The salmon fish makes spectacular leaps to return to its birthplace to spawn (to produce and deposit eggs). Its jump of 10 ft has been recorded.
One box, the size of an ordinary dice, could contain at least 9 billion microbes. For every person on Earth, it is estimated that there are about one million viruses.
The average gestation period for an elephant is 660 days. For the mouse it is only 20 days.
The male sperm whale has the largest brain than any other animal. This whale grows to a maximum of 65 ft and weighs about 45 tonnes.
Sloth, a large herbivore, lives in the tropical forests of Central America. It is the slowest animal in the world. This mammal spends the day drowsing, hanging from the branches of trees by its paws. When it descends the tree, it moves very slowly, never faster than about 2.5 cm a minute.
Otter is an aquatic fish-eating mammal. They cause no splash when they plunge into the water.
Savi’s pygmy shrew weighs less than 3gm, and is the smallest mammal.
A termite queen can produce over 30, 000 eggs in day.
The nocturnal lizards -geckos-have an unusual adaptation of hairy feet. Each foot has about 5, 00, 000 hairs and each hair tip has thousands of microscopic stickers, creating a powerful adhesive which enables it to walk on any surface and even hang by one toe.
The blue whale, found in almost all oceans, is herbivore and mainly lives on Phytoplankton. If is a fast swimmer reaching 30 KMPH, with a possible peak of 50 KMPH. Its tongue alone weighs as much as an elephant.
