Animal Fun Facts - Did You Know . . .

I saw these animal fun facts yesterday on facebook from Neil deGrasse Tyson and thought they would be fun to share with you, so you can share with the children you love. Did you know . . .

• Birds do not urinate.
• Horses and cows sleep while standing.
• The bat is the only mammal capable of flight. It's leg bones are so thin it cannot walk.
• Even when a snake’s eyes are closed, it can still see through its eyelids.
• Despite their fluffy white fur, Polar Bears actually have black skin.
• The average housefly lives only two to three weeks.
• For every human, there are approximately one million ants.
• A small amount of alcohol on a scorpion will drive it insane and cause it to sting itself to death.
• Alligators and sharks can live for up to 100 years.
• A honeybee has two stomachs: one for honey and one for food.
• Elephants weigh less than the tongue of a blue whale.
• A blue whale’s heart is the size of a car.
• Blue whales are the largest creatures to ever roam the Earth.
• A cockroach can survive for about a week without its head before dying of starvation.
• When a dolphin is sick or injured, its cries of distress prompt other dolphins to assist, helping it surface to breathe.
• A snail can sleep for up to three years.
• The fastest bird, the spine-tailed swift, can fly at speeds of up to 106 mph. (The peregrine falcon is even faster at 390 km/h or 108 mph.)
• A cow produces nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
• The leech has 32 brains.
• The average outdoor cat lives only three years, while indoor-only cats can live 16 years or longer.
• Sharks are immune to every disease, including cancer.
• A mosquito’s proboscis has 47 sharp edges to help it cut through skin and even protective clothing.

I found all of these fun facts to be very interesting, but I think the one about the honeybee having two stomachs was surprising - as is the one about leeches have 32 brains! Which fun fact surprised you the most?