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27/10/2022

Looking for fun and interesting facts about a Jerboa? Learn about this amazing mammal and discover other animals from tiny insects to giant mammals!

27/10/2022

Interesting facts about jerboas

Fact 1. In total, there are about 50 species of jerboas in the world, and they are all very small. Their smallest varieties grow up to only 3-4 centimeters! A distinctive feature of these small rodents is that all of them have a tail that is longer than the body itself. Interestingly, the word “jerboa” itself comes from the Turkic “tyshkan”, which means “mole”, although these animals have nothing in common with moles.

Fact 2. The largest jerboas are earthen hares. With a body length of up to 30 cm, they can weigh up to 300 grams, which is noticeably more than all other members of the genus. These animals are found only on our continent, and are found everywhere from Eastern Europe almost to the Far East.

Fact 3. In China and Mongolia, these animals create problems for the services involved in combating desertification. If in some area they do not have a large number of natural enemies, they actively reproduce, while causing significant damage to plants that are planted to protect the soil from weathering.

Fact 4. Jerboas are often carriers of various diseases, some of which are transmitted to humans. The most dangerous of them is the plague, the same “black death” that in the Middle Ages mowed down the population of entire cities and countries. In 2020, an outbreak of plague due to eating jerboas was recorded in Mongolia, but, fortunately, it was immediately localized.

Fact 5. The Balochistan jerboa is one of the two smallest rodents in the world, along with the northern pygmy hamster. Adults have an average body length of 36 mm, and their tail is twice as long. These babies are found only in Pakistan, and are not found anywhere else in the world.

Fact 6. The ancestors of jerboas appeared on Earth about 23-33 million years ago, but their modern descendants are not like them in everything. Scientists have established that the jerboa family originated about 8 million years ago somewhere in Asia. It is there, by the way, that most of their different species are found in our time. But in Europe they all died out.

Fact 7. Family ties between jerboas from the same litter do not last long. As cubs, they feel kinship, but by the age of 3 months these rodents begin to show aggression towards relatives, even towards their own brothers, sisters and parents. Therefore, they settle away from each other - each individual needs a piece of terrain that can be considered “their own”.

Fact 8. Only three types of jerboas can be kept as pets - furry, large and small. All others in captivity quickly wither away, refuse to breed, lose the will to live, and in the end simply die.

Fact 9. The length of their hind limbs exceeds the length of the front ones by 3-4 times. They need muscular hind legs for movement, as jerboas move by jumping like kangaroos. However, some species of these animals can move slowly on four legs, and not just on the hind legs. But most prefer to jump.

Fact 10. The appearance of jerboas directly depends on the conditions in which they live. For example, the further south they live, the larger their ears are, since it is hotter in the south, and large ears, pierced by many blood vessels, help them to remove excess heat.

27/10/2022

Interesting facts about shellfish

Fact 1: There are too many different types of mollusks in the world to count them reliably. According to scientists, there are 100-200 thousand species of them on our planet, but not all of them have been described and studied yet. Although this is nothing compared to insects - about 1 million species of them have been described, but even more of them still remain unexplored.

Fact 2. The world's largest mollusk with a shell is a giant tridacna, which can be seen off the coast of Palau. Tridacna reach a diameter of up to 1.2-1.3 meters and weigh up to 200-250 kg. But the largest by mass remains the colossal squid that lives in the Southern Ocean, washing the shores of Antarctica. Somewhat inferior in length to the giant squid, these creatures grow up to 9-10 meters in length and have a mass of up to 450-500 kg.

Fact 3. About 500 species of cone mollusks are found in the seas and oceans of our planet. This family got its name due to the special shape of the shell. They are beautiful, but very dangerous - all cones are poisonous, and the poison of some of them is deadly to humans. So, according to statistics, on average in the Pacific Ocean every year only one person becomes a victim of sharks, and two or three victims of cones.

Fact 4. Land molluscs are many thousands of times smaller than the largest marine species. The largest land dweller among them is the giant Achatina snail, a garden pest, which, however, some lovers keep as a pet. But, despite this name, Achatina in adulthood usually does not exceed a length of 10 cm, although individual specimens grow to a length of more than 20 cm.

Fact 5: Some deep-sea molluscs can withstand pressure better than hardened steel. The researchers managed to find them at a depth of more than 11,000 meters, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, where even fish do not live. Only a few devices in the world are able to dive to such a depth and withstand the monstrous pressure of the water column, and these creatures live quietly there, not seeing sunlight.

Fact 6. The smallest mollusks in the world are ammoniceres. Adults rarely reach sizes larger than 0.5 mm, and that's along with the shell!

Fact 7. Many scientists believe that even larger cephalopods, giant squids up to 25 meters in size, are found in the ocean depths. It has not yet been possible to confirm or disprove this theory, but most oceanologists agree that in the past cephalopods of incredible size did exist.

Fact 8. Everyone is familiar with the legend of the kraken, a giant octopus or squid that can sink a ship. Of course, this is just a marine legend, but there is one documented case of the sinking of a ship by such a “kraken”. In 1874, the Indian schooner Pal was sunk by a giant cephalopod, which she attacked with a cannon shot. The monster capsized the ship, it lay on its side and sank. It all happened in the Indian Ocean, near the city of Bombay, which is now called Mumbai.

Fact 9. Mollusks appeared on our planet over 500,000,000 years ago, hundreds of millions of years before evolution created the first dinosaurs. Some of them, such as certain types of ammonites, had shells up to several meters in diameter, while others were quite small.

Fact 10. The largest number of teeth among all living creatures can boast of one of the mollusks - an ordinary gastropod snail. Her teeth are very tiny, you can’t see them without a microscope, but there are about 25,000 of them. I wonder who counted them?

25/10/2022

Interesting facts about ostriches

Fact 1. There is only one species of ostrich in the world - African, although it is divided into several subspecies. Now these birds, the largest on Earth, are found only in Africa, but in the past they were widespread in the Middle East. But emus, the second largest birds in the world that are found in Australia, belong to the cassowaries. Previously, they were also referred to the ostrich family, but in the 80s of the XX century the classification was revised.

Fact 2. An adult ostrich can weigh more than 150 kg and reach a height of 250-270 cm, which is taller than any person. When running, they are able to reach speeds of up to 70 km / h, moving in jumps up to 4 meters long. This, however, is still modest compared to the cheetah, which, when sprinting, makes jumps twice as long and accelerates to 110-130 km / h.

Fact 3. Ostriches are extremely strong, and they are dangerous for all predators without exception, so in the wild they do not become their victims so often. In case of danger, these birds prefer to run away, but when necessary, they stop to fight back. With one blow of a muscular leg, armed with a powerful claw, they can kill a lion or a man.

Fact 4. These birds can go without water for a long time, getting the moisture they need along with plant foods, which form the basis of the diet of ostriches. However, they love water, and on occasion they not only drink it with pleasure, but also bathe.

Fact 5. Contrary to popular belief, ostriches never hide their heads in the sand. Noticing the danger, they sit down on the ground and spread out on it, trying to merge with the terrain and become invisible. If it becomes clear that the disguise has not worked, the bird immediately jumps up and runs away. Well, or attacks - that's how lucky. But getting in the way of an angry ostrich is definitely not worth it, it is life-threatening.

Fact 6. Ostriches were so actively exterminated for the sake of their feathers that they had every chance to disappear forever from the face of the planet. They were saved only by the fact that they began to be bred on farms, and now there are such farms in more than 50 countries of the world, including Russia. Both the feathers of these birds and their meat, tasty and quite healthy, are highly valued.

Fact 7. Probably, thousands of years ago, ostriches were also found in Asia, and primitive people successfully hunted them. So, in Denisova Cave, in the Altai Territory, archaeologists discovered primitive jewelry made from ostrich egg shells, made about 40-50 thousand years ago.

Fact 8. An ostrich that has just hatched from an egg weighs more than 1 kg. A day later, he is able to follow his parents and keep up, and at the age of one month, the chicks can already run almost as fast as adults, reaching speeds of up to 50 km / h. Ostriches live about the same as we humans, on average, 70-75 years.

Fact 9. Their chicks are so tightly attached to each other that they can no longer leave their relatives. Problems arise when two or more groups of chicks mix, after which it is no longer possible to separate them. In such cases, the parent ostriches fight each other. The outcome of such a fight is usually fatal, and as a reward, the winning parents receive all the chicks at once, both their own and not their own. In this case, they will take care of all of them equally.

Fact 10. An ostrich egg weighs more than 1 kg, and its shell is half a centimeter thick. To eat them, people usually have to cut the shell with a hacksaw. Vultures often steal these eggs, but they are not able to break the shell with their beak, so they lift them to a great height and throw them down. Often the eggs withstand such a fall, so the vultures have to repeat this procedure several times.

25/10/2022

Interesting Snake Facts

Fact 1. Snakes are widespread throughout the world, in total, about 3,000 species of these reptiles have been studied and described by scientists, and the vast majority of them are not poisonous. They are found on all continents except Antarctica, but they are also not found on some islands in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. For example, they are neither in Ireland nor in New Zealand, and the New Zealand authorities are very vigilant in ensuring that no one imports snakes into the country, fearing their invasion. So, living in this country, you won’t be able to start a terrarium - it’s illegal.

Fact 2. The longest snake in the world is the reticulated python, ubiquitous in Southeast and South Asia. Sometimes it grows up to 7 meters in length! But the heaviest of the snakes remains the anaconda, a water boa that lives in South America. Only slightly inferior to reticulated pythons in length, anacondas have a mass of up to 70 kg or more.

Fact 3. The smallest snakes in the world are found on the island of Barbados. This is a species of Tetracheilostoma carlae, adults of which are about 10 cm long. They feed on various small insects, mainly termites. Interestingly, during reproduction, the females of this species lay a single egg, but the cub, after hatching from it, reaches a size of 5 cm, that is, half the length of the body of an adult snake.

Fact 4. All species of snakes have one physiological feature - the left and right parts of their jaws are not rigidly connected to each other. This allows them to open their mouths incredibly wide, swallowing prey that is much larger than the most scaly predator. It is this, among several other features, that distinguishes them from legless lizards, which look exactly like snakes to most people.

Fact 5. Snakes do not have moving eyelids. More precisely, they have eyelids, but they are actually transparent scales that are always in a closed state, protecting the eyeballs. So these reptiles sleep with open eyes - they have no other eyelids.

Fact 6. Some snakes have very poor eyesight, while others, on the contrary, are quite sharp. But even for the latter, it does not serve to orientate in the area, but to detect the movement of potential prey and other objects. Therefore, when meeting with a potentially dangerous snake, the most reasonable solution would be to freeze in place - it most likely will not be able to recognize a stationary object.

Fact 7. Snakes actually crawl quite slowly. Their fastest species are able to move on land at a speed of about 1.6 meters per second, which is comparable to the speed of a pedestrian, although in water many of them move much faster. So you can run away from the snake, but do not forget that the reaction of these creatures is phenomenally fast.

Fact 8. By the number of vertebrae in the spine, snakes are champions among all terrestrial creatures of the Earth. Depending on the species, their number can vary from 200-250 to 450. A person has 33, sometimes 34, since some people have 3 vertebrae in the coccyx, and some have 4.

Fact 9. Snakes have existed on our planet since ancient times, fossil finds indicate that they appeared at least 165-167 million years ago. Scientists have also found that some of their extinct species fed on dinosaur eggs.

Fact 10. In the past, on the territory of modern Colombia, in the rain forests, there were monstrous snakes - titanoboa. Apparently, they were relatives of modern boas, but grew up to 15 meters in length and weighed more than 1 ton. Titanoboa became extinct about 58 million years ago.

23/10/2022

Interesting facts about swans

Fact 1. There are only 6 species of swans, and many of them are listed in the Red Book. All of them are similar to each other with a large and overweight physique, as well as an unusually long neck. Such a neck helps them to lower their heads down, under the water, and look for food there, without diving. Another 10 species of swans are extinct animals, and some of them were about a third larger than their modern relatives.

Fact 2. These are the largest waterfowl on Earth, they can gain weight up to 12-15 kg and grow up to 1? 8 meters in length. The wingspan of swans can exceed 3 meters! This is significantly more than their closest relatives, which, from the point of view of zoology, are geese and ducks.

Fact 3. Swan feathers never get wet, no matter how much time these birds spend in the water. Above the short tail they have a special gland that secretes an oily substance with which they lubricate their feathers. This not only makes them waterproof, but also improves their thermoregulation, protecting them from hypothermia.

Fact 4. Swans are known for their loyalty and monogamy. And indeed, they choose a partner for themselves once and for life! But in the event of the death of this partner, they usually find a new one for themselves, and usually quite quickly, already by the next breeding season.

Fact 5. Swans look very elegant and graceful, but nature has not endowed them with beautiful voices. In an irritated state, these birds hiss like geese, rather loudly and unpleasantly. And in case of dissatisfaction with the presence of a person, they spread their wings, lower their heads down and begin to pinch, and it is very painful.

Fact 6. There are often myths that swans live for almost a hundred years, but they are far from reality. The record holder bird lived in captivity for 40 years, the owner of the second place in longevity - 28 years, but these are rather exceptions. With good care, swans can live for more than 20 years, and in the wild they usually live no more than 10-12 years.

Fact 7. In most birds, the chicks leave the parental nest soon after they learn to fly. But with swans, everything is different - they take care of the chicks for a year, sometimes even two years. All this time they teach them the wisdom of life. However, at this age, the chicks are likely to survive, even if left without parents.

Fact 8. Due to the significant mass of the body, swans take off quite hard, they flap their wings for a long time and strain their paws, trying to take off. For the same reason, they cannot land on the ground - they can only land on water. If they try to land on a hard surface, they will most likely be hurt.

Fact 9. The most common species of swans in the world is black, which lives in Australia and New Zealand. The population of these birds has, according to various estimates, from 100 thousand to 1 million individuals, so they are not threatened with extinction. Interestingly, unlike their other relatives, black swans do not belong to migratory birds.

Fact 10. Swans are the champions in the number of feathers, there are about 25 thousand of them in adults on the body! But during molting, this number decreases, as the bird loses part of its plumage. Problems for her are also created by the fact that during the molt she cannot take off, which increases her chances of becoming a victim of some predator.

21/10/2022

Did you know that although polar bears look white, they actually have black skin? Discover several wondrous and fascinating facts about animals.

21/10/2022

The animal kingdom is certainly varied, with an estimated 7.77 million kinds of creatures on the earth. While the richness of earth's biodiversity is well recog

21/10/2022

Interesting facts about mice

Fact 1. In total, there are about 500 species of mice in the world, of which 13 are found in Russia. These small rodents willingly settle next to people, and after us they spread throughout the world. Now they are found in huge numbers on all continents except Antarctica. Most mice are considered pests, as in some regions they cause significant damage to the agricultural industry.

Fact 2. Baby mice are so called because they are the smallest of all, adults reach only 5-7 cm in length. Moreover, these are generally one of the smallest mammals on the planet; in this parameter, only two species of shrews and one species of bats bypass them. These are the smallest of the rodents in Europe, and in Russia, by the way, they are also widespread.

Fact 3. The southern slender-tailed rat, despite the name, also belongs to mice. This is the largest representative of this family, adult animals grow up to 35-45 cm in length and weigh up to 1-2 kg. These creatures are found only in the Philippines, mainly in Luzon, the main island of the archipelago.

Fact 4. Common house mice are one of the most common mammals in the world. They are found everywhere except Antarctica, the Far North and the highlands, and, despite the name, they do not necessarily live near people. It’s just that on occasion they willingly adapt to us, which is why these small rodents were called that.

Fact 5. Mice living in the wild often migrate short distances in autumn, within 3-5 kilometers. They know that soon there will be little food, and therefore they strive to move from forests and fields closer to human habitation and industrial buildings, where it is warm and where it will be easier to find food. Therefore, before the onset of winter cold, real mouse invasions sometimes occur.

Fact 6. Thanks to mice, mankind has managed to significantly advance medicine. Like rats, they have been used as laboratory animals for centuries. In July 2013, a monument to the laboratory mouse was unveiled in the Novosibirsk Academgorodok to honor the contribution of these animals to science.

Fact 7. Common vole mice lead a solitary lifestyle, if they have such an opportunity, and on average each animal has about 1000 m² of territory, which it considers “its own”. But in conditions of high population density, they form either families of a male with a harem of females, or entire colonies like rats.

Fact 8. The daily routine of mice is very peculiar, as they get tired quickly, but they also cannot sleep for a long time. Therefore, they have 20-25 cycles of sleep and wakefulness per day, which last from several tens of minutes to several hours.

Fact 9. In the south of the Atlantic Ocean there is a small uninhabited island of Gough, where house mice were accidentally brought in the 19th century. In the absence of natural enemies, the rodents bred monstrously, today their population on Gough is estimated at 700,000 individuals. They cause great harm to the albatrosses nesting here, eating their eggs and chicks, so that in 2019 the UK, which owns the island, even allocated a large amount of money to the Gough rodent control project.

Fact 10. House mice in nature eat mainly seeds and shoots of wild and cultivated plants. But, having settled side by side with people, they abruptly cease to be fastidious, and begin to eat everything that their bodies can absorb, from meat and chocolate to glue and other non-food products.

21/10/2022

Interesting facts about reptiles

Fact 1. The largest terrestrial predator on Earth, the combed crocodile, belongs to reptiles. It used to be thought that the largest land predator was the polar bear, but recent research has shown that combed crocodiles, distant descendants of dinosaurs, are even larger and weigh more.

Fact 2. In total, scientists have now described almost 10,900 different types of reptiles. However, they are all cold-blooded creatures, so they live in warm and even hot countries. In vast Russia, for example, there are only 77 different species of them, because our climate is too harsh for these creatures.

Fact 3. Of all vertebrate animals on our planet, it is reptiles that hold the record for the number of segments in the spine. Some species of snakes have up to 450 vertebrae.

Fact 4. Contrary to popular belief, reptiles can taste food. But most of them do not have taste buds on the tongue, like you and I do - their organs (taste buds) responsible for taste perception are usually located in the throat.

Fact 5. Many of them have a very developed sense of touch. The crocodile, covered with thick, armor-like skin, feels the slightest touch on it. Even turtles immediately feel a light touch on the bone shell.

Fact 6. Birds once evolved from reptiles. It's simple - their distant ancestors were dinosaurs, which, as you know, belonged to this particular class of living creatures. Therefore, many of them have preserved scales, for example, on the paws of chickens.

Fact 7. Once it was the class of reptiles that ruled this planet. They dominated not only on land, but also in the air and in the water. Then evolution put everything in its place.

Fact 8. Everyone is afraid of poisonous snakes. In fact, less than 50 species of reptiles have venom strong enough to be dangerous to humans. And this despite the fact that on Earth there are about 5,000 species of various poisonous creatures.

Fact 9. Previously, reptiles, along with amphibians, were included in the class “reptiles”, as cold-blooded terrestrial vertebrates. Later, a new classification was adopted, modern, although some scientists still adhere to the classical one.

Fact 10. Most representatives of this class existed on Earth in the Cretaceous period, which began and ended about 145 and 66 million years ago, respectively. Why most of them, including dinosaurs, became extinct is a mystery

18/10/2022

Interesting facts about hamsters

Fact 1. Many people like hamsters - cute and fluffy, these rodents make great pets. Few people know that they are able to fly into a rage and turn into real little berserkers. Therefore, keeping two male hamsters in one cage at home is fraught with sad consequences - these animals, without dividing anything, are quite capable of starting a fight not for life, but to death, literally tearing each other to shreds. In addition, in the wild they lead a solitary lifestyle.

Fact 2. Hamsters are known for their thriftiness. At one time, they are able to push into their cheek pouches an amount of food, by weight, equal to 15020% of their own body! It's like people carrying 15-20 kg of food in their mouths. But this is not the only use of cheek pouches - with their help, hamsters swim. By inflating their cheeks with air, they use them as floats that help them float on the surface of the water.

Fact 3. In the wild, one hamster prepares up to 60-80 kg of food for the winter, or even more. This is much more than he can eat, but these animals always stock up as much as they can. Other rodents act in a similar way - squirrels, which, moreover, often forget the places of their storages. From the nuts they have stored, new trees sometimes sprout in the spring.

Fact 4. Like other rodents, in hamsters, the front incisors grow throughout their lives, and they are forced to constantly gnaw something in order to grind them down. But at the same time, they are one of the very few animal species that are born already with teeth.

Fact 5. Hamsters living in North America are famous for their craving for theft of small shiny objects, just like magpies or raccoons. Often at the place of the theft you can find twigs, nuts or other small things, which gave rise to the legend that hamsters make an exchange in this way. But in reality, everything is more prosaic - when they see something shiny, they simply leave what they are dragging at the moment in this place and grab a new, more interesting thing for them.

Fact 6. There are about 400 species of hamsters on Earth, and among them there are quite large ones, growing up to 30-35 cm in length. But Syrian hamsters, popular with rodent lovers, have long been listed in the International Red Book. In Russia, there are only 12 species of these animals, and in Vietnam their keeping is prohibited by law. Local authorities consider them carriers of dangerous diseases, like rats, and therefore violators face a fine of up to ~2000 dollars.

Fact 7. In the wild, hamsters rarely travel a significant distance from their home in search of food. But still, they need to put energy somewhere, so those of them that are kept as pets are constantly running around in their wheel. Scientists even calculated that if this wheel were not fixed, but rolled on a flat surface, a domestic hamster would roll away 10-12 kilometers in a day.

Fact 8. Since hamsters spend most of their lives on the ground, in the grass, they do not need sharp eyesight. It is really weak for them, and they do not distinguish colors at all. But they have an excellent sense of smell and keen hearing, which allows them to smell food at a great distance and sensitively respond to the slightest signs of danger.

Fact 9. In nature, hamsters equip themselves with long holes, up to 2.5-3 meters. Moreover, they build a complex system of passages with branches and separate “rooms” for sleeping, storing supplies and managing natural needs. This makes them related to chipmunks, other rodents that build their homes in a similar way.

Fact 10. Female chipmunks, already pregnant, can slow down the development of embryos and delay the birth of new offspring, if they are still nursing the previous one. This ability is rare in the animal kingdom, although it is, in particular, in kangaroos.

18/10/2022

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