Hey, you know what there's a lot of cool facts about? Animals. Like, there's so many of them and they have so many fascinating and interesting traits. Like, um...
Why don't we leave it to the people below to lighten our day with some outrageous facts?
Reddit user, u/brandork__135, wanted to know the cookiest and craziest animal deets when they asked:
What is the most obscure animal fact you know?
They Hold Them To A High Bird Standard
My favourite one is about the ravens at the Tower of London.
They can be (and have been) dishonorably discharged for poor behaviour. Such as Raven George, who was posted to the Welsh Mountain Zoo in 1983 due to "conduct unsatisfactory, service no longer required", after he fell in with a bad crowd and started attacking TV aerials.
There's quite a few more that have been discharged for "conduct unbecoming Tower residents", but Raven George is my absolute favourite <3
That Way They Can Rock Forever
Giphy
Lobsters are one of the few species on earth that do not naturally undergo the process known as senescence.
This means their body/cells do not deteriorate with age. Besides being captured or eaten, the only thing that can kill a lobster is the stress produced by shedding its exoskeleton.
Inner Protection On The Outside
The reason why marsupials have pouches.
It is because their bodies don't have a standard placenta like most mammals, offering no protection for embryos against the mothers immune system. So instead they are born super early, and the newborn marsupial will crawl into the mothers pouch, clamp down on a nipple in the pouch, and wait in there until they are properly developed.
The War of The Rats
There are two distinct species of rats in Manhattan. Rat colonies are very territorial and will fight off other rats looking to join the colony. The young rats will actually practice boxing with one another and rat colonies will go to war with one another
Also, there's a group called R.A.T.S. of folks in NYC with rat terriers who go out hunting rats and post hunt reports online.
Doesn't Matter Egg-Size, They're Still Terrifying
Ostrich eggs are both the largest and the smallest.
- They are the largest viable single cell that exists in the world today.
- They are the smallest bird egg in proportion to the size of the mother
Now For Some Sadness...
Female ferrets just die after two weeks of being in heat and not finding a mate
Kanga And Roo Only Head One Direction In The 100 Acre Wood
Kangaroos cannot hop backwards.
How Do You Humans Only Operate With One Heart?
When octopuses (and yes that is the correct pluralization) swim, they are at risk of one their three hearts stopping
Never Eat What You Can't
Horses and rabbits can't vomit.
If they eat something they shouldn't or get food poisoning it could be very bad.
Slowest Death Imaginable
Sloths have so many bacteria over their claws that if they hurt you with [them] you can die for infection if you do nothing
No One Can Hear You Scream
Giraffes does not have vocal chords.
They can't make sounds unlike other animals.
Sinister Cuddles
Pandas sometimes are unaware that they have given birth and in some locations roll over and suffocate the baby.
Neither A Grower Nor Shower
Gorilla's, despite being the largest primate have the smallest penis.
The average gorilla penis is only 1.5 inches long when fully erect.
That Took A Turn...
Otter mates hold hands while asleep to avoid drifting away
Males also rape baby seals to death
...what was that now?
At the end of mating season, some ducks penises will fall off and then regrow next season
Humans Didn't Do Everything First
Giphy
We are not the first to invent farming.
The leaf cutter ants do not cut the leaves for themselves to eat. They bring those cut pieces into their nests where they 'grow' fungus on them, tending to them very carefully, making sure they get just the right amount of moisture, ventilation, etc. Once the fungus is grown they eat the fungus.
Essentially, ants invented farming a good 50 million years before we did.
A Few For The Road
- The nasal passage of chimpanzees and other apes are connected directly to their lungs, completely separate from the esophagus. Thus, they cannot choke on food like we can. Our throats have developed an epiglottis, which is the flap that opens when we breathe and closes when we swallow. This and other features of the pharynx make possible many more variations of sound compared to other primates.
- Animals of the same species or genus tend to be bigger when they live in cold climates. For instance, white-tailed deer that live near the equator are smaller than the same deer in northern latitudes. The same has been observed of birds, raccoons, cougars, and elk to name a few. This is because larger bodies have a smaller surface-to-volume ratio than do smaller bodies, which helps keep an animal warm. In other words, there is less heat-loss per square inch of body surface.
- Owls's eyes are fixed in their skull, which explains their signature behavior of head turning and bobbing in an effort to improve focus and depth perception.
What's an obscure animal fact you know of? Share it with us!
Some scams are not so criminal and are actually legit; however, they make consumers feel as though they've been taken advantage of.
"What's the biggest scam in America?"
Some people don't think twice about certain transactions.
Hidden Concert Fees
"Surprised no one mentioned ticketmaster yet."
– hopsteiner420
"They jack the ticket prices up with tons of hidden fees."
"A ticket will be priced at $50. Then Ticketmaster will tack on all kinds of bullsh*t like 'venue fees,' 'service fees,' etc. All of a sudden that $50 ticket costs you over $100."
– jthemusician
Popular Services
"Funerals, weddings, and pretty much every other thing we blindly accept have to be insanely expensive without even thinking about it."
– jcfeej
Dealing With Student Loans
"I think Student Loan servicers. For example, Navient manages Federally guaranteed debt for the US Gov in Student loans, has the IRS as their personal collection agency."
"They constantly, I mean CONSTANTLY f'k up to the extent they get dragged in front of Congressional Hearings, and their CEO is paid $7.7M annually."
– Firebolt164
Rent-to-own businesses were mentioned a lot in the thread.
Trackers In The Merchandise
"I scrolled really far and was surprised I didn't see Rent to Own stores. They sell furniture and electronics type stuff to people with bad credit who can't really afford it, let them pay a small amount weekly."
"If people end up paying on time and pay stuff off, they will pay 2 or 3 times more than the item is worth. If they make a payment late the item is repossessed and re sold to someone else and the first person loses all the money they paid."
"There are used car dealers that do this same business model with cars too. They put GPS trackers in the car that also disable the starter. They collect $1000 down and once a payment is late they disable the car and go tow it, then sell it again and keep the downpayment."
"I worked at a shop that installed the trackers and these places would sell the same car to different people 5 or 6 times in a year because they kept repoing it."
– bgwa9001
An Insider Speaks Out
"I used to be the sales manager at my local Rent-A-Center years ago. It’s a huge scam and I feel dirty even having worked there. The worse thing I ever had to do was repossess a fridge from a single mother."
"She cried as she removed the items and kept saying 'I have no where to put these. They are going to go bad.' Another one was when i had to repossess a bunk bed from two kids. They asked their dad where they were going to sleep."
"It’s been years and I still think about it from time to time. Don’t rent from rent-to-own stores. Don’t give them business."
– MaxTimeLord
Another Testimony With A Special Message
"Same. The owner of the place I worked was a huge asshole. He went with me on this repo of a single mom that apparently he didn’t like for some reason. Same thing, it was a fridge. We get the fridge out on by the curb and it has a bunch of roaches crawling out of it."
"When we’d get TV’s with roaches we’d bag them with a fogger, vacuum them out and re-rent them. The fridge was too big for a bag and the owner didn’t want to put it into the truck. So he pushes the fridge up next to a tree, gets back into the truck and smashes the fridge up against the tree multiple times until it’s completely crumpled. I’m standing there like WTF just happened and he tells me to get back into the truck and we drive off."
"We destroyed a fridge from some lady who was down on her luck just so she couldn’t have it. Then the embarrassment of having a smashed fridge in her front yard that people were obviously going to ask her about."
"F'k you Dwayne."
– cokecan13
Cable Companies
"Cable TV/Internet monopolies."
– dan1101
"Seriously. The spectrum person that signed me up on the phone gave me a price and simply neglected to tell me it was a 'promotional rate.' Price goes up 50% after a year."
– valuethempaths
Cutting The Cord
"Comcast had such a monopoly in my area that cancelling wouldn't get you a promotion, just a simple we'll be sad to see you go."
"And after the third time putting a new plan under someone else's name to qualify for 'current promotions,' we just said f'k it and cut the cord."
"Maxed out our internet plan and it's still cheaper than the bundle they were forcing down our throat that included a landline that we didn't have a phone for."
– ultrastarman303
Paying The Price
"And Youtube TV is turning out to be the same sh{replace1}amp; different medium…. hey let’s keep jacking up the price, but let’s add on a dozen or so channels no one f&{replace1}amp;in cares about to keep everyone happy. No that did not make us happy because we’re not that dumb."
"It’s like Animal Farm."
– rigored
Some believe the biggest American scam was multi-level marketing (MLM).
Dodging A Bullet
"A few years ago my husband was keen on the idea of buying a franchise. He came across a scheme he thought was promising and asked me to go with him to meet the people selling it. As soon as we sat down my gut feeling was RUN, but being polite people we sat through their spiel. On the surface it seemed legit, but for me the absolute killer was when they started spouting on about how the big boss has bought a helicopter and how cool it would be for us all when we can do that too."
"They were very pushy, but I’m equally stubborn and held firm that we needed to think about it. As soon as we left I threw away the brochures and crap they’d foisted on us. Had a few emails and calls, but ghosted them. Husband was disappointed for a while, but then one day I was reading Reddit and came across a familiar company name."
"To this day I enjoy reminding my husband how we dodged being tied in with Herbalife."
– SoftandSquidgy
Cousin's "Business"
"My cousin is always involved in multiple MLMs and tells us all she’s a 'small business owner' and gets mad if we don’t support her 'business.'"
"Here’s the thing though. I would rather just send her a check every month so that I don’t have to be solicited with this protein shake or that skin care line. How much would it take? $50 a month? $100? Because I know she’s not making any money doing this. YET SHE KEEPS ON DOING IT!!!"
– ArhedisVarkenjaab
A popular scam in my neighborhood involves representatives from a "friendly energy" company going door-to-door and trying to convince tenants they are paying too much on their electric and gas bill.
They throw out a lot of jargon and detailed information and have a vague answer for everything.
The last time I encountered such a rep, I said I'd like to take the time to research this and I told him I didn't like being made to make a decision to upgrade my services on the spot.
When I asked for his business card, he gave a piece of flimsy paper with information saying they were "looking for newhires."
He peace'd out. And when I looked up the "service" he was offering on the internet, the information indicated it was a scam that took over your existing energy company and charged you triple the previous amount.
I dodged a bullet that day, but I definitely felt like spending time with him was a huge waste of energy.
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"What is a subtle sign that someone is really intelligent?"
The minds of really smart individuals never stop working.
Resourcefulness
"They draw wisdom from multiple sources. Wait but that might be more wise than intelligent... But I guess those two tend to be seen together a lot."
– Puzzlehead-Engineer
Inquisitive Minds
"They are curious about everything."
"To be intelligent you need to be knowledgeable and you cant be knowledgeable if you are never curious."
– soup54461
The way highly intelligent people interact with others is slightly different.
Social Adaptability
"They can switch up the way they talk to match the person they're talking to without sounding condescending. They listen to how others learn and explain it in that person's language of understanding."
– Wynonna99
Talking On Level Ground
"Talking to people as if they're intelligent at their level and without being condescending or even letting on that it's lower than their level."
"I used to work with a doctor - Tom Howard - and the day I realized he was a genius was the time he guessed every single condition a patient of mine had based on minute piece of information about him."
– Yoodei_Mon
The Humble Professor
"No joke. The smartest professor I had in engineering school was also the most humble. She was an astounding human being. By week 2, she knew everyone's names by heart in the intro engineering course. In College. With like 180 students. Later, in upper division classes, people would occasionally ask some really stupid questions."
"Like, it happens... you get so deep into some fluid mechanics derivation or something you forget something really basic. People would ask a question like this and everyone would be thinking like; 'Wow, how did you even make it this far?' but then... it's like she would spot the flaw in their understanding so perfectly, and then respond with such clarity and wisdom that the person asking the question would look less stupid and the whole class would be enlightened."
"And here's the thing... I pride myself on being really good at that exact skill. I tutored a lot of people. I was easily one of the brightest amongst my peers. But that woman was on another level. It was mind-blowing."
"And it wasn't just her intelligence, but her organizational skills, discipline, consistency.... And yet... she was so humble. She was quiet and physically quite small. But she just exuded competence and immediately commanded every room she walked into. I've never seen anything quite like it."
– EngineeringNeverEnds
A Positive Effect
"When they explain something they make you feel intelligent."
– gwoshmi
When In Doubt
"They know when their knowledge ends and say something to the extent of 'I don't know and anything else i say on this topic is ignorant speculation.'"
–blutoboy
Some with impressive IQs may deal with questions in the following ways.
Reaction To Delayed Responses
"'You really think about everything don't you?' - a doctor, to me, after he asked me a question and I took longer than 2 seconds to answer it."
"No, I just pull something out of my @ss every time and those extra seconds you waited for me to answer were purely to irritate you for my own enjoyment."
– Imakegoatnoises
The Really Good Questions
"They can ask really good questions."
"Edit: to anyone not understanding what mean, I’m talking about people who ask 'really good questions,' not just any questions, really good ones. I don’t know how one would achieve this skill(I know I haven’t)."
– milkmanbran
Taking Pause
"They spend time thinking before asking a question."
– ParkMan73
"Some of the smartest people don’t comment at all."
– metric-poet
I agree with many of the comments saying a really intelligent person knows how to cater the conversation towards another person's level of understanding.
They do have the impressive skill to convey something in a way that can easily be understood. Some of the most venerated professors at my university were like this, and their classes were always the hardest to get in to.
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