25 Amazing Animal Facts You Might Not Know

The animal kingdom is full of amazing facts. It's a world that never ceases to amaze us with all sorts of wonder and incredible feats. There are animals that can do seemingly impossible things, such as traveling faster than a sports car, having the ability to kill someone with the mere brush of its hairs. On today's list, I've searched high and low to find some of the most interesting animal facts out there. There are so many, but I've narrowed them down to 25. These are 25 Amazing Animal Facts You Might Not Know. 25. If you enter into a boxing match with the Peacock Mantis Shrimp, you'll lose. This little guy can throw a punch at an average speed of 50 miles an hour and holds the title of the world's fastest limb movement. The shrimp accomplished this incredible feat thanks to a small saddle-looking structure in its arm. When the arm is cocked, this structure is compressed and acts like a spring, which, when released, expands and provides the energy for the punch. 24. The Peacock Mantis Shrimp may hold the title for the fastest limb movement in the animal kingdom. However, it has nothing when you compare it to the speed of a trap-jaw ant's jaw. This Central and South American ant can close its jaws at a staggering speed of 115 to 207 feet per second. That's about 78 to 145 miles an hour. 23. Did you know that Flamingo's feathers are naturally white? The feathers turn pink thanks to the Flamingo's diet, which is high in beta-carotene, a red-orange pigment that's found in the algae, larvae, and brine shrimp that Flamingos eat. 22. You might have heard that all clownfish are born male. This however is not entirely correct. Clownfish are born with immature male and female sex organs. However, the truly remarkable feat is that these brightly colored fish can change their sexes depending on their environmental conditions. If, for example, a female within the clownfish group dies, the largest remaining member of the group will become female, and the second largest individual will become the breeding male after its male sex organs fully develop. 21. You might have heard the expression, blind as a bat. Well, guess what? Bats aren't blind. Even though bats in general do use echolocation to navigate and catch prey, bats aren't entirely without sight. Depending on the bat's species, they could have excellent sight and smell, or maybe be slightly colorblind. 20. Oh, I know some of you are going to have some serious doubts about this animal fact, but here it goes. Cats can't taste sweet stuff. I can see those comments already. However, it's true. Rather than sweets, cats prefer meats. This is because cats lack 247 base pairs of the amino acids that make up the DNA of the TAS1R2 gene, and as a result, in simpler terms, this lack of base pairs hinders the creation of the protein that would permit cats to taste sweets. Though there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to the contrary, scientists are pretty confident of cats' inability to taste sweet things. With that said, scientists also know that cats can taste things that we can't, such as adenosine triphosphate, also known as ATP, which is the compound that gives energy to living cells. 19. If you think humans are the only ones who have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases, think again. Bees, yes, bees, can suffer from STDs as well. Nosema is a unicellular fungus that leads to the STD Nosemosis, the most widespread disease of honeybees. Symptoms of the STD include dysentery, disjointed wings, and absent sting reflexes. 18. You're probably aware of the sloth's famous aptitude for speed, or lack thereof, but I bet you've never considered how much time it takes for a sloth to poop. Well, now that you have that picture in your mind, you're welcome. And the sloth can take anywhere between one to two weeks to digest its food with some meals, even taking a whole entire month for others. Whew, talk about a major case of constipation. 17. What is probably one of the cutest microscopic animals is also one of the most indestructible. Tardigrades, aka water bears, are microscopic animals that average about half a millimeter in length. That's roughly the size of a period at the end of a sentence. These eight-legged pandas can be found all over the world in some of the most extreme and harshest of conditions. Tardigrades have been known to survive exposures to 300°F, negative 458°F, the vacuum of space, and pressure six times stronger than the ocean floor. 16. Do you know the true color of a polar bear? If you said white, well, you're not entirely correct. Polar bears may appear white, but underneath all that fur lays a cover of black skin, which helps them soak up the sun's warming rays. Ah, but their fur is white, right? Technically, wrong again. Polar bears' fur is transparent or clear, but thanks to the hair's characteristics, such as their hollow core filled with air and the fact that they have light-scattering particles inside them, the polar bear's hair appears white to the human eye. 15. Humans are highly political beings, and one of our political exercises is the ability to vote. However, voting is not a strictly human action. Did you know that African buffaloes vote as well? African buffalo are herd animals, and they often make group decisions about when and where to move by voting. The way they do this is by standing up, staring in one direction, and then lying back down. This denotes what direction the buffalo is voting for. Another interesting aspect to this is that only female buffaloes vote. 14. Can you dance? You probably can. In fact, most humans can to some degree. Whether they can do this well or not, that's another story, but I digress. Did you know, however, that there is another mammal that can dance? A dancing sea lion has shocked scientists and has become the first non-human mammal with a proven ability to keep a beat. Ronin, as the sea lion is named, was first trained by researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz to keep a beat. Today, Ronin can dance to just about any song you throw at her. 13. You may not believe this, but some animals don't need to mate in order to have offspring. You can literally say these animals can have virgin births. In something called parthenogenesis, the mother provides both sets of the DNA necessary to create an embryo. This kind of reproduction has been observed in animals such as the leopard shark, pythons, whiptail lizards, salamanders, and even turkeys. 12. What animal do you think has the thickest fur in the animal kingdom? The answer might surprise you. If you said bear, you're mistaken. The correct answer is otters. Yep, those small little cute-as-a-button swimming darlings have fur that has as many as one million hairs per square inch on the densest parts of their body. 11. It's a well-known and obvious fact that humans laugh, but what about animals? Do they laugh as well? Apparently, some do. Researchers at Germany's Humboldt University have observed that rats giggle when tickled. These researchers have shown for the first time that laughter can be elicited by stimulation. The laughing rats were so excited that they were jumping around and chasing the hand of one of the researchers. Simply adorable. 10. Music is powerful and can elicit strong responses from people, like crying, dancing, headbanging, etc. However, music's power can extend well into the animal kingdom. Enter cows. It's been recorded that cows produce more milk when they're exposed to slow music. According to researchers at the University of Leicester School of Psychology, cows produce 1.54 more pints per day when slow music was played for them, versus more upbeat tunes. Of course, the experiment is a bit controversial, and there isn't a strong scientific consensus. 9. How would you like to control animals with your mind? Well, you just might be able to. Research students in China have been able to create a brain-to-brain interface technique, which allows them to control cockroaches. With this interface, students have been able to guide a living cockroach along S-shaped and Z-shaped paths. Can you imagine all the cockroaches under your control? Oh, I just imagined, and nope, I'd rather kill them. Kill them with fire. 8. When you think of a dangerous animal, a caterpillar is probably the last animal to come to your mind, unless you're Tristan, but it shouldn't be. The caterpillar, known as Linnomia oblique, kills more people than snakes in some parts of the world. This caterpillar has a powerful defense mechanism via its hairs, which contain venom that keeps human blood from clotting. Any person that brushes against these hairs will experience extreme, uncontrollable bleeding, which can, and has, led to death. 7. Bats are extremely beneficial to our environment, especially when it comes to bug control. One bat can eat up to a thousand mosquito-sized bugs per hour. That's one thousand mosquitoes and other types of bugs you won't have to worry about biting you and transmitting some crazy disease. Go bats! 6. We all know that whales are large animals. In fact, you may even know that the blue whale is the largest animal today. But did you know that the blue whale is not only the largest animal alive today, but is the largest animal to have ever lived? That's larger than dinosaurs or any sea creature ever. It's estimated that the blue whale's tongue alone weighs as much as an elephant. Blue whales can reach sizes of up to 100 feet long and can weigh upwards of 200 tons. 5. You may be aware that cheetahs are fast, but how fast may just blow your mind. Cheetahs have been documented to go from 0 to 60 in just 3 seconds. That's faster than most sports cars. Some scientists believe that in the wild, cheetahs may even go faster. This incredible speed makes the cheetah the fastest land animal alive today. 4. The cheetah may be the fastest land animal alive today, but there is one animal that can travel faster than the cheetah, the sailfish. This bizarre-looking fish has been clocked at speeds reaching 68 miles an hour. Michael Phelps who? 3. Though the cheetah and the sailfish have pretty impressive speeds, they can't match the speed of this avian creature. The peregrine falcon can reach speeds of up to 200 miles an hour. That's 200. No, that's not a typo. Also, that's 321 kilometers per hour or 89.41 meters per second for our metric friends. While diving for prey. This makes the peregrine falcon the fastest animal on the planets while diving. 2. The Brazilian Wandering Spider's bite has a very interesting side effect. This spider's bite gives its victim a painful 4-hour erection. Now, before you start tossing your Viagra pills away, let me warn you, the Brazilian Wandering Spider is officially the world's most venomous spider and is known to kill its victims in just two hours. 1. Hummingbirds are amazing. You've probably seen a couple in your backyard or maybe on your hummingbird feeder. Generally, they're very small birds. In fact, you might even mistake them for a large insect. However, these incredible birds hold a special record in the animal kingdom. They are the only birds that can fly backwards. They use this incredible feat to help them get in and out of flowers as they go about gathering nectar. So, what's one of your favorite animal facts? Let us know in the comments below or tweet your answer to us at List25. Enjoying our lists? Be sure to click that subscribe button on the bottom right and the notification bell so you don't miss out on new ones every Monday through Friday. Share them with your friends and help us consistantly conciliate curiosity. And if you want even more lists check out these videos here or just head to our website at list25.com. While you're there, make sure to join our newsletter for exclusive lists, prizes, and so much more. You really don't want to miss out on this.