Some Unusual Facts About Snakes
"Snake" is an ancient word and comes from the Indo-European base sneg, meaning "to creep"; it is also related to the word "snail," which has the same root.
How long do snakes live? We can't know for certain, but snakes in zoos have long lives. One boa constrictor has lived 27 years in a zoo, and a South American anaconda is still going strong after 28 years!
How big do snakes get? They can be very tiny or very large, depending on the kind. The ground snake is about 5 inches long while a python can grow to be 30 feet in length and weigh 200 pounds.
How often does a snake eat? Snakes eat only when they are hungry. This can be once every 3-4 days or the interval may be even longer – weeks or months. Zoo snakes, because they don't move much, may eat just one or two times a year!
Do all snakes lay eggs to reproduce? No, some snakes give birth to tiny living snakes that crawl off and take care of themselves right from the start.
What snake is the best mother? No snake mothers her babies the way humans do, but the python mother makes a nest and coils up on her eggs to keep them safe until they hatch.
How does a snake keep clean? Its scales are very smooth and fit together so there is no place for dirt to catch on a snakeskin. Also, snakes get brand-new skins every once in a while so they are usually very, very clean.
How many kinds of snakes are there? There are about 2,600 different kinds of snakes. Of these, about 400 are poisonous.
How many different kinds of snakes live in the U.S.? There are 126 different kinds of snakes in the United States. Only 19 are harmful to people.
Why is it true that snakes are good for the world? Snakes are very helpful. The small ones eat harmful bugs and insects. The big ones eat rats, mice, gophers, and animals that destroy crops. Good farmers and gardeners know how helpful most snakes are and are happy to have them around. All snakes except those that threaten people should be kept safe from harm. They are part of the chain of living things – as we are!
What did the naughty little diamondback say to his big sister?
"Don't be such a rattle-tail!"
What is a snake's favorite subject?
Hissssstory!
What do you call a snake without any clothes on?
Snaked!
Why is a snake so smart?
Because you can't pull its leg!
Why is a snake so careless?
Because it keeps losing its skin
What kind of snake keep its car the cleanest?
A windshield viper!
What kind of snake can do math in the dark?
A night adder!
What do snakes do at the end of a date?
They give each other a goodnight hiss!
How can you revive a snake that looks dead?
With mouse-to-mouth resuscitation
How did the snakes bust out of jail?
They scaled the wall!
What do snakes put on their HOME floors?
Rep-tiles!
How do you measure a snake?
In inches. They don't have any feet!
Why can't snakes eat soup?
No spoon! They only have a forked tongue!
Why didn't the snakes leave Noah's Ark
and multiply like all the other animals?
They couldn't multiply. They were adders!
What clothing might sister snakes share?
Co-bras!
MYTHS
Myth: Rat Snakes are poisonous.
Scientific Facts: - Rat snakes are NON POISONOUS, rodent eating reptiles.
Myth: Rat Snakes mate with cobras.
Scientific Facts: - Rat Snakes or any other snakes will not mate with any snake out of its own species. Cobras eat other snakes so a mating between a cobra and a rat snake is not possible.
Myth: Snakes drink Milk
Scientific Facts: - Snakes do not drink milk, neither can they digest it properly. They are reptiles and have no association with milk, only mammals who have mammary glands can produce milk and thus, a liking for milk in non mammals is unlikely. But in a crises when severely dehydrated, a snake might drink any liquid available.
Myth: - Some snakes grow a beard as they get older
Scientific Facts: - Snakes are reptiles and do not have any hair on their bodies let alone a beard. It is impossible for them to have beards for their bodies do not have any ability of growing hair.
Myth: - Snakes carry a diamond in their forehead
Scientific Facts: - It is impossible for a snake to carry anything in its head. The mythological status attached with a snake in India is probably responsible for this myth.
Myth: -Snakes remember you if you hurt it.
Scientific Facts: - Snakes are not vengeful animals and do not have the necessary intelligence to remember people or places for getting revenge. Hindi Movies have a lot to do with the creation of this myth
Myth: -If one snake is killed its partner will trace you (no matter wherever you are)
Scientific Facts: - Once again snakes are not vengeful animals and are not interested in chasing or tracing people who hurt them. They do not have the necessary memory and intellect to remember people to trace them back. Neither do snakes have a feeling of camaraderie or pair for life. Once again bollywood is responsible for this myth.
Myth: -Flying snakes can pierce somebody’s forehead or put out their eyes.
Scientific Facts: - A flying snake does not actually fly but only glide through the air by extending ribs and pulling in the underside. It can glide a distance of 330 Ft or 100 mt. It has an elongated head, which gives the scary feeling that it can pierce a person’s head or eyes.
Myth: - Snakes found in India can spit venom.
Scientific Facts: - No snake found in India can spit venom. Only spitting Cobras can spit venom and they are not found in India.
Myth:-There are “Two- headed” snakes.
Scientific Facts: - The snake charmers spread the myth about the two headed snakes only to maintain the mythological status of the snakes in India so they can continue attracting large crowds to their snake shows. In reality nothing as a two headed snake exists.
The largest snakes in the world are members of the family Boidae, which includes the boa and the python. Some members of this family never attain a length of more than 0.6 m (2 ft), but the largest may grow to more than 9 m (30 ft).
Sea snakes have no gills and must rise to the surface for air, but they can remain underwater for several hours, obtaining dissolved oxygen from water that they swallow and eject.
Approximately 2500 different species of snakes are known. Approximately 20 % of the total number of the snake species are poisonous.
The skin and outer covering of the horny scales are shed periodically and usually in one piece, including the hard, transparent covering of the eye known as the spectacle (snakes lack movable eyelids, and the spectacle protects the constantly open eyes). The frequency of shedding varies with different species , according to the size and age of the individual. Young, rapidly growing snakes shed their skins more frequently than the slow-growing adults. In some species the skin is shed about every 20 days; in others, only once a year.
The big pythons can eat animals that weigh up to about 68 kg (150 lb), but swallowing such a meal is a difficult process.
The snake must bite to inject its venom; no snake has a stinger in its tail.
Three species of snake can spit or eject the venom in a fine spray, which is aimed at the eyes of an enemy and projected for distances up to 2.4 m (8 ft). If the venom gets into the eyes, it may cause blindness. The spitting is used only in defense and never to obtain food.
Vision is well developed in most snakes, but many burrowing snakes are virtually blind.
Snakes have a strong sense of smell, which is relied on to a large extent in hunting food. Snakes find their prey by sight and scent, and sometimes temperature. Except for burrowing species, snakes have excellent short-range vision. Their sense of smell is extraordinary, thanks to a harmless, constantly flicking forked tongue that carries scent particles to a specialized sensory organ ('Jacobson's organ') on the roof of the mouth.
Snakes are deaf to airborne sounds. The Cobra does not hear, as it is believed, the snake-charmer’s flute. They can, however, feel vibrations through the ground or whatever they are resting on.
Snakes move slower than an adult human can run; the fastest recorded speed achieved by any snake is about 13 km/hr (8 mph), but few can go that fast.
Depending on the species, snakes may be egg-layers or give birth to live young. They generally mate in the spring, shortly after leaving whatever hollow, burrow or rock crevice has sheltered them through winter hibernation. Egg-layers usually deposit groups of eggs in dirt, beneath stones or logs, or in piles of decaying wood or vegetation during late spring or early summer. Most snakes hatch or are born in late summer. Whether deposited as eggs or dropped as fully formed miniature adults, snakes are on their own from the start. Snakes do not take any responsibility for the care and protection of their young. Most snakes mature at one or two years of age, and individuals may live up to twenty years in the wild.
The greatest age known for any snake is just under 30 years, attained by both the anaconda and the black-lipped cobra.
Effects of the bites of Black and Green Mamba -
Black and green mambas both produce neurotoxins, which is why they kill so fast. Black mamba is more venomous. Neurotoxin inhibitors and antivenin are generally made from the venom of the same snake, but it is likely that antivenin from one would be at least partially effective against the other. Because these are two different snakes their venom has to be different and thus the antivenin from one may not act for the other.
Snakes do not leap or jump into the air. Instead, those that do strike out coil themselves enough to get a push or strong outward movement designed to snatch prey or inject venom. Most snakes can only strike about one half their total body length. They do not actually leave the ground. They are capable of striking upward or outward at approximate one half length level.
AquaFacts: Green Anaconda (Eunectes murinus)
Where do anacondas live?
Green anacondas are found throughout tropical South America. They are most commonly seen east of the Andes, mainly through the Amazon and Orinoco river basins, from Colombia and Venezuela to Northern Bolivia and South Central Brazil. Green anacondas are often found in swamps and slow moving rivers.
They will hang from tree branches or along riverbanks to sun themselves and ambush prey.
What do anacondas eat?
Anacondas have a diverse diet. They eat aquatic and amphibious animals, including different types of mammals, fish, caiman, birds and turtles. The snakes at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre primarily get a diet of rodents (rats and mice).
How do they find their food?
Green anacondas use both sight and smell to detect their prey. They can also find their prey with special heat sensing pits that border their mouth. Being powerful constrictors, anacondas ambush their prey, coil their bodies around it and squeeze.
How do they reproduce?
During breeding, the anacondas often cluster in a breeding ball that may consist of 2-12 males coiled around one female. The snakes can stay like this for 2-4 weeks. Like all snakes, green anacondas reproduce sexually and use internal fertilization. Mating periods typically occur between April and May. Green Anacondas are viviparous (give live birth). Females can give birth to 4-82 young, with the litter size increasing as the females get larger. First time mothers have average litter sizes of 10-30 young.
Are they dangerous?
The greatest threat to humans by anacondas stems from many misconceptions about these large snakes. Anacondas can capture prey as large as adult capybaras (giant rodents), adult white-tailed deer and full-grown spectacled caimans; consequently, a human as heavy as 55kg is within the range of prey sizes that a large anaconda could take. There are many myths and stories that depict anacondas as ‘man-eaters’. Anacondas are not ‘man-eaters’ by nature, but they are generalists and will take any prey that they can subdue and swallow. There are few documented attacks by green anacondas on humans. The lack of documentation may be due to low human population in areas where anacondas are common.
Are they endangered?
Green anacondas are included in the Family Boidae, and are classified as a type of boa. All boas are listed as at least CITES II – meaning that international trade is permitted with proper documentation issued by the government of the exporting country.
The CITES II appendix includes species which might become endangered if trade is not controlled. Trade in anacondas is prohibited in most South American countries, however, some are still exported for zoos, research or the pet industry – few people take anacondas as pets due to their large size and potential aggressive nature.
Anaconda skins are still traded illegally.
These large snakes have very few natural predators because of their size. Poaching and habitat destruction are the main causes of population decline.
Boas vs. Pythons
Boas and pythons are included in the Boidae family, but pythons belong to a subfamily called Pythoninae. The main difference between boas and pythons has to do with their offspring.
Boas are ovoviviparous, meaning that the babies are born live. At birth a membrane surrounds them. This membrane breaks at delivery and allows the young to immediately move away from the female.
Pythons are oviparous, meaning that a thin parchment-like shell surrounds the babies. The female will lay the eggs and usually go through an incubation period where she wraps her body around the eggs.
How old are the anacondas in the Amazon Gallery?
The adult female arrived at the Vancouver Aquarium in 1993. She is 10 years old and 3.5m long. The adult male arrived in 1996. He is approximately 8 years old and 3m long. On Monday, September 23, 2002 the female gave birth to 20 offspring. This is the first time that green anacondas have given birth in a Canadian aquarium or zoo!
Did you know?
Considered the largest snake in the world, anacondas receive this title from their weight, not their length.
Cloaked in myth and mystery these snakes have been fabled to reach lengths of over 17m.
Sometimes called the "water boa", green anacondas are the most aquatic of all the boas. Eunectes, from their scientific name, means "good swimmer".
Anacondas are born with all the skills they need for survival, including the ability to swim.
Adult anacondas don't care for their young, and if given the opportunity, will even eat them.
Key Facts:
Average life-span ranges between 10-30 years.
Adults weigh on average between 68-180kg.
Average adult lengths range from 3 – 10m.
Males reach sexual maturity around 18 months of age (2m long).
Females mature around 3 years of age (3m long).
Gestation period for an anaconda is between 6-7 months.
TOP TEN MOST VENOMOUS SNAKES
10 Western Brown Snake - Pseudonaja Nuchalis (Australia)
9 Death Adder - Acanthophis Antarcticus (Australia)
8 Black Tiger Snake - Notechis Ater (Australia)
7 Tiger Snake - Notechis Scutatus (Australia)
6 Sea Kraits - Laticauda Colubrina (Australia)
5= MainLand Tiger Snake (Australia)
5= Eastern Tiger Snake (Australia)
3 Taipan - Oxyuranus Scutellatus (Australia)
2 King Brown Snake - Pseudechis Australis (Australia)
and at the number one spot, the world's most venomous snake is...
1 Inland Taipan Or Fierce Snake - Oxyuranus Microlepidotus (you guessed it... Australia)
...and the moral of this story is... DON'T live in Australia ;o
TOP TEN MOST VENOMOUS SPIDERS
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Brazilian Huntsman (Brazil)
Funnelweb (Australia)
Red Back Spider (Australia)
Black Widow (Europe & the Americas)
Tarantula (Europe & the Americas)
Brown Recluse Spider (Americas)
White Tailed Spider (Australia)
Spitting Spider (The Tropics)
Woodlouse Spider (Europe)
Sicarius Hahnii (South Africa)
ALL YOU EVER NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT DOGS
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Based on an average life span of 11 years, the cost of owning a dog is $13,350.
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Dogs only sweat from the bottoms of their feet, the only way they can discharge heat is by panting. Dogs and wolves yawn as a sign of contentment.
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Dogs have about 100 different facial expressions, most of them made with the ears. Unfortunately, the likes of bulldogs and pitbulls only have 10, due to their breeding. Therefore, these dogs easily get misinterpreted by other dogs and often get into fights.
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One of the worlds oldest breeds of dog is the Saluki. It is thought to have been developed in ancient Mesopotamia around 3000 B.C.
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"Three dog night" (attributed to Australian Aborigines) came about because on especially cold nights these nomadic people needed three dogs (dingos, actually) to keep from freezing.
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A dog's sense of smell is one of the keenest in nature. If a pot of stew was cooking on a stove, a human would smell the stew, while the dog could smell the beef, carrots, peas, potatoes, spices, and all the other individual ingredients in the stew. In fact, if you unfolded and laid out the delicate membranes from inside a dogs nose, the membranes would be larger than the dog itself.
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It was recently discovered that dogs DO see in color, just not as vivid as the color that humans see.
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Two dogs survived the sinking of Titanic, yes that's right, two DOGS survived. They escaped on early lifeboats carrying so few people that no one objected. Miss Margaret Hays of New York brought her Pomeranian with her in lifeboat No. 7, while Henry Sleeper Harper of the publishing family boarded boat No. 3 with his Pekinese, Sun Yat Sen.
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Giving dogs chocolate could be fatal for them, because theobromine, an ingredient of chocolate, stimulates the central nervous system and cardiac muscle. About 1.1 kg of milk chocolate or just 146 g of cooking chocolate (which has more theobromine per gram) could kill a 22 kg dog.
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In the original 101 Dalmatians movie, Pongo has 72 spots, Perdita has 68 and each of the puppies has 32
MORE IN DOGS FACTS
CAT TRIVIA
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The mother's purr acts as a homing device, announcing to her babies that nursing time has arrived. Kittens begin to purr in return at about one week of age - perhaps as a gesture of gratitude, or maybe as a request for milk - and continue to purr for the rest of their lives.
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After cats eat, they always immediately bathe themselves. This is because their instinct tells them to get the food scent off them so that predators will not smell the food and come after them.
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When cats are happy or pleased, they sqeeze their eyes shut.
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How a cat 'speaks' is quiet remarkable. They don't speak phrases to express affection, outrage, hunger, loneliness, boredom, confusion, happiness and fear in their natural frequency range, which would be inaudible to humans, but at a much lower frequency that humans can hear. Some researchers believe they may have learned we can't hear them in their natural range and have adapted so they can relate to us on our terms.
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The ancient Egyptians worshipped cats as Gods. Any cat owner can tell you that cats have never gotten over it!
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The reason for the lack of mouse-flavored cat food is due to the fact that the test subjects (cats, naturally!) turned up their noses at the formula!
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The cat uses it's tail like a tight-rope walker uses a long pole - as a counterweight to aid balance. Even though the tail is useful for this, it is also used for communication purposes. Cats born without tails do manage, though. There are other methods of balancing
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Did you know that cats can listen for prey by rotating their ears independently? Or that their whiskers can detect movements 2,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair? Or that house cats, unlike other domesticated animals, have changed very little over the past 4,000 years?
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The infamous Black Plague in Europe was due in part to the fact that people believed those with cats were witches. So all the cats were rounded up, caged and burned, leaving the rats (with their disease causing parasites) to run free and multiply. Those harbouring cats were often those who survived.
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Cats see so well in the dark because their eyes actually REFLECT light. Light goes in their eyes, and is reflected back out; their eyes actually work as built-in flashlights.
ALSO SEE BIG CATS
A BUNCH OF FISHY TALES
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In texas it is illegal to have sex with a fish, in florida it is illegal to get a fish drunk, and N.Carolina thought both laws were good, so in NC it is illegal to have sex with a drunk fish.
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The most poisonous fish in the world is the Stone fish
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The largest known fish in the sea is the Whale Shark. It weighs up to 20 tons and grows to a length of 40 feet.
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Jelly Fish, not sharks, are the deadliest killer in oceans and seas. A certain kind of box jelly fish kills more people than all the shark species do put together.
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Fish do not have eyelids and therefore cannot blink. This is because the purpose of blinking is to hydrate the eyes; tear ducts produce moisture, and blinking spreads that moisture over the surface of the eye. Since fish live in water they have no need for this.
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The elephant snout, an African fish, communicates with other fish by emitting an electrical signal, sort of a fish's version of Morse Code
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In Japan meat from the 'Fugu' or spiny puffer fish is considered a rare delicacy, however the liver and intestines contain a powerfull neurotoxin and the slightest contamination during preperation can be deadly. Restaraunts who serve fugu must have 'Fugu certified' chefs. In japan about one hundred people on average die annualy from fugu poisoning.
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If the Loch Ness monster exists at all, he (or she) could only be about as big as a sixth grader. A new study shows that there is only enough fish in the loch to feed a 31 kg (about 67 lb) creature. The scientists used sonar to estimate the number of fish in the lake and came up with an annual food supply of 93 kg. Since a cold blooded animal like Nessie would need to eat about three times its body weight each year, it could only weigh about 31 kg.
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All the sturgeon (the fish from which we get caviar) caught in British waters are property of the Queen
CHICK, CHICK, CHICK, CHICK, CHICKEN! TRIVIA
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You can literally hypnotize a chicken by holding it and drawing a line in the dirt over and over. The chicken will stay still right there as long as you do this.
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Colonel Sanders (the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy in the white suit) was the second most recognized public figure in the world in 1979.
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Did you know that some breeds of chickens can lay coloured eggs? Sure enough, the Ameraucana and Araucana can lay eggs colored in shades of green or blue, depending on the breed and it's ancestry.
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In Fruita, Colorado, the town folk celebrate 'Mike the Headless Chicken Day'. Seems that a farmer named L.A. Olsen cut off Mike's head on September 10, 1945 in anticipation of a chicken dinner - and Mike lived for another 4 years WITHOUT A HEAD. Mike died from choking on a corn kernel.
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In Gainesville, Georgia - the chicken capital of the world - it is illegal to eat chicken with a fork!
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One punishment for an adulterous wife in medieval France was to make her chase a chicken through town naked. The source doesn't state whether it was the chicken or the wife who was naked.
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According to National Geographic, scientists have settled the old dispute over which came first -- the chicken or the egg. They say that reptiles were laying eggs thousands of years before chickens appeared, and the first chicken came from an egg laid by a bird that was not quite a chicken. That seems to answer the question. The egg came first.
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Beijing boasts the world's largest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.
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Chimney's used to be cleaned by dropping live chickens down them
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The closest living relative of the t-rex is the chicken which makes the phobia 'Alektorophobia' (Fear of chickens) slightly more plausible.
UNUSUAL SEXUAL HABITS OF ANIMALS
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The female knot-tying weaverbird will refuse to mate with a male who has built a shoddy nest. If spurned, the male must take the nest apart and completely rebuild it in order to win the affections of the female.
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The male Darwin frog, found in Chile, swallows his mates eggs and keeps them in a sac under his chin. When the tadpoles are big enough he opens his mouth and lets them out.
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The female bedbug has no sexual opening. To get around this small problem, the male uses his curved penis to drill a vagina into the female.
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The female Praying Mantis eats her mate after sex. During the act the female will hook her large arms around to hold him in place and start nibbling away. The sex drive is so strong in the male that he can continue to copulate even if his partner gets a little peckish before he's finished.
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The male tick doesn't have a penis. Instead, he uses his nose to sniff out the females vagina. Once he's made it large enough by poking his nose around, he turns round and deposits his seamen. To finish the job off, he then turns round again and pushes the seamen inside with his trusty nose.
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The oyster is usually ambisexual. It begins life as a male, then becomes a female, then changes back to being a male, then back to being female. It may go back and forth many times.
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So, you've heard the phrase, "going at it like rabbits". Well, the desert rat makes the rabbit look a little useless in the Don Juan stakes. The desert rat can have sex up to 120 times an hour
ANIMAL MAGIC TRIVIA
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Male fruit bats have the highest incidence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom even overtaking humans!
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An ostrich's eye is actually bigger than it's brain is!
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The giant sloth sleeps for 17 hours per day yet only spends about 70 minutes dreaming.
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Antarctica is the only continent on earth without reptiles.
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There were once more sea lions on earth than people.
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In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.
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If you keep a goldfish in a darkened room for long enough it will turn white.
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A person swallows about three spiders every year on average.
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The US pilgrim fathers would not eat lobster because they thought it was a giant insect.
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The Gabonese government has banned AIDS sufferers from swimming in the sea. Shark fishing is an important part of the economy and they are worried that sharks may contract the disease and die
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