The phrase “it’s never too late to learn” isn’t just a cliché. To many, it’s a motto guiding them forward.
For example, the Pew Research Center found that 73% of American adults consider themselves to be lifelong learners, and 74% are so-called personal learners; that is, they have read specialized material, taken courses, or attended events in the past 12 months tied to learning more about their personal interests.
80% of personal learners say their pursuit of knowledge is motivated by the desire to make their days more interesting and full. So what do you say we try and join them to see if it works?
We can start with a Reddit thread, created by platform user KnightsWhoSayKni, that invited everyone to share their favorite obscure animal facts, which is full of interesting trivia not too many of us are familiar with.
If you see a mountain lion, it has already decided to eat you.
If you’re camping and you hear an animal moving around, it’s probably a skunk or a beaver or a porcupine. Bears, moose, and other large animals are surprisingly snarky.
Dogs may make social judgements about people based on how those people treat their owners. A study out of Japan had dog owners asking two people for help opening a container. There were three possible outcomes. A person reacting negatively by refusing and turning away, a person remaining neutral and a person helping. The dogs were then offered food from the people the owner had approached for help. Dogs were much much less likely to accept food from the people who had refused to help their owners, and much more likely to accept food from those who had been neutral or who had helped.
Coral is an animal, related to jellyfish. Many coral species have a symbiotic relationship with a microorganism called zooxanthellae, which lives in their tissue and photosynthesizes like a plant, converting light into organic energy. Corals also deposit calcium carbonate and build huge geological structures, called reefs. The most massive structure ever created by any living organism on planet earth is a coral reef.
Corals are like a cross between animals, plants, and rocks, and they’re incredibly important for the health of our oceans, because reefs serve as a “nursery” for many, many marine species. Save the reefs.
Naked mole rats are very fkn weird animals.
They dont feel pain at all, except for chilli.
They can survive 30min without oxygen.
They cant regulate their body temperature.
Their incisors can work independently.
Noone has ever found cancer in a mole rat. They are thought to be immune to it.
They can live for 30 years.
Some species of burrowing tarantula let tiny frogs live in their burrows. The frogs are kept safe by the big, mean-a*s spider, and in exchange, they keep the burrow free of pests too small for the tarantula to deal with. This is pretty much how cats were domesticated.
Tiny frogs are tarantula cats.
Both animal and plant fact.
Avocados were evolved to be eaten by the giant ground sloth. Imagine a sloth, but so massive it could only live on the ground. The flesh attracted the sloth and the very large seed was “designed” to travel through their intestinal tract for re-seeding or whatever plants do.
Humans killed the sloth but loved the avo. We domesticated the avo to increase the yummy flesh. The pit has gotten smaller but is still very large. Whenever you eat an avo, think of the long extinct giant sloth.
There’s a parasite that needs to get inside a warm-blooded animal. Problem is, it lives in fresh water. It waits to get swallowed by a fish, then it attaches itself inside, “takes over” a part of the hosts brain, adjusting it’s behavior so the fish is not longer afraid of shadows. The fish is then more likely to get eaten by a Heron (large bird that stalks fresh water fish). And the parasite gets inside it’s warm-blooded host and does lord knows what
Thanks to Ricky Gervais for that (I think I might have butchered it a bit but it’s roughly along those lines)
Here’s a bonus one. Researchers took a leech, put it in a maze and put food at the other end. Eventually the leech figured out the route. They then liquidised the leech, fed that leech to other leeches, and those leeches were able to complete the maze on the first try. They had “acquired” the other leech’s memory
That’s technically three facts but I like fish.
The American bison is the only animal in which both lungs share a common cavity. In every other animal the lungs are separated. What this meant is that when shot by an arrow, both lungs would collapse and the buffalo would suffocate quickly. (For other animals, being shot in the chest would only collapse one lung, and they would at least have a chance) That’s why such a large animal could be taken down with relatively small weapons.
Ants breed and domesticate aphids around their colonies, so they can drink their milky secretions. Aphids are ant cows. So ladybugs, then, would be like ant chupacabras.
Crocodiles never die of old age. They continue to live and grow for as long as there is a sustainable food source around. Most crocs die because they’re killed by humans or they grow to big and die of starvation because they can’t eat enough to sustain themselves.
The Duckbill Plataypus is no bigger than a house cat and has venomous claws.
There’s a thing called a deer mouse that is a type of mouse and a mouse-deer which is like a minature deer.
Mouse-deers are freaking adorable.
Squirrels are responsible for thousands of new trees every year. They collect and bury their nuts all over the place so they’ll have food to last thru winter, but they forget about most of them.
Scientists thought the platypus was a joke until they send a dead one back to be studied.
Armadillos are the only animals aside from humans that can contact and spread leprosy
There’s more genetic diversity in two chimpanzees from different troops than in two humans living in different continents.
The only thing separating the chimps? A river.
Humans are inbred as f**k.
The phrase "it's never too late to learn" isn't just a cliché. To many, it's a motto guiding them forward.
For example, the Pew Research Center found that 73% of American adults consider themselves to be lifelong learners, and 74% are so-called personal learners; that is, they have read specialized material, taken courses, or attended events in the past 12 months tied to learning more about their personal interests.
80% of personal learners say their pursuit of knowledge is motivated by the desire to make their days more interesting and full. So what do you say we try and join them to see if it works?
We can start with a Reddit thread, created by platform user KnightsWhoSayKni, that invited everyone to share their favorite obscure animal facts, which is full of interesting trivia not too many of us are familiar with.
If you see a mountain lion, it has already decided to eat you.
If you're camping and you hear an animal moving around, it's probably a skunk or a beaver or a porcupine. Bears, moose, and other large animals are surprisingly snarky.
Dogs may make social judgements about people based on how those people treat their owners. A study out of Japan had dog owners asking two people for help opening a container. There were three possible outcomes. A person reacting negatively by refusing and turning away, a person remaining neutral and a person helping. The dogs were then offered food from the people the owner had approached for help. Dogs were much much less likely to accept food from the people who had refused to help their owners, and much more likely to accept food from those who had been neutral or who had helped.
Coral is an animal, related to jellyfish. Many coral species have a symbiotic relationship with a microorganism called zooxanthellae, which lives in their tissue and photosynthesizes like a plant, converting light into organic energy. Corals also deposit calcium carbonate and build huge geological structures, called reefs. The most massive structure ever created by any living organism on planet earth is a coral reef.
Corals are like a cross between animals, plants, and rocks, and they’re incredibly important for the health of our oceans, because reefs serve as a “nursery” for many, many marine species. Save the reefs.
Naked mole rats are very fkn weird animals.
They dont feel pain at all, except for chilli.
They can survive 30min without oxygen.
They cant regulate their body temperature.
Their incisors can work independently.
Noone has ever found cancer in a mole rat. They are thought to be immune to it.
They can live for 30 years.
Some species of burrowing tarantula let tiny frogs live in their burrows. The frogs are kept safe by the big, mean-a*s spider, and in exchange, they keep the burrow free of pests too small for the tarantula to deal with. This is pretty much how cats were domesticated.
Tiny frogs are tarantula cats.
Both animal and plant fact.
Avocados were evolved to be eaten by the giant ground sloth. Imagine a sloth, but so massive it could only live on the ground. The flesh attracted the sloth and the very large seed was "designed" to travel through their intestinal tract for re-seeding or whatever plants do.
Humans killed the sloth but loved the avo. We domesticated the avo to increase the yummy flesh. The pit has gotten smaller but is still very large. Whenever you eat an avo, think of the long extinct giant sloth.
There's a parasite that needs to get inside a warm-blooded animal. Problem is, it lives in fresh water. It waits to get swallowed by a fish, then it attaches itself inside, "takes over" a part of the hosts brain, adjusting it's behavior so the fish is not longer afraid of shadows. The fish is then more likely to get eaten by a Heron (large bird that stalks fresh water fish). And the parasite gets inside it's warm-blooded host and does lord knows what
Thanks to Ricky Gervais for that (I think I might have butchered it a bit but it's roughly along those lines)
Here's a bonus one. Researchers took a leech, put it in a maze and put food at the other end. Eventually the leech figured out the route. They then liquidised the leech, fed that leech to other leeches, and those leeches were able to complete the maze on the first try. They had "acquired" the other leech's memory
That's technically three facts but I like fish.
The American bison is the only animal in which both lungs share a common cavity. In every other animal the lungs are separated. What this meant is that when shot by an arrow, both lungs would collapse and the buffalo would suffocate quickly. (For other animals, being shot in the chest would only collapse one lung, and they would at least have a chance) That's why such a large animal could be taken down with relatively small weapons.
Ants breed and domesticate aphids around their colonies, so they can drink their milky secretions. Aphids are ant cows. So ladybugs, then, would be like ant chupacabras.
Crocodiles never die of old age. They continue to live and grow for as long as there is a sustainable food source around. Most crocs die because they're killed by humans or they grow to big and die of starvation because they can't eat enough to sustain themselves.
The Duckbill Plataypus is no bigger than a house cat and has venomous claws.
There's a thing called a deer mouse that is a type of mouse and a mouse-deer which is like a minature deer.
Mouse-deers are freaking adorable.
Squirrels are responsible for thousands of new trees every year. They collect and bury their nuts all over the place so they'll have food to last thru winter, but they forget about most of them.
Scientists thought the platypus was a joke until they send a dead one back to be studied.
Armadillos are the only animals aside from humans that can contact and spread leprosy
There’s more genetic diversity in two chimpanzees from different troops than in two humans living in different continents.
The only thing separating the chimps? A river.
Humans are inbred as f**k.
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