ANIMAL MAGIC
Check out our fab facts on wild world...
IT’S officially World Animal Day – a chance to celebrate the amazing wildlife across our planet.
The event, which dates back 95 years, is designed to highlight animal welfare and is held annually on October 4 – the feast day of creature-loving Saint Francis of Assisi.
Here, JAMES MOORE marks the occasion with 20 amazing facts about our wonderful wildlife…
● Cockroaches can live for weeks even when their heads have been cut off. A starfish can be split into five pieces and survive.
● A polar bear’s hair isn’t white, it’s colourless and only looks that way because it reflects light. Their skin is actually black.
● Fleas can jump 350 times their body length, while a mole can dig a 300ft tunnel in just one night.
● Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump, but they can recognise their own reflection.
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain, camels have three eyelids to help keep out the sand and most spiders have eight eyes. Snails can sleep for three years, tarantulas can go for two years without food and rats can survive longer without water than camels.
● Snakes can sense an earthquake from 75 miles away, up to five days before it happens.
● Cows give more milk when they listen to music, and termites eat twice as fast listening to heavy metal. Octopuses have three hearts and testicles in their head. The penis of the male argonaut octopus is detachable.
● Giraffes only sleep for two hours a day and can even clean out their ears with their own tongues.
● The blue whale has a heart the size of a car and blood vessels wide enough for a human to crawl through.
● Slugs have four noses, iguanas can hold their breath for 30 minutes, and some turtles can breathe via their bum.
● Prairie dogs kiss each other. And it’s the male seahorse, not the female, that goes through pregnancy and gives birth. Cats can’t taste sugar and their
jaws can’t move
Owls are the only birds that can see the colour blue – and it’s the favourite colour of mosquitos.
sideways. But they make over
100 different vocal sounds, compared with 10 for dogs.
● Horned lizards can shoot blood from their eyes, while ring-tailed lemurs fight by wafting scent.
● The 2cm pistol shrimp snaps its claw shut so loudly it makes a noise louder than a gunshot, while a grizzly bear’s bite is strong enough to crush a bowling ball. Jellyfish have been on earth longer than sharks or even dinosaurs. The oldest recorded living animal was a type of clam, nicknamed Ming, which lived to be 507.