1. The loudest animal in the world is a mere 2cm long, prawn. The Pistol Shrimp is capable of snapping its claw shut so rapidly, that it creates a bubble which collapses to produce a sonic blast, louder than a Concorde’s sonic boom.
2. Flamingos are not pink. They are born grey, their diet of brine shrimp and blue green algae contains a natural pink dye called canthaxanthin that makes their feathers pink.
Flamingos in zoos often lost their colouring, until zoo keepers supplemented their diets. 2
3. Otters “hold hands” while sleeping, so they don’t float away from each other.
And it’s super-cute. Look.
4. Hummingbirds are the only known birds that can also fly backwards.
They often do this when retreating away from flowers. 3
5. Dolphins use toxic pufferfish to ‘get high’.
Dolphins deliberately handle pufferfish causing them to release toxins as a defence mechanism. These toxins can be deadly in high doses, but also have a narcotic effect – and are a powerful hallucinogenic, which dolphins appear to enjoy.
A documentary witnessed them passing around pufferfish in a pod, before floating just underneath the water’s surface, apparently ‘mesmerised by their own reflections’ afterwards. 4
6. The Inland Taipan (also known as, the Western Taipan) is the most venomous snake in the world. A single bite contains enough venom to kill at least 100 fully grown men, and can kill within just 30 minutes, if left untreated.
They very rarely ever come in contact with humans, however. Every reliable identification of a snake bite victim from an Inland Taipan have been herpetologists, when handling or studying the snakes. They have all survived, due to successful treatment with antivenom.
7. The worlds deadliest animal isn’t a shark, bear or tiger, but something far smaller – the mosquito. According to the World Health Organization, 725,000 people are killed each year from mosquito-borne diseases, such as Malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever.
Mosquito outnumber every other animal in the world, apart from ants and termites. They can also be found in nearly every part of the world, which all add up in the risk they pose to humans.
8. There are more than 1.4 billion insects for EACH HUMAN on the planet, according to recent estimates.
Ants have colonised almost every landmass on Earth. Their population is estimated as 107–108 billion alone, in comparison to approx. 7 billion humans on the planet. 5
9. The shortest living animal in the world is the Mayfly. Its entire adult lifespan is just 24hrs.
The Mayfly reproduces and then dies, during that short 24hr period of life. Some species of Mayfly only live for 8-10 hours. Although they have the shortest adult lifespan, they actually exist as a nymph in water from 3-7 years, depending on species.
10. The horned lizard is able to shoot blood from its own eyes, up to a distance of 3 feet away. The rather bizarre and disgusting act is a defensive mechanism to confuse predators.
Their blood contains a chemical that is noxious to predators, and this isn’t its only trick – short-horned lizards are also capable of inflating their bodies up to twice their size to scare anything away. 6