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- Tuatara lizards, from New Zealand, have two eyes in the center of their heads and a third one on top of their heads.
- A British medical journal called The Practitioner has determined that bird watching can be hazardous to one's health. They have officially designated bird watching a hazardous activity, using the example of the death of a bird watcher who became so wrapped up in watching a particular bird that he failed to notice his potentially dangerous surroundings and was eaten by a crocodile.
- Because porcupines have hollow quills, they are great swimmers.
- Mediterranean divers, before the Middle Ages, used to gather the golden strands of the pen shell, using them to weave a very fine cloth for the purpose of making womens' gloves. The cloth was so fine, in fact, that a pair of these gloves could be packed into an empty walnut shell, or anything of comparable volume.
- Snakes who have the genetic mutation of having been born with two heads have a hard time eating, because the two heads generally fight over which gets the food.
- Baby songbirds seem to learn how to sing from the adult birds of their species, and if they are raised by other species, they don't sing the same as their ancestors. They often make strange warbling noises, but may also learn the songs of other species. In the latter case, they can pass these songs on to their offspring.
- Giraffes can't cough.
- Elephants can smell water from as far away as three miles.
- The Japanese quail has many values to the people who live in the areas it habitates. They are used for their song, their eggs, their uses as fighting cocks, for their meat, and are carried around in cold weather in South china to keep one's hands warm.
- All shrimp are born male, but slowly grow into females as they mature.
- The stomach acids in a snake's stomach can digest bones and teeth but not fur or hair.
- The March Hare from Alice In Wonderland portrays the actual antics of real hares during springtime, when they jump around and hit their large hind feet on the ground.
- Some species of dinosaur were the size of chickens.
- Birds cannot go into outer space, because they use gravity to assist them in swallowing, so they'd quickly choke and die in a non-gravity environment.
- The Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion lived in Memphis, Tennessee.
- Humans have three color receptors in their eyes, while goldfish have four, and mantis shrimp have ten.
- Studies have shown that pigs are one of the more intelligent animals, surprisingly. They come a close second only to primates. They are so smart, in fact, that they can be trained to do tricks like a dog.
- Birds do not sleep in their nests, although they may rest in them from time to time.
- The average giraffe has a blood pressure two or three times that of the average human.
- Some birds from the rain forests of South America actually breed in Canada in the summer, before returning south for the winter.
- The giant Pacific octopus can squeeze its entire body through a hole the size of its beak.
- More types of fish live in one Amazon River tributary than in all the rivers in North America combined.
- Penguins generally mate once and produce one egg per year.
- The mako shark and great white shark are two of the few species of shark that are warm blooded.
- You can house break an armadillo.
- Cows are the only mammals that pee backwards.
- Greyhound dogs can see better than any other breed of dog.
- The opossum is a North American mammal about the size of a cat. It looks much like an over sized rat. In fact, one type of opossum is actually called the rat opossum. What's most interesting about opossums is how it reacts to predators: if it can't escape and hissing and showing its teeth do not scare off the predator, they pretend to die. The thing is, it's not doing this because it wants to; it can't really control it. Its muscles tighten up in fear and it faints.
- The giant tortoise can live longer in captivity than any other animal.
- The pekingese is the royal dog of China.
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