Have you ever encountered a piece of information about some animal that just blows you away? Share them here.
I’ll start:
American Beavers can get up to 80 pounds.
I’d like to hear one of those guys slap its tail!
I don’t have any, I’m just thinking about the dam they’d make. :eek:
Well, I’m from Ontario, and my dad has a cottage in Simcoe county - beavers are something of a pest up there. There are lots of them, and their damming floods large areas - and their dams are "damn tough’. 
I’ve seen beavers lots of times, and they are in fact startlingly large creatures. With, I may add, bright orange teeth.
The best way of getting beavers to go away (short of trapping them out) is to use a “beaver baffler” - a length of pipe as a syphon. The beavers can’t figure out where the “leak” in their dam is and eventually go away.
The meanest thing my dad did to me last winter was to take me to the beaver lodge in one of the ponds on the property and ask me to “take a whiff” of their breathing-hole - the stink was enough to kill. :eek:
I actually had one of those monsters slap its tail. Imagine John Elway heaving a football with all his might straight into the water! Now picture me fishing a mountain pond at twilight, the canyon wrens whistling, soft breeze blowing, bats flying,… and this beaver goes off right behind me! I nearly jumped outta my skin!
Well, here I learned that bats purr - well, they don’t purr in exactly the same way a cat does, but they produce a similar sound.
Also, I’m sure we’ve all read the classic Cecil column about the pigs?
Now I know what to ask for for my next birthday! 
If human eyes were the same size as cats’ eyes, relative to the size of our faces, they would be the size of softballs!
(I love the mind-picture I always get when I think of that.)
Isn’t this thread supposed to be about shocking and amusing **true **animal facts? Maybe you’re thinking of golf balls.
Of all the primates, humans have the largest penis.
No, she/he’s thinking of softballs. The human eye is normally the size of a golf ball. Cat’s eyes are relatively larger compared to the size of the head so softball size would be about right.
There are no insects that ever live in salt water.
For those a little rusty on their entomology, freshwater examples include: dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies, stoneflies, dobsonflies, craneflies, mosquitoes, caddisflies, diving beetles, etc. but nothing in salt water.
What about in the brackish water that one finds in places like salt marshes and mangroves?
Not true, it’s the adult forms of insects that don’t live in salt water and even that’s a little hazy… There are numerous insects that live in sea water and water far more saline than seawater even, but they do so as larvae rather than free living adults. In that respect they don’t differ form most of the insects on your list above that only live in fresh water as larvae. Only the diving beetles actually live in water as adults.
http://science.csustan.edu/flora/zool4232/Labs-S2005/mosquito-osmo.htm
I think I meant to say ocean. I think mosquitoes can hatch in brackish water…wait, decided to google it.
I guess I shouldn’t believe everything my brother tells me:Marine Insects
However, I do believe that none of these species lay their eggs in salt water, so that’s something.
Damn. Alright, back up animal fact: deep sea octopi come across each other very rarely, and so mating is often done at any chance they get rather than in a certain season or time frame. Because of the pitch black darkness, a male octopus often cannot see the other octopus; this sometimes results in a male octopus trying (and sometimes suceeding) to “donate” his sperm to another male. So that’s interesting…
Picture three mighty deer hunters, rifles at the ready, crossing a beaver dam, single file. Our senses are tuned in to the extreme, as we had spotted a 12 pointer on the other side of the dam. Slowly we walked, eyes darting every which way, waiting for the tell tale sign of Mr. Trophy…
…and Mr. Beaver chooses this moment to slap the water. Instant panic, and three guys are now under water, fearing for the next rifle shot that was surely coming our way.
Friggin beaver.
:eek:
I read years ago that you can freeze a scorpion in a block of ice for a week, and that when thawed out it will be none the worse for wear. I’m trying to Google it for confirmation but I can’t get past all the Mortal Kombat pages.
Also, the fish stick is neither a fish nor a stick. It is a fungus.
There exists a lizard that can curl up on an American dime without having to contort much at all.
neat, eh?
Dolphins have been known to rape, and to bully weaker dolphins for fun.
Hey, I know my shocking and amusing animal facts. Kind of. Mostly.
Get a raccoon. They do it, too; and they’re not so delicate for cuddling purposes.
…y’know, if you’re into that.