Tigers

Tigers
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It’s perhaps common animal-fact knowledge by now that the stripes on every tiger are as individual as fingerprints or snowflakes – no two patterns are alike. But did you also know that those patterns on a tiger’s fur repeat on its skin? These patterns, says National Geographic, serve as camouflage, with the stripes making it hard for prey to see all of its predator at once.

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Giraffes

Giraffes
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These docile African ruminants, which can grow as tall as 6m, have a very unusual feature: their tongues are deep purple. Although there’s lots of speculation as to the whys of the extra-dense melanin of giraffes’ mouth organs – and no hard facts – scientists believe that the dark colour is to protect them from sunburn as they munch leaves all day long out in the strong sun.

Dogs

Dogs
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Did you ever leave your dog alone for longer than usual, only to come home and swear that she missed you more than usual? You probably weren’t imagining things. According to Animal Planet, dogs can tell the difference between one hour and five hours. They also have an innate sense of when things should happen – like their regularly-scheduled walks and meals.

Love for dogs make people kinder, says the photographer of Little kids and big dogs. If viewing these images makes you decide on getting a dog but you don’t like barky dogs, find out the quietest dog breeds.

Myanmar snub-nosed monkeys

Myanmar snub-nosed monkeys
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With all the bad news about animal species going extinct around the world, there’s good reason to celebrate when new species are actually found. One such recently discovered species is the Myanmar snub-nosed monkey, aka, the sneezing monkey. How did it get this name? Its upturned nose gets water in it when it rains, which the monkey sneezes out, reports the Guardian.

Rhinos

Rhinos
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Most animal horns are made of bone. Not so the rhinoceros. As researchers at Ohio University learned in 2006, they’re made of keratin, the same stuff that comprises human hair and fingernails. Threading through the core of the keratin and making it super strong are calcium deposits, which are non-existent on the horn’s outer, softer surface. Over time, that surface gets whittled into its pointy shape by sun exposure and frequent head-butts between fighting animals.

Octopus

Octopus
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Why would any animal need multiple hearts and brains? We can find out by studying these tentacled dwellers of the deep. Octopi have three hearts – two to pump blood to its gills and one to pump blood to the remainder of its body – and an astounding nine (!) brains – one that serves as its central control station, and eight others that are actually “large ganglion[s] at the base of each arm which control…movement,” explains the Daily Catch.

Frogs

Frogs
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Literal freezing is definitely not recommended for humans or other mammals, since it leads to, well, death. But for a species of Alaskan wood frog, freezing (mostly) solid, with two-thirds of their bodies turning to ice, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, allows them to withstand brutal winters and live until the spring. At which point, they thaw and carry on with their existence.

Hippo

Hippo
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It turns out, giraffes aren’t the only large natives of the African continent that require protection from the powerful rays of the sun. Hippos do, too. And they actually have their own cooling system. Known as ‘blood sweat’ (although it’s not actually blood or sweat, according to Scientific American), this oily secretion evaporates as it dries, lowering a hippos temperature. Why the name? It appears red in the sunlight.

A mob of kangaroos. A gaggle of geese. A bloat of hippos! Find out other hilarious names for groups of animals.

 

Zebras

Zebras
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Ever wonder why zebras have those vivid black and white stripes – since they couldn’t possibly serve to make them inconspicuous out on the Ethiopian grasslands? Oddly, the stripes do actually make these hoofed mammals harder to see in the tall green and yellow grass. But those black and white zags have another function, they deter nasty biting horseflies, according to research published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.

Pigeons

Pigeons
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Like bats, pigeons are another group of animals that are unjustifiably reviled by humans. Some people call these common urban residents ‘rats with wings’. And that’s giving this incredible, intelligent species short shrift. Not only can pigeons be trained to deliver messages across great distances, but researchers at Keio University in Tokyo discovered they could also be trained to distinguish between the paintings of Monet, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Cézanne and Renoir. Now that’s an incredible animal fact!

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