1. TOP 10 CRAZY ANIMAL FACTS YOU DON’T KNOW

2. 10 INSECTS HAVE ALIEN BLOOD Actually it isn’t blood at all, but rather something called hemolymph. It’s been somewhere between 500-600 million years since humans and insects shared a common ancestor, so it is no surprise that there are a few differences. Hemolymph is copper- based, rather than the iron that runs in our veins, giving it a blue or greenish tint when it is oxygenated.

3. 9 MOLES HAVE ABSURDLY SOFT FUR One of the simplest ways to annoy a cat is to pet it the wrong way. If you were to somehow tame a mole and stroke it from tail to head, however, the mole wouldn’t mind at all. The individual hairs on a mole’s body are each embedded in a sack of fluid, allowing them to lay in any direction against the skin with no discomfort or resistance.

4. 8 BIRDS WOULD DIE IN SPACE The single most important reason birds can’t live in space is because most all of them can’t swallow, including the actual swallow. While birds are pro-regurgitators, they rely on gravity to get their food and drink down in the first place. That is why you see them dip their beaks in water then lift their heads to let it trickle down. If we were to take birds up to the ISS, they would more than likely die of dehydration, if not drown trying to drink.

5. 7 MOTHS POSSESS AN ANTI-BAT ARSENAL Bats are some of the most fascinating and well documented hunters in the animal kingdom, so being a nocturnal flying insect seems like it might as well be a death sentence. Turns out they are actually embroiled in an arms race 50 million years old. The major problem with echolocation is that the target knows you are coming as soon as you use it, just like in every submarine movie ever

6. 6 THE AXOLOTL NEVER GROWS UP The axolotl is a salamander-like animal that grows to around a foot long, give or take. It is completely aquatic, vegetarian, and lives anywhere from 10 to 15 years. While its cousin the tiger salamander looks a lot like it during its larval stage, the axolotl just never gets around to having its own metamorphosis into a full- fledged salamander.

7. 5 OWLS AREN’T VERY WISE AT ALL It is hard to look into the face of an owl and not think that sucker knows something you don’t. It does, actually, but that thing is how to kill and eat rodents with great efficiency and that’s about it. An owl’s eyes are quite large, but its skull… not so much. This leaves very little room for a brain that, while capable of processing very large amounts of optical data, just doesn’t have the power to do much critical thinking.

8. 4 TAXIFOLIA IS TAKING OVER Every saltwater fish tank had caulerpa taxifolia in it when I was a kid. It’s an impressively hearty and vibrant species of seaweed, which produces a toxin that makes it inedible to almost all aquatic life. This is great for certain species of tank fish that like to destroy your live decorations. So what happens when a fast-growing and poisonous plant happens to get into an ecosystem where it doesn’t belong? It gets dubbed “The Killer Algae”, and then tossed right onto the IUCN’s list of most invasive species in the world.

9. 3 HOATZIN CHICKS HAVE HANDS On to an animal that is doing just fine. The hoatzin is a really neat looking bird that tastes awful and smells worse, which are very useful advantages for being left alone by humans. There are a few types of birds that hatch with some form of spurs or claws on their wings, but in hoatzin chicks they actually have a purpose.

10. 2 MOSQUITOES Mosquitoes have killed more humans than all the wars in history.

11. 1 JUMPING SPIDERS HAVE GREAT DEPTH PERCEPTION Just because something has eight eyes doesn’t necessarily mean it has great eyesight. Field of vision isn’t the same as acuity. It isn’t really an issue for most spiders since they hunt by setting a trap and waiting, but not so in the case of more nomadic hunters like the jumping spider.

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