender, and the blue whale’s body can be various shades of bluish grey and lighter … Read more

Whales are marine mammals of the order Cetacea, and there are many species, but all whales have forelimbs modified as fins, a tail with horizontal flukes, and nasal openings or blowholes on top of the head. Whales typically live between 77 and 211 years depending on the species, although the upper range has been questioned … Read more

The blue whale has the biggest heart in the world. Its heart is about the size of a VW Beetle. The blue whale is also the largest animal ever known to have existed on earth, and can grow up to 108 feet in length and weigh up to 180 tons. Before being hunted almost to … Read more

Beluga whales are mammals, and like all but two species of mammals, they don’t lay eggs. It would be impossible to slice them open as we do fish and pull out their eggs to salt, pickle, and sell to status seekers with too much money. But the word belukha means “white” in Russian, meaning there … Read more

Krill is a shrimp-like marine invertebrate animal found in all oceans of the world. The small crustaceans are important organisms in the zooplankton family, and is food for many animals such as baleen whales, manta rays, whale sharks, crabeater seals, and seabirds that eat nothing else. Krill are also known as euphausiids, named after their … Read more

Seals have shorter, fatter flippers and no visible ear flaps, and are often smaller than their cousin the sea lion. Sea lions and fur seals belong to the Otariidae family in the Pinnipeds group of animals. They have a semi-aquatic lifestyle, feeding and migrating in the water but breeding and hanging out on land or … Read more

Porpoises are related to whales and dolphins, and there are some differences between a dolphin and a porpoise. Porpoises are slightly smaller than dolphins for one. Also, dolphins have a sharp snout and cone-shaped teeth, while porpoises have a rounded snout and spade-shaped teeth. Both dolphins and porpoises are predators of fish, squid, and crustaceans, … Read more

Ants and bees live in a matriarchal society where nearly every member, queen, worker, and soldier, is female. A few male boy-toys are allowed to live to service a new queen if necessary, but they aren’t kings in any sense of the word. In the winter, when food gets scarce, the males are the first … Read more

Termite queens are the longest living insect in the world. Some entomologists say they can live to fifty years, while other experts say seventy-five or even up to one hundred years, depending on who you ask. Termites are a group of eusocial insects along with ants and some bees, and divide labor among gender lines, … Read more

The word Butterfly is definitely not another word for “flutterby.” Butterfly comes from the Old English word buterfleoge, meaning “butter/flying creature.” Some linguists speculate that maybe the buter refers to the butter-yellow color of some European butterflies. However, that doesn’t make a lot of sense; plenty of colors besides yellow are represented in the butterflies … Read more

It doesn’t seem to make sense for vulnerable colorful butterflies to be so brightly colored. They should be more like the other bugs, which blend so much into the background that they’re nearly invisible to their enemies. Butterflies are so bright, it’s almost as if they’re trying to be seen. It turns out, though, that … Read more

Cooties is a slang term in North American English used by children and adults for lice, fleas and other pests. A child is said to catch cooties by touching an infected person. The phrase is most commonly used by children under 10. The Game of Cootie from 1949 is an American children’s roll-and-move toy for … Read more

The headmaster at Harry Potter’s school shares his name with an early term for the common bumblebee. Dumbledore, bumblebee, and humblebee could be onomatopoeic attempts to re-create the bee’s buzzing sound. Rowling said she chose the name Dumbledore, which is an Early Modern English word for “bumblebee”, because she “imagined him walking around humming to … Read more

The Ladybug’s name seems to be a case of insect sexism, either that or it was named by a drunk man. The alternative names in English are also feminine, ladybirds, lady beetles, and even, for some reason, lady clocks. However, merely claiming sexism isn’t that simple. During the Middle Ages, the insect-killing beetles were regarded … Read more

Gardeners and farmers have much love and respect for the humble ladybug because ladybugs have a huge appetite for garden pests, especially aphids and scale bugs. An adult female ladybug can consume up to 75 aphids a day, while the smaller male may consume up to 40. Even the larva, resembling a tiny alligator, uses … Read more

Gnats hang out in clouds because safety in numbers is a good self-defense tactic and works on almost anything. Predators often get confused when they are surrounded by many of them, and the animals that the gnats swarm are less likely to fight back if dozens are biting them at once. Another reason is the … Read more

The Traditional Spanish Folk Song “La Cucaracha”, is literally about a stoner cockroach’s wasted life, death, and funeral, and is beloved equally by children and the sandwich trucks that serve lunch to office workers. Also known as a corrido, it became popular in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution during the 20th century, and is played … Read more

The word Insect comes from the Greek word entomon, which means notched or segmented at the waist, and is also the root word or derivative of entomology. Entomology is the scientific study of insects, and a branch of arthropodology. Insects are a class within the arthropods that have an exoskeleton, a three-part body, head, thorax, … Read more

You would be surprised at how quickly seventeen years can go by when you’re doing things like reading, watching TV, hanging out, facebook, and partying. But seriously, the seventeen-year cicadas essentially do the same as the thirteen-year cicadas, they live as larvae a few inches underground, sucking nutrition from the undersides of tree roots. Entomologists … Read more

The Cicada is loud enough to damage human ears, and loud enough to drown out lawn mowers. But think how loud it would be if the female cicadas joined in. Only the males make noise, and the silent females seek them out. A cicada is an insect with large eyes far apart on its head … Read more

How Fast Can a Housefly Fly and how quickly can a flea flee? So many questions, so little time. When you’re trying to catch a housefly, it seems like they are really fast and agile like a ninja. Seriously though, you could easily outrun a housefly, even when walking. Although its wings can flap 200 … Read more

Blood is a bodily fluid that transports important nutrients and oxygen to the body’s cells, and transports waste products away from those same cells. In vertebrates or mammals, it contains blood cells suspended in a liquid called blood plasma. Plasma contains dissolved proteins, glucose, hormones, carbon dioxide, and blood cells themselves. The most abundant cells … Read more

The raccoon is sometimes spelled as “racoon”, also colloquially known as coon, is a medium-sized mammal native to North America. As a result of escapes and deliberate introductions in the mid-20th century, Raccoons can also be found across Europe and Japan due to a few escapes and introductions over the past hundred years. The Raccoon’s … Read more

Prairie dogs are burrowing rodents found in the grasslands of North America. There are five different species of prairie dogs, black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs, and are a type of ground squirrel. These rodents can grow up to 3 pounds, and are found in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In the … Read more

Not including lawyers and politicians, the mammal with the smallest heart in the world is the Etruscan Pygmy Shrew, with the bumblebee bat of Thailand coming in a close second. The Etruscan Pygmy Shrew is also known as Savi’s pygmy shrew and White-toothed Pygmy Shrew. Both are about the size of a bumblebee or an … Read more

Glowworms and fireflies are the same thing because they are the same species. Glowworms are the larvae of fireflies and, in some species, the flightless females. The larvae take one or two years to develop before passing through a brief pupal state and becoming adults. As larvae, they eat earthworms, snails, and the larvae of … Read more

Fireflies glow in the dark to attract mates. Males fly around flashing the world in a pattern of dots and dashes that is very specific to their species. Female fireflies wait until a male flying nearby flashes the correct signal for their species, and in return, she flashes him with her own light. They meet … Read more

Earthworms have no eyes, but they can sense light and dark. Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta, and is also known as “dew-worm”, “rainworm”, “night crawler” and “angleworm”. Earthworms are hermaphrodites and can live up to 8 years, but normally live for about 2 years in the average garden. Locomotion … Read more

If worms could multiply by dividing, they could dispense with all that messy sex business. Worms are hermaphrodites, so they can mate with any other worm of their species, although not with themselves, as some believe. After mating, both will likely be pregnant, and they can each lay an egg capsule about a week later. … Read more

Entomophagy is the scientific name for the practice of bug eating. All of us eat insects accidentally all the time, check out the Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines for acceptable levels of insect parts in common foods. A regular size jar of peanut butter is legally allowed to contain up to 210 insect fragments before … Read more

Bookworms must have had a hard time back in the days of clay tablets and scrolls. We can imagine them sitting impatiently on empty shelves, waiting for centuries, and finally cheering in the fourth century A.D. when somebody got the bright idea of sewing sheets of parchment together, creating the direct ancestor of the modern … Read more

There are people all over the world who eat bugs and insects as food, and the practice is called Entomophagy, which comes from the phrase “insect eating” in Greek. Entomophagy also applies to other animal groups including insects that eat other insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. Insects and nematodes that obtain their nutrition from … Read more

Hubert Duprat is a French artist who uses caddisfly larvae and precious stones like gold, opal, turquoise, to create his unusual work. Caddisflies construct elaborate protective tubes from twigs, snail shells, sand and small stones found in their habitat in their stream bed homes. The tubes have little stones to help with traction in fast-moving … Read more

A formicarium is a vivarium for ants and is designed for the study of ant colonies and ant psychology, also known as myrmecology. An Ant Farm is a similar device that is popular for school projects, and is usually an ant colony enclosed by a transparent box made of glass or plastic. The first commercially … Read more

If you have not seen leaf-cutter ants at work, there are hundreds of thousands of ants chopping out pieces of leaves and determined to carry them back to their colony. This species of tropical, fungus-growing ants can be found in South and Central America and some parts of the southern United States. Leaf-cutter ants form … Read more

Enterprise, Alabama has a Boll Weevil Monument to show appreciation to the insect as a “herald of prosperity”. It’s currently the only monument in the world built to honor an agricultural pest. Boll weevils destroyed the entire cotton crop in southern Alabama, and local farmers were forced to try a variety of other crops that … Read more

It may seem funny, but most U.S. states do have official state insects. Some also have a state butterfly. Alabama’s situation is particularly confusing, its state insect is the monarch butterfly, not the boll weevil, but its state butterfly is the eastern tiger swallowtail. Most people who have been in the state would agree that … Read more

The peanut, also known as the groundnut, is a species in the legume “bean” family native to India, Africa, Mexico, South and Central America. The scientific name “Arachis Hypogaea” means “under the earth.” The name Peanut came from its appearance and is not an accurate label as the Peanut is not a nut but classified … Read more

The old myth about lemmings that commit mass suicide is a deeply ingrained in our culture. The metaphor of lemmings following the crowd to their death is so good that it’s even used by people who know better. The reality is that lemmings don’t commit mass suicide. Not even the really depressed ones. Not that … Read more

The Myth about Disney inventing the myth about Lemmings Committing Suicide in a movie has little truth to it. Disney did a lot of work to perpetuate the story, however. Disney cameramen shooting lemmings for the film White Wilderness in 1958 were instructed to “throw them over the cliff by the bucketful if necessary” to … Read more

Porcupines mate and reproduce much like any other animal. It’s actually not as dangerous or awkward as you might expect, although we don’t recommend trying this at home. For starters, mating is a dangerous pastime for male porcupines. They are one of many species who fight for the rights to mate with the receptive female, … Read more

If you live in North or South America, start looking up, and you might find a Porcupine. Porcupines are rodents with sharp spines, or quills, for a coat, that helps defend them from predators. They are the third largest of the rodents, behind the capybara and the beaver. Most porcupines grow no larger than 36 … Read more

Gerbils are illegal to own as pets in the state of California, and so are lots of other animals. The concern of the lawmakers and agencies is that if gerbils were allowed to be bought, sold, and owned in the state, some would surely get loose, run rampant and breed. Since California is primarily an … Read more

The South American capybara is the biggest rodent in the world, and can reach lengths of up to four feet. They’ve been compared to a guinea pig, a small boar, and have been nicknamed “water pigs.” We think they look more like a mutated rabbit, actually. The capybara is also known as carpincho in Spanish, … Read more

Rodents make up the largest order of mammals, with the most number of species in their group. There are over 2,277 species of rodents, or about 40 percent of mammal species belonging to the order. Their small size, a varied diet, and short breeding cycle have attributed to this success. About half of all mammal … Read more

Mice and hamsters have an instinctual need to run whenever they can. Their metabolism is fast, and they burn off energy almost as fast as they consume food. Fortunately too, mice are quick learners. Curiosity leads them to the wheel to explore. Once on the wheel, it doesn’t take long for them to reach upward … Read more

The Ancient Egyptians made Cat Mummies and buried artifacts to follow them in the Afterlife. Found in tombs of mummified cats were rats and mice for the cats to hunt in the afterlife. But the Egyptians didn’t want it to be all work and no play for their feline idols. They also left saucers of … Read more

Mickey Mouse’s nephews were Mortie and Ferdie. Mickey Mouse is the most popular cartoon rodent, hands down. But who’s the second most popular cartoon mouse? Just cartoon mice, or all rodents? We’d have to give Rocket J. Squirrel of Rocky and Bullwinkle the thumbs-up if we’re talking about all animated rodents. However, the mouse category … Read more

One easy way to tell if you have mice or rats in your house is to look at the poop or droppings. Mouse poop is smaller than rat poop. Now you can call the exterminator. But don’t take our word for it. The Centers for Disease Control has a nice picture guide to rodent poop … Read more

Three Blind Mice is an old English nursery rhyme and has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3753. The English believed that rounds taught children to concentrate, and this was why most scholars believe “Three Blind Mice” was written. The first written mention of it appears in 1609 in a melody book titled Deuteromelia, … Read more

Veronica stands for Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Network wide Index to Computerized Archives. The software was developed specifically to search gopher space. Gopher was the precursor to the World Wide Web and was named after the mascot of the University of Minnesota, the place it was developed. Veronica and another early search engine, Jughead, were used … Read more

You will be well educated on the subtleties of the order Lagomorpha after we’re done explaining the differences between a Jackrabbit, a Rabbit, and a Hare. Rabbits and Hares are often mistakenly identified, even by the so called experts. For example, the Belgian hare is a cute little domesticated animal that has been credited with … Read more

Rabbits and guinea pigs don’t have efficient cooling systems like a dog or a human. Us humans keep our body temperatures regulated by releasing sweat from over 2 million sweat glands, and dogs are able to pant to release heat and cool down their bodies. Rabbits have a system that rushes blood to their ears, … Read more

Coney Island was formerly an island, in south Brooklyn, New York, with a beach facing the Atlantic Ocean. The neighborhood was a resort with amusement parks in the early 20th century, but it declined in popularity after World War II and had been in neglect for many years. More recently, KeySpan Park, home to the … Read more

Magicians using Rabbits in Magic Tricks is a tradition dating back to ancient Greece, who believed rabbits had magical powers, but that’s not true. Rabbits are used because they don’t make noise like other animals and therefore can’t give away the trick, not because they’re cute and easy to handle. Pet rabbits kept indoors are … Read more

The original art director for Playboy magazine, Art Paul, drew the bunny for the cover of the second edition. Hugh Hefner liked the furry rabbit because it looked frisky, playful, and had that whole multiply-like-rabbits thing going for it. Hefner was also instantly attached to it because the idea of a bunny in a tuxedo … Read more

Skunk spray or musk is not dangerous or poisonous to humans or animals such as dogs. However, to animals who depend on their sense of smell to hunt food, find and attract mates, or avoid predators, being sprayed makes them unable to pick up scents of any kind, leaving them vulnerable. There are 10 species … Read more

Six different compounds of sulfur and hydrogen make up the smelly skunk musk. The two musk glands, located near the skunk’s anus, can squirt or spray musk up to ten feet. The odor especially permeates hair or fur, including wool clothing, because it reacts with animal protein, making it smell even worse. But that’s just … Read more

A chipmunk can fit up to 34 beechnuts, each about half an inch in length, in its cheeks at one time. Chipmunk cheeks are made of very elastic tissue, allowing the chipmunk to store a lot of food. When its cheeks reach capacity, the chipmunk will bury its stash somewhere and head back to collect … Read more

Rural Louisianans have trapped and eaten the nutria, an orange-toothed rodent that inhabits Louisiana swampland, since its introduction to the bayous in the 1930s. Now the state government is encouraging nutria’s role as the next exotic food out of the swamps by instigating a five-year program that pays trappers and processors by the pelt and … Read more

The nutria’s nipples are located rather high up on her front, almost to her back, so that her young babies can suckle without drowning, as she spends much of her time in water. The nutria is fast and agile in the water but rather clumsy on land. The Coypu is often mistaken for another rodent … Read more

Surprisingly, the nutria has less fat and cholesterol than chicken or turkey and is loaded with protein. By all reports, it tastes like rabbit and is very tender. The nutria, also known as the coypu, is a large, herbivorous, semi-aquatic rodent that looks like a really big rat. It is originally native to South America … Read more

The fur around a raccoon’s eyes is black both for eye protection, the black is believed to keep out glare, and for camouflage, as it makes it difficult to see a raccoon at night, protecting it from predators. Raccoon eyes in humans, also known as panda eyes, can be a sign of a skull fracture … Read more

No one person has claimed rights to this literary gem, “Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart. The more you eat, the more you fart.” Some time in the 1600s, though, people began creating haughty, naughty little rhyming couplets to place on lavatory and brothel walls instead of the usual “Ivon woz ‘ere,” and “Georgina’s … Read more

The word Amphibian means “Double life” in Greek, referring to the fact that these creatures are both land and aquatic dwellers during the course of their lives. Amphibians such as frogs and salamanders are cold-blooded animals that either metamorphose from a juvenile water-breathing form, to an adult air-breathing form, or paedomorph and retain some juvenile … Read more

The turtle got its name from the Latin tortuca, by way of the French word tortue, both meaning “tortoise.” Tortoises are land-dwelling turtles, while turtles live in or near water. The turtle dove gets its name from the Latin turtur, referring to the soft, cuddly, cooing noises the bird makes. Until recently, however, the turtledove … Read more

A newt is a type of salamander, meaning its skin is thin, and it breathes through gills until its lungs grow and it can leave the water. Newts are lizard-like, sporting a tail and four legs. Their legs, like those of many other salamanders, are weak in comparison to those of lizards, and are better … Read more

Toads don’t spend as much time in the water as frogs do. As a result, their skin is thicker and retains moisture better, and they tend to be stockier in build than most frogs. Here are more differences between the two amphibians. Frogs have long and strong webbed hind feet that are adapted for leaping … Read more

Most salamanders have gills during their larval stage. They live in water and, like fish, breathe underwater. As they reach maturity, which can take years in some species, they lose the gills, develop lungs, and leave the water. But some types of salamanders never mature and live their entire lives in the larval stage. They … Read more

The British dish, “Toad in the Hole” is similar to the American dish “pig-in-a-blanket”. Sausages are dipped in Yorkshire pudding batter, then baked, and is usually served with vegetables and onion gravy. The origin of the name is not completely clear. The dish itself is at least 250 years old and probably older. Many agree … Read more

Carnivorous plants catch bugs in the same way that flowers attract bees, with color and smell. However, a carnivorous plant also has a mechanism that traps the bug once it lands. In the case of the pitcher plant, all varieties sport a hollow tube or bowl that has downward-sloping hairs on the inside and a … Read more

Frogs legs taste like chicken with a tad of fishiness thrown in for good measure. Think of it as “chicken of the swamp” with a texture most similar to chicken wings. Frogs legs are one of delicacies of French and Cantonese cuisine, and are also eaten in other regions, such as the Caribbean, Greece, Italy, … Read more

Warts in humans come from an internal virus that some of us carry and some of us don’t. Warts can’t be contracted or passed along by touching any amphibian. Although picking up a toad can be harmful to the toad, and it’s likely to pee on you, it won’t hurt you. In other words, toads … Read more

Frogs blink their eyes when they swallow their food because they don’t have teeth and blinking helps them get their food down. This may not sound like an explanation on the face of it, but it is. Here’s how: a frog’s eyes, not unlike those of a hippopotamus, are bulgy, big, and located on the … Read more

Toad Suck is the name of a dam in Conway, Arkansas. Legend has it that back in the 1800s, river men were regulars at a saloon near the ferryboat landing, and local lore had it that these men would suck so much from the liquor bottle that they would swell up like toads. Today, Toad … Read more

Although the poison is in the mucus that the frogs secrete onto their skins, human skin can’t pass the poison into the bloodstream through touch alone. However, if the person has cuts or abrasions or accidentally rubs his mouth or nose after touching a frog, he might become ill or die. Some of these frogs … Read more

Frogs do drink water, but not with their mouths. Like all other amphibians, frogs have naked skin, lacking hair, scales, and feathers, making it perfectly suitable for absorbing water. Their skin soaks up what they need, then filters it out through their kidneys, like the rest of us. Some toads don’t even need actual water, … Read more

There’s no supposed about it. It really did happen. Potassium cyanide, a lethal cyanide-based chemical found in photographic darkrooms, among other places, was placed inside Tylenol capsules in and around the Chicago area in 1982. Seven people were murdered, and the culprit was never found. In 1986 a woman in Seattle, Washington, after a failed … Read more

There are more poisonous plants on earth than you can imagine. Here’s a partial list of them. Rhubarb—the leaves are fatal. Even cooked, they’ve been known to kill. Buttercups—all of these plants can cause damage to the stomach and intestines. Oleander—the leaves and branches are extremely poisonous. They act as a heart palpitation drug and … Read more

No, not all flowers are Bisexual with Both Male and Female Reproductive Parts and Capable of Playing Either Role in Reproduction. Here’s a quick flower primer: There are actually three types of flowers. The “perfect” flower, also known as a Bisexual flower, which is what you’re familiar with when it comes to plant reproduction, is … Read more

The word smutty came from pure-hearted farmers. Really. Smut is the name of a mold that grows in corn ears. The mold breaks off into fine dirt-like powder when the corn is shucked. Therefore the word smut became synonymous with dirt, or dirty. When dirty came to describe sexual talk or writing, calling the same … Read more

Considering how violent some reactions to its oils can be, it’s hard to imagine poison ivy serving any good purpose for anyone. The English colonist John Smith, in 1609, wrote home about his run-in with this dreaded toxic plant: “The poisonous weed, being in shape, but very little different, from our English Yvie; but being … Read more

Can our English ivy cross-pollinate with the poison variety? No, they belong to two separate plant families, despite the similar name English ivy belongs to the ginseng family and is considered true ivy. As nutty as this may seem, poison ivy is a member of the edible cashew family. The shells of the cashew nut … Read more

In general, it takes anywhere from twelve to forty-eight hours for a rash to appear after contact with poison ivy. The rash can hang around, though, itching like crazy, for ten miserable days or up to two unbearable weeks. If you do get a bad rash, see a doctor. Poison ivy grows throughout much of … Read more

The lizards that climb walls and ceilings don’t tend to fall off. But it’s not because they have great suction, as a matter of fact, they’re not really using suction at all. Here’s how the feet work: on the bottom are dozens and dozens of tiny grooves, which you can see if you’ve ever looked … Read more