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- City squirrels will eat just about anything, and often, it's the junk food that people offer them that they prefer, like Cracker Jack peanuts. Many naturalists have concluded that a peanut diet is harmful to squirrels: it seems to result in a weakening of eyesight and a thinning of the animal's pelt.
- A skunk will not bite and throw its scent at the same time.
- The Mola Mola, or Ocean Sunfish, lays up to 5,000,000 eggs at one time.
- Mother prairie dogs will nurse their young only while underground in the safety of the burrow. If an infant tries to suckle above ground, the mother will slap it.
- The more that is learned about the ecological benefits of bats, the more home gardeners are going out of their way to entice these amazing winged mammals into their neighborhoods. Bats are voracious insect eaters, devouring as many as 600 bugs per hour for 4 to 6 hours a night. They can eat from one-half to three-quarters their weight per evening. Bats are also important plant pollinators, particularly in the southwestern U.S.
- The chameleon has a tongue that is 1.5 times the length of its body.
- Mother-of pearl is not always white. It can be pink, blue, purple, gray, or even green. Nor is it produced only by the pearl oyster. The abalone and the pearl mussel both have shells that are lined with fine-quality mother-of-pearl.
- Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
- Boredom can lead to madness in parrots. When caged by themselves and neglected for long periods of time, these intelligent, sociable birds can easily become mentally ill. Many inflict wounds upon themselves, develop strange tics, and rip out their own feathers. The birds need constant interaction, affection, and mental stimulation; some bird authorities have determined that some parrot breeds have the mental abilities of a 5-year-old human child. Should a neglected parrot go mad, there is little that can be done to restore it to normalcy. In England, there are "mental institutions" for such unfortunate creatures.
- The smallest of American owls, the elf owl, often nests in the Gila woodpecker’s cactus hole after the woodpecker leaves. The owl measures barely 6 inches tall. It specializes in catching scorpions, seizing each by the tail and nipping off its stinger. It then swallows the scorpion’s body, pincers and all.
- As much as 40-percent of the entire world's varieties of freshwater fish are to be found in the Amazon River basin. There are about 8,600 species of birds in the entire world, and more than half of them are also represented in this area.
- The Portuguese jellyfish tentacles have been known to grow a mile in length, catching anything in it's path by stinging it's prey.
- The African lungfish can live out of water for up to four years.
- Cats can run slightly more than 30 miles per hour.
- Male birds actually do most of the singing, primarily to stake out their territory and to invite females of their species over to mate. Females tend to select as mates those male birds who sing the most. It is believed they do this not because they like the quality of the singing, but because they have learned the males who sing the most have the most food in their territory. Since the male doesn't have to spend much time hunting for food, it has more time to sing.
- At birth a panda is smaller than a mouse and weighs about four ounces.
- The flying gurnard, a fish, swims in water, walks on land, and flies through the air.
- Contrary to popular belief, elephants are not afraid of mice, and they do not have any better memory than any other animal.
- Despite being a nine-inch-tall bird, the roadrunner can run as fast as a human sprinter.
- While there are hundreds of species of sharks, only about seven are marketed and eaten with any regularity in the United States.
- The largest species of seahorse measures 8 inches.
- A camel can lose up to 30 percent of its body weight in perspiration and continue to cross the desert. A human would die of heat shock after sweating away only 12 percent of body weight.
- There are about 500 different kinds of cone snails around the world. All have a sharp, modified tooth that stabs prey with venom like a harpoon. Most cone snails hunt worms and other snails, but some eat fish. These are the ones most dangerous to people. The nerve toxin that stops a fish is powerful enough to also kill a human.
- The leech has 32 brains, 32 more than most humans.
- The blow of a whale has a strong, foul odor. It apparently smells like a combination of spoiled fish and old oil. Because whales have such terrible breath, sailors believed at one time that a whiff of it could cause brain disorders.
- The last of a cat's senses to develop is sight.
- Mussels can thrive in polluted water because of an inborn ability to purify bacteria, fungi, and viruses.
- Because birds carrying messages were often killed in flight by hawks, medieval Arabs made a habit of sending important messages twice.
- Since housecats are clean and their coats are dry and glossy, their fur easily becomes charged with electricity. Sparks can be seen if their fur is rubbed in the dark.
- The jackrabbit is not a rabbit; it is a hare.
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