# Shocking and Amusing Animal Facts
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 23, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573 "2005-02-23T18:52:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/41 "2005-02-24T20:50:11Z")
> [@TwoTrouts](#):
>
> A strange and amusing animal fact pointed out to me by another doper in another thread: Horses are physically unable to vomit.
…and…they don’t breath through their mouths, only through their nostrils. Maybe that has something to do with not being able to vomit.
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### Author:  [@Imbrium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imbrium)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2005, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/42 "2005-02-24T21:08:23Z")
Betta’s will drown if they can’t get to the surface of the water.
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### Author:  [@nocturnal\_tick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nocturnal_tick)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/43 "2005-02-24T21:18:37Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#):
>
> Bonobos do as well.
> [@DrLoveGum](#):
>
> Bonobos, also known as the pygmy chimpanzee engage in recreational sex, and they don’t care about gender.
I stand (rather amusingly) corrected. Go Bonobos! 😃
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### Author:  [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2005, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/44 "2005-02-24T23:38:25Z")
IIRC, octopuses can count to eight, although I’m not sure if that’s fanciful thinking or not, but STR this fact in relation to Nat. Geo.
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### Author:  [@MsPrufrock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsPrufrock)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/45 "2005-02-25T00:19:11Z")
I was going to say Bonobos as well - my Psychology teacher in HS took great joy in telling us that Bonobos will get so excited and stimulated when they find a good source of food they will just starting going at it with each other. I have no idea if that is true.
Okay - **Agrippina** - the image of the octopus crawling out of its container with deliberation…_shudders_ That gives me the willies!!! :eek: :eek:
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### Author:  [@Freejooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freejooky)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/46 "2005-02-25T00:24:09Z")
> [@Snickers](#):
>
> But I will say that the wombat is the cutest thing I’d ever seen - I’d give my eyeteeth for one.
[Damn, that’s CUTE.](http://sophie-g.net/photo/oz/anim/pct/wombat.jpg) Like a cross bewteen a baby bear and a big hamster!
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/47 "2005-02-25T06:26:52Z")
There’s a species of frog that gives live birth to fully formed frogs (instead of tadpoles). The female retains the eggs in her egg ducts, where they hatch into tadpoles. They live there, feeding off a substance the mother secretes from the inner surface of the duct. They don’t emerge until they’ve metamorphosed into their adult form.
I want to say this frog only lives on one mountain in Africa, but I heard this on a David Attenborough documentary a few months, ago, and I might have gotten that fact wrong.
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### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/48 "2005-02-25T06:32:42Z")
:eek: Barnacles can have penises as long as twenty times the length of the entire animal (proportional to a 6 foot human with a 120 foot penis).
:eek: Two-month old Northern Elephant Seals can be up to 600 lbs! (Their mothers have left, and instead of swimming to seek squid or fish, they find another mother to nurse them, so they’re called super-weaners). Their average birth weight is around 75-80 lbs.
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### Author:  [@Sengkelat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sengkelat)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/49 "2005-02-25T09:13:54Z")
> [@Snickers](#):
>
> Everyone knows that Australia has 'roos. Some even know that there’s two kinds: the red and the gray. However, the land of Oz has a ton of different kinds of wallabys, which, while separate species, look a lot like miniature 'roos (in differing sizes, depending on the type). There’s roos everywhere (sorta)!
The groups called “kangaroos” and “wallabies” are paraphyletic groups. There’s nothing to distinguish kangaroos as a group from wallabies other than that’s what they happened to be named.
There is an arboreal kangaroo, called [Lumholtz’ tree kangaroo](http://home.iprimus.com.au/readman/lumh.htm). Yes, it’s a kangaroo that climbs trees.
Everyone knows there are alligators in Florida. It’s less commonly known that there is a different species of alligator in China, Alligator sinensis, that gets to about 5’ long.
Barnacles capture food with their legs.
The [pangolin](http://www.lazoo.org/zoo_headline2.asp?id=28) is one of the very few mammals with scales. (Well…sort of scales)
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### Author:  [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/50 "2005-02-25T10:32:06Z")
Beavers will sometimes walk around on their hind legs while carrying sticks in their front legs.
And they eat nipples. 🆒
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### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/51 "2005-02-25T12:28:41Z")
> [@Snickers](#):
>
> Koalas and wombats are social as younguns, then become more and more solitary as they age. They like to know that there’s another koala or wombat in the area, but they generally keep to themselves. This is why wombats, especially, don’t make good pets.
It’s fairly unusual not to find two wombats in any given tunnel system (yeah they’re big animals, they don’t burrow, they tunnel). Although they don’t form tight-nit communities they certainly don’t keep to themselves. They’re more sociable than cats for example, which means that it’s not an issue with keeping them as pets. The real problem is that they are incredibly powerful. A wombat will dig through almost anything short of reinforced concrete or plate metal so they simply can’t be contained.
> [@](#):
>
> Everyone knows that Australia has 'roos. Some even know that there’s two kinds: the red and the gray. However, the land of Oz has a ton of different kinds of wallabys, which, while separate species, look a lot like miniature 'roos (in differing sizes, depending on the type). There’s roos everywhere (sorta)!
Actually there are at least three species of roos; two greys and a red. In addition to roos and wallabies there are also several species of wallaroos which are the same genus as the kangaroos but stick to more rugged terrain.
Then there are the bettongs and potoroos which are more distantly related, really do make good pets, only stand about a foot tall and are incredibly cute. Bettongs have prehensile tails that they use to carry nesting material.
> [@Sengkelat](#):
>
> There is an arboreal kangaroo, called [Lumholtz’ tree kangaroo](http://home.iprimus.com.au/readman/lumh.htm). Yes, it’s a kangaroo that climbs trees.
There are several species of tree kangaroos in Australia and PNG. The weirdest species is the terrestrial tree kangaroo. A tree kangaroo that lives on the ground.
Two interesting tree kangaroo facts.
1. Tree kangaroos are the only roos that can move their hindfeet independently on land. The other roos can only move their hindlegs independently when swimming, the rest of the time the legs move in synchrony.
2. Lumholtz tree kangaroos are partially carnivorous and will leap from branches onto passing small animals, crushing and then eating them. An interesting piece of trivia that I heard from an animal carer who was quite puzzled about the blood on the fur of her orphaned tree kangaroo until she saw it eating a art one day. There’s currently a research team working trying to catch the act on film
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### Author:  [@furthur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furthur)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/52 "2005-02-25T14:14:58Z")
> [@TwoTrouts](#):
>
> A strange and amusing animal fact pointed out to me by another doper in another thread: Horses are physically unable to vomit.
Rabbits are physically unable to vomit as well. They also produce 500 pellets of crap a day.
Mrs. Furthur
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### Author:  [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/53 "2005-02-25T16:08:09Z")
> [@furthur](#):
>
> Rabbits are physically unable to vomit as well. They also produce 500 pellets of crap a day.
>
> Mrs. Furthur
Which they eat again, to maximize nutrient absoprtion.
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/54 "2005-02-25T16:10:57Z")
Rats are also unable to vomit, that is one reason they make such good lab animals.
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### Author:  [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/55 "2005-02-25T16:19:11Z")
A sheep’s vagina feels much like a human one.
No, that’s not a personal observation
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/56 "2005-02-25T16:22:57Z")
Dung beetles don’t need water. (Just coffee.)
😉
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/57 "2005-02-25T16:37:31Z")
Elephants also [eat their own dung](http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/mammals/Loxodonta_africana/Loxodonta_africana_08d.html?movietype=qtSmall)for the same reason.
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### Author:  [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/58 "2005-02-25T16:40:22Z")
On each ankle the male platypus has a spur connected to poison glands in the thighs; these spurs are used against an attacker or against a competing platypus but never against prey. The poison is not fatal to man but causes intense pain.
[http://mbgnet.mobot.org/fresh/lakes/animals/platypus.html](http://mbgnet.mobot.org/fresh/lakes/animals/platypus.html)
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/59 "2005-02-25T17:15:11Z")
Do I have to be the one to say it?
Cite? Cite? Cite? Cite?
Cite? Cite? Cite? Cite?
Cite? Cite? Cite? Cite?
Cite? Cite? Cite? Cite?
Cite? Cite? Cite? Cite?
-To most of the posts in this thread.
This the _Straight Dope_. You can’t just make up “facts” on the spot or post things you heard from your cousin’s neighbor Timmy Joe back on the farm in '74.
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### Author:  [@TwoTrouts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoTrouts)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/60 "2005-02-25T17:52:32Z")
Jeez, mellow out. 😃
[Glowing Scorpions](http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_diseases_pests_insects/article/0,1785,HGTV_3580_1384577,00.html)
[80 lb beaver](http://thebeav.topcities.com/) (warning: dead animal photo)
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