Our random animal facts are a both fun and a little bit weird but they will keep you entertained for days!
Drooping ears is a trait for domesticated animals that very rarely occurs in the wild (elephants are an exception). Almost all species gain this trait when domesticated. A Russian experiment successfully domesticated foxes over 40 generations, and in that span their ears drooped. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/
The US federal government has an office in Denver called the National Eagle Repository that receives dead bald and golden eagles, which are then used by registered Native Americans tribes for religious and cultural ceremonies. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Eagle_Repository?wprov=sfla1
Researchers found that dogs have musical tastes. The Scottish SPCA and University of Glasgow monitored dogs’ heart rates while playing different genres of music and found that they generally preferred reggae and soft rock. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38757761
In 1996, a man in Devon, England spent a year hooting at owls and logging their response only to find out his neighbor was unknowingly the ‘owl’ hooting back. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/twit-two-woo-over-the-garden-fence-1252339.html
Since 1988, a dog breeder has been working on The Dire Wolf Project. The goal is creating a breed (American Alsatian) of loving companion dog that resembles a prehistoric dire wolf. They are enormous, scary, shaggy, and by all accounts, sweet. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: http://www.direwolfproject.com/
A recent study found that pythons don’t actually kill by suffocation, but rather by cutting off the circulation of blood resulting in a heart attack. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3171522/Pythons-kill-heart-attack-Snakes-actually-cut-blood-supply-prey-kill-suffocation.html
A recent study found limpet teeth, which they use to scrape food off rocks, are made from the strongest biological material in nature. The material the mollusc’s teeth are made out of is about five times as strong as spider silk, the former title holder. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31500883
Jaguars have such powerful jaws that they kill their prey by biting into the brain directly through the skull. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.northernjaguarproject.org/ecology/about-the-jaguar/
Seahorses don’t have stomachs, just intestines for the absorption of nutrients from food. As such, food passes through their digestive system rapidly and they must eat almost constantly. – WTF Fun Facts
Camels can drink 30 gallons of water in just 13 minutes. The water is stored in the camel’s bloodstream and not in its energy-rich fatty hump. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/09/18/how-much-water-can-a-camel-store-in-its-hump/
One dung beetle can drag things that weigh ~1,141 times its own weight. That would be like an average human pulling six double-decker buses! – WTF Fun Facts
In 2009, Liberia had to declare a state of emergency in 3 counties because of an African armyworm caterpillar invasion. Tens of millions of the larvae appeared and began eating through their green crops and contaminating the water supplies with their feces. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/28/liberia.caterpillars.emergency/index.html
The assassin bug wears the exoskeletons of its prey as removable armor. The armor is multi-purposed as it is used to intimidate larger predators and if another bug does try to attack, the bodies will peel off allowing it to escape. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/31132/bug-wears-its-victims-armor
Poison dart frogs derive their toxicity from eating poisonous ants and termites in the wild. A captive-bred dart frog is essentially harmless, as its diet does not include any poisonous prey. – WTF Fun Facts
Tardigrades, or “water bears”, are semi-aquatic, microscopic animals typically 0.5 mm in length which can survive virtually anything like an active lava field or even the cold, dark vacuum of space. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/what-tardigrade-ncna1065771
There’s an old Finnish measurement unit called a poronkusema, which translates to “reindeer’s piss”. It describes the distance a reindeer can travel without having to stop to pee which is roughly 7 – 7.5km. – WTF Fun Facts
The trap-jaw ant can bite with a force of over 300 times their own bodyweight. Their jaws snap shut at a record-setting speed of ~62 mph. By biting the ground, they can launch themselves in the air to avoid danger. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5272094.stm
There aren’t any true wild horses in the US any more. The Western US has a population of free-roaming mustangs that are descendants of domesticated colonial Spanish horses and therefore are technically feral and not wild. – WTF Fun Facts