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Undeniable Facts 4
The elephant, as a symbol of the US Republican Party, was originated by cartoonist Thomas Nast and first presented in 1874.
The English Romantic poet Lord Byron was so devastated upon the death of his beloved Newfoundland, whose name was Boatswain, that he had inscribed upon the dog's gravestone the following: "Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices."
The expression "three dog night" originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night - so cold that you have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.
The fastest bird is the Spine-tailed swift, clocked at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour.
The fastest -moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph.
The first house rats recorded in America appeared in Boston in 1775.
The first seeing-eye dog was presented to a blind person on April 25, 1938.
The giant squid is the largest creature without a backbone. It weighs up to 2.5 tons and grows up to 55 feet long. Each eye is a foot or more in diameter.
The honeybee kills more people world-wide than all the poisonous snakes combined.
The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.
The hummingbird, the loon, the swift, the kingfisher, and the grebe are all birds that cannot walk.
The Kiwi, national bird of New Zealand, can't fly. It lives in a hole in the ground, is almost blind, and lays only one egg each year. Despite this, it has survived for more than 70 million years.
The largest animal ever seen alive was a 113.5 foot, 170-ton female blue whale.
The largest bird egg in the world today is that of the ostrich. Ostrich eggs are from 6 to 8 inches long. Because of their size and the thickness of their shells, they take 40 minutes to hard-boil.
The largest ****roach on record is one measured at 3.81 inches in length.
The last member of the famous Bonaparte family, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, died in 1945, of injuries sustained from tripping over his dog's leash.
The male penguin incubates the single egg laid by his mate. During the two month period he does not eat, and will lose up to 40% of his body weight.
The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
The name of the dog from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" is Max.
The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box is Bingo.
The normal temperature of a cat is 101.5 degrees.
The only dog to ever appear in a Shakespearean play was Crab in The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
The Pacific Giant Octopus, the largest octopus in the world, grows from the size of pea to a 150 pound behemoth potentially 30 feet across in only two years, its entire life-span.
The penalty for killing a cat, 4,000 years ago in Egypt, was death.
The phrase "raining cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression.
The pigmy shrew - a relative of the mole - is the smallest mammal in North America. It weighs 1/14 ounce - less than a dime.
The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.
The poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
The smallest of the recognized dog breeds, the Chihuahua, is also the one that usually lives the longest. Named for the region of Mexico where they were first discovered in the mid-19th century, the Chihuahua can live anywhere between 11-18 years.
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History houses the world's largest shell collection, some 15 million specimens. A smaller museum in Sanibel, Florida owns a mere 2 million shells and claims to be the worlds only museum devoted solely to mollusks.
The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog."
The theobromine in chocolate that stimulates the cardiac and nervous systems is too much for dogs, especially smaller pups. A chocolate bar is poisonous to dogs and can even be lethal.
The turbot fish lays approximately 14 million eggs during its lifetime.
The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be its country of origin.
The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
The venom of a female black widow spider is more potent than that of a rattlesnake.
The world record frog jump is 33 feet 5.5 inches over the course of 3 consecutive leaps, achieved in May 1977 by a South African sharp-nosed frog called Santjie.
The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons.
The world's largest rodent is the Capybara. An Amazon water hog that looks like a guinea pig, it can weigh more than 100 pounds.
The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.
There are around 2,600 different species of frogs. They live on every continent except Antarctica.
There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
There are more than 100 million dogs and cats in the United States. Americans spend more than 5.4 billion dollars on their pets each year.
There are more than 900,000 known species of insects in the world.
There is no single cat called the panther. The name is commonly applied to the leopard, but it is also used to refer to the puma and the jaguar. A black panther is really a black leopard.
Though human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than man.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
Walt Disney's family dog was named Lady. She was a poodle.
When a domestic cat goes after mice, about one pounce in three results in a catch.
When a female horse and male donkey mate, the offspring is called a mule, but when a male horse and female donkey mate, the offspring is called a hinny.
When a queen bee lays the fertilized eggs that will develop into new queens, only one of the newly laid queens actually survives. The first new queen that emerges from her cell destroys all other queens in their cells and, thereafter, reigns alone.
When ants find food, they lay down a chemical trail, called a pheromone, so that other ants can find their way from the nest to the food source.
When the Black Death swept across England one theory was that cats caused the plague. Thousands were slaughtered. Ironically, those that kept their cats were less affected, because they kept their houses clear of the real culprits, rats.
Worker ants may live seven years and the queen may live as long as 15 years.
You're more likely to be a target for mosquitoes if you consume bananas.
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? Quantum Physics ? Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
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