30 Fascinating Animal Facts That You Can Pull Out On First Dates

1. The blobfish looks like a normal fish underwater, but since they are a deep sea fish, the depressurization make it look like what we see in pictures.

2. Bald eagles don’t sound like they do on TV. They dub over the call of a redtail hawk. Actual bald eagle calls sound more like a seagull.

Similarly, lion roars on TV are usually dubbed over with tiger roars, because an actual lion roar is usually too deep to record well so it sounds weak, but apparently is terrifying IRL.

3. Only female mosquitoes bite humans for blood. Males only drink nectar like butterflies.

4. Unlike humans, dolphins must actively decide when to breathe. Captive dolphins have been known to hold their breath until they die of suffocation, which some have suggested amounts to dolphin suicide.

5. A horse’s teeth take up more space in their skull than their brain.

6. Ravens can mimic sounds and speech like parrots can.

7. The Greenland shark reaches sexual maturity at 150 years old and lives 300-500 years. Always fascinates me that there’s something that can live that long.

8. Each ‘school’ of clownfish has one female, and a head male and the others (all males). If the female dies, the head male turns into a female.

9. When a specific species of carpenter ant realizes it’s going to lose the fight it’s having with another insect, it latches onto them and then blows itself the fuck up. Membranes along the ants body can be activated that’ll lead to combustion. Special enlarged glands in its head mean the explosion sends a glue-like substance shooting out that will very likely entrap the previously presumptive brawl victor.

10. In a fox couple, if the vixen dies, the male fox will become single for the rest of his life. Now if the male fox dies, the vixen goes off to find another partner.

11. Various species of tarantulas around the world will keep frogs as pets. The tarantula protects the frog from larger predators while the frog protects the spider from smaller pests such as ants.

12. A group of zebras are called a dazzle.

13. Zebras’ stripes are as unique as fingerprints, and they can tell each other apart.

14. Polar bear fur is actually clear.

15. Gorillas, along with other primates, can learn sign language to the point where even if they do not know a specific word for a specific object they can use their previous vocabulary to describe the word accurately.

Like for example, Koko the gorilla never learned the word for “ring”, so one day she pointed at a ring and signed the words; “finger-bracelet.”

16. Turtles can breath through their butts.

17. A snail can sleep for three years.

18. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny and is the only bird who can fly backwards.

19. Giraffes clean their own ears with their own tongue!

20. If frogs vomit, they vomit out their stomach, scraping out their contents, then swallowing it up again without dying.

21. A giraffe’s neck has only 7 bones.

22. Sloths sometimes grab their own arms, thinking they are branches, and thus fall to their death.

23. An immortal species of jellyfish! They can revert back to a sexually immature polyp to start its life over once it becomes old or sick.

24. The word for penguin in Mandarin translates to business goose.

25. A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes.

26. The octopus has 3 hearts.

27. Wombats have cubic poops. They literally shit bricks!

28. Caterpillars have over 200 muscles in just their head.

29. Owls bob their heads up and down to help improve their depth perception.

30. Sperm whales in the Caribbean have an accent.