Horses shorter than 14½ hands (58 inches) at the withers (top of the shoulders) are technically ponies. The Shetland, around 43 inches tall, is called a pony, not a miniature. Miniatures start 9 inches shorter, and prices go up as size goes down.
Oilbirds have a sonar sense shared among known birds only in Southeast Asia's swiftlets (although very common among bats). The oilbird is a cave dweller, and it bounces its echoing clicks from rock walls to help navigate in the dark vaults where they nest by the hundreds.
How do zoo animals keep cool in the summer heat? At the Phoenix Zoo, zookeepers freeze assorted fruits, vegetables, fish, and seeds in big chunks of ice. These "popsicles" are tossed daily into the watering holes of the animals' cages and living arenas. Animal experts maintain that not only do these popsicles help keep the animals cool during Arizona's 116-plus degree summer weather, but rouse the animals into retrieving the ice chunks from the pools, simulating behavior in the wild.
Cats purr at 26 cycles per second, the same as an idling diesel engine.
Hummingbirds are the smallest birds — so tiny that one of their enemies is an insect, the praying mantis
Cats, not dogs, are now the most common pets in America. Approximately 66 million cats to 58 million dogs are family pets, with parakeets "flying" a distant third at 14 million.
Cattle branding in the United States did not originate in the West. It began in Connecticut in the mid-19th century, when farmers were required by law to mark all their pigs.
The hump of a really famished camel may flop over and hang down the side of the body as the fat is used up.
The individual hair of a chinchilla is so fine that 500 of them equal the thickness of a single human hair.
The biggest frog is the appropriately named Goliath frog (Conraua goliath) of Cameroon. They reach nearly 30 cm (a foot) and weigh as much as 3.3 kilograms.
The jackrabbit is not a rabbit; it is a hare.
The bite of a leech is painless due to its own anaesthetic.
Old firehouses have circular staircases because, in the days when horses pulled fire engines and were stabled on the ground floor of fire houses, they figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
The Jardine River in Australia’s Cape York Peninsula is home to Crocodylus porosus, the saltwater or estuarine crocodile. It is the largest and perhaps most dangerous of all 23 species of crocodilians..
The black bear is not always black. It can be brown, cinnamon, yellow, and sometimes a bluish color.
On the Baja coast, osprey couples return to the same nests year after year. These birds rebuild their old nest, carefully repairing any damage caused by winds, rain, and age. After years of rebuilding, some osprey nests can reach heights of 4 feet.
Hummingbirds cannot glide or soar as other bird do. They are the only bird that can hover continuously.
The kakapo is a nocturnal burrowing parrot of New Zealand that has a green body with brown and yellow markings. Its name is from Maori and means "night parrot."
The blow of a whale has a strong, foul odor. It apparently smells like a combination of spoiled fish and old oil. Because whales have such terrible breath, sailors believed at one time that a whiff of it could cause brain disorders.
One in ten Dalmatians is born deaf, and the breed lacks the ability to process urine completely, so they need a special diet low in flesh protein.
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