# 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:** 14
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/81 "2005-02-26T10:04:47Z")
_I want a hippopotamus for Christmas!
Only a hippopotamus will do!
Don’t want a doll,
No dinky Tinkertoys,
I want a hippopotamus to fill my heart with joy!_
Get **that** out of your head, if you can. 😃
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### Author:  [@nevermore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevermore)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/82 "2005-02-26T11:08:45Z")
> [@Marlitharn](#):
>
> _I want a hippopotamus for Christmas!
> Only a hippopotamus will do!
> Don’t want a doll,
> No dinky Tinkertoys,
> I want a hippopotamus to fill my heart with joy!_
your heart with joy, and your house with dung showers \>\_\<
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### Author:  [@Amberlei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amberlei)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/83 "2005-02-26T12:52:58Z")
The female surinam toad covers it’s back with fertilized eggs which then sink into the skin and remain imbedded there until they’re fully developed little toads. [http://www.honoluluzoo.org/surinam\_toad.htm](http://www.honoluluzoo.org/surinam_toad.htm)
Giraffes can communicate with each other via infrasound. [http://www.animalvoice.com/Giraffe.htm](http://www.animalvoice.com/Giraffe.htm)
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/84 "2005-02-26T14:28:22Z")
[Here](http://www.ratbehavior.org/vomit.htm) is a piece on rats and their inability to vomit. For a cite on man having the largest penis among the primates, read **The Naked Ape**.
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### Author:  [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/85 "2005-02-26T20:22:37Z")
> [@Large Marge](#):
>
> [One of the strangest creatures I’ve ever seen.](http://www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_050207.html)
Pfft! You think that is strange? [_This_ is strange!](http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/about/fieldwork/norfanz/psychrol2.htm)
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/86 "2005-02-26T20:39:45Z")
> [@Wile E](#):
>
> Pfft! You think that is strange? [_This_ is strange!](http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/about/fieldwork/norfanz/psychrol2.htm)
No, that’s just Ziggy.
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### Author:  [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/87 "2005-02-26T21:47:33Z")
> [@Wile E](#):
>
> Pfft! You think that is strange? [_This_ is strange!](http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/about/fieldwork/norfanz/psychrol2.htm)
OMG.
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### Author:  [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/88 "2005-02-26T22:50:56Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> No, that’s just Ziggy.
All right. Now I just need a picture of Ziggy in about the same pose, and I’ve got a door decoration.
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### Author:  [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/89 "2005-02-26T23:06:10Z")
Pufferfish are one of the smartest fish, based on brain-to-body weight ratio, they are also one of the few vertabrates that has the ability to inflate itself when threatened, and pufferfish flesh carries one of the [most potent neurotoxins](http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic576.htm) in nature, [Tetrodotoxin](http://puffernet.tripod.com/tetrodotoxin.html), abbreviated as [TTX](http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/ttx/ttx.htm)
i had a pet [Green Spotted pufferfish](http://species.fishindex.com/species_3377tetraodon_fluviatilis_green_spotted_puffer.html) a few years back, and i can vouch for their apparent intelligence…
when the fish is happy, the coloration is what you see in the photos in the link, bright iridescent green wash on it’s back, brown spots, and a brilliant white belly, Zaphod would recognize me, beg for food, heck, i could even hand-feed him, he was an aquatic puppy with fins…
when i came home from work, i’d often see him sitting on the gravel at the bottom of the tank, staring at it with an almost…depressed…look on his face, it was like he was lonely, even though he shared the tank with a pair of sailfin mollies and a few bumblebee gobies, he just preferred human company
as soon as he saw me, his colors _instantly_ brightened up, and he’d happily follow my motions around the room (begging for food all the while)
so far, what i’ve described is no different than other reasonably intelligent aquarium fish, like Oscars, African Cicihlids, and Bettas…
where his intelligence really showed was when i’d treat him to his favorite snack, a live crawfish…
once the craw was in the tank, he’d circle around it, hovering just out of reach, sizing up the prey and the best way to attack it, on the first attack, he’d bite off the claws, rendering the craw defenseless, then, depending on how vicious he felt like being, he’d either bite off the eyes and finally deliver the killing bite to the back of the carapace, or just go right for the kill bite, he’d then bite off the tail, eat it first (the best meat is in the tail), then the body, and finally the claws, he literally _planned_ his attack strategy
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2005, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/90 "2005-02-26T23:11:57Z")
All this talk of big beavers leaves me unimpressed. (And you can quote me out of context on that.)
Until just a few thousand years ago we were blessed (cursed?) with[giant beavers reaching 8 feet long and 450 lbs.](http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/megabeasts/meet/meet_zoom3.html) They were likely hunted to extinction by early Native Americans.
In addition to dolphins and bonobos, orangutans engage in recreational sex. I shall not link the pictures a demented friend of mine emailed me last week which prove this. Suffice it to say that the sexual act depicted was non-reproductive.
And for my animal fun fact: Armadillos will sometimes cross bodies of water by walking across the bottom rather than swimming across the top.
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### Author:  [@Dark\_Side\_of\_the\_Floyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Side_of_the_Floyd)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/91 "2005-02-27T02:34:08Z")
> [@Agrippina](#):
>
> Dolphins have been known to rape, and to bully weaker dolphins for fun.
Not so different from people, I’m afraid… ☹
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### Author:  [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/92 "2005-02-27T03:18:31Z")
> [@Marlitharn](#):
>
> …
>
> (You’re going to have to take Jeff Foxworthy’s word for the nipple-eating thing.)
I can’t speak for **Cisco** but I am quite satisfied by a cite from such a reliable source.
Rabbits are another animal which has a type of purr…when very content they grind their teeth. My post is my cite. I mean, personal experience verifies this observation.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2005, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/93 "2005-02-27T04:07:47Z")
Male marsupials have a two-pronged, or bifurcate, penis (aka a “two-pronged dong”). Female marsupials, however, go them one better, and have three vaginas.
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### Author:  [@blackhobyah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blackhobyah)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2005, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-and-amusing-animal-facts/291573/94 "2005-02-27T05:40:57Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> 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.
Wombats have a wide, bony plate which extends from their shoulders to their rumps which they use as a shield and defence mechanism. Wombats weigh up to 30kg and are very strong. They have been known to crush the skulls of dingoes who follow the wombat into its burrows by using this plate to slam the predator’s head against the top of the burrow.
I’ve handled some baby wombats, and apart from being incredibly cute and making noises just like human babies, their backs really are hard, like they’ve got armour on under their fur.
Generations of wombats use the same burrows, and there are some burrows which have been identified as having been in continual use for a couple of hundred years.
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