Parent Asks For Mind-Blowing But Simple Facts That Would Satisfy A 3-Year-Old Before Bedtime, Gets 30 Responses
Kids see their parents as their superheroes and think that they know everything there is to know about the world. But being a parent to an inquisitive child is like living with the constant possibility of a pop-quiz coming up—you never know when they’ll ask you why the sun shines, whether aliens exist, or when they’ll want to hear random facts about the universe.
That’s exactly the challenge that Reddit user MoonBaboon was faced with. The redditor asked the online community what mind-blowing but simple facts would satisfy their 3-year-old son’s daily request for one fact before bedtime. And people delivered!
From facts like pink dolphins actually being real to interesting trivia tidbits like somebody having had the hiccups for 68 years, these bits of knowledge are fun for everyone, not just parents. We’ve collected the best mind-blowing facts, so scroll down and remember to upvote your faves. When you’re done with this list, have a look at Bored Panda’s earlier post about a father who asked strangers for interesting facts to tell his daughter.
This post may include affiliate links.
Crows can see a color that we can't called ultraviolet. Their feathers have pretty patterns on them, like peacocks, but they're all colored ultraviolet, so even though they look black to us, they all look really fancy and colorful to each other.
All birds see ultraviolet as a unique color (Not just as a shade, but a whole different color, the way green and red are different to us). And I could nerd about animal color vision all day! Mammals actually have very poor color vision, and primates have just begun to appreciate a fuller palette. Some reptiles and fish have/had very advanced vision, and their ancestors (which includes birds) never went through a period of collective vision degeneration like mammals, and therefore are millions of years of vision evolution ahead of us. Four unique colors, all well spaced out on the spectrum (not squished together like our newly evolved green/red differentiation), sharpened vision....... *sigh*
There is a species of burrowing tarantula that lets tiny frogs live in their burrows. The frog eats pests that are too small for the spider to get, and in return, the frog is kept safe by the big ol' spider. This is pretty much how the domestication of cats went.
Tiny frogs are tarantula housecats.
sea otters hold hands while they are sleeping to not drift apart
MoonBabboon’s post got over 55.3k upvotes on r/AskReddit and the redditor received several awards for their wholesome question.
Sure, random facts are cool, but they’re more than just that—they actually help turn your child into a more capable person, preparing them for the future. UK researchers conducted a study about the link between how engaged parents were in their children’s learning and how well the kids did academically later on.
Crows have the critical thinking skills of a 7 year old child… which is far superior to most animals
And they hold grudges. My cousin, as a child, p*ssed of a crow. The crow's mates joined in to throw nuts and small rocks at him. After a little while the cousin moved away internationally and only visited 10 years later. Guess who was welcomed by a delicate hazelnut to the head? yup ...
Manatees fart to sink deeper in the water, it's like letting the air out of a balloon.
The male emu goes around and collects the eggs that the female lays, painstakingly moves them all to a nest, then sits on them until they hatch. After they hatch he is their only caretaker. The mother isn't involved at all.
The researchers found that kids do well in school when their parents read to them, listen to them read aloud, help them learn their letters, numbers, songs, and nursery rhymes.
And when the kids got a bit older, they excelled in school when their parents remained active in their education.
So going with your kid on field trips, participating in the classroom, showing genuine interest in how they’re doing at school, and monitoring their progress with homework and tests all lead to better results in school. In other words, honest, dedicated care and attention pay off.
Most elephants weigh less than a blue whale’s tongue is my favorite
The word "Arctic" doesn't mean "cold" but rather comes from the Greek word for "bear."
Therefore, Arctic means Bear-place and Antarctic means Not-bear-place
A baby octopus is about the size of a flea when it is born.
If you shave a tiger you’ll see striped skin.
Blue whales have the loudest voices in the animal kingdom, up to 180 dB. (Jet engine is this loud). They have been known to modulate their calls so as to not hurt the ears of divers. Mothers and calves have also been discovered “whispering” to each other to avoid attracting predators.
Hummingbirds offer some cool facts:
They're the only bird that can fly backwards or hover and this is due to their wings flapping in a figure 8 pattern.
They eat by sticking out their tongues which is covered in barbs.
They often hitch rides on bigger birds for migration.
They build their nests using gossamer (spider webs) so that the nest will expand with the babies as they grow, they always lay 2 eggs at a time.
When they rest, they go into this catatonia called torpor which lowers their heart rate to less than a quarter of beats per minute as when they're active so that they don't starve to death while they sleep.
I really like picturing hummingbirds on other bird's backs... Like a little baby Yoda in a backpack!
Elephants think humans are cute like humans think puppies are cute
Cats can be allergic to people
If you were 66 million light years away from Earth and had a telescope that could see Earth, you could still see the dinosaurs.
Because dinosaurs were first to develop space travel and a select squad of space traveling dinosaurs have been found to be 66 million light years away from Earth.
Queen Elizabeth can’t sit on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones. - the ruling monarch can’t sit on a foreign throne, even if it’s fictional.
Both boys and girls used to wear dresses. It was only when boys got older they started wearing pants.
A small child could swim through the veins of a blue whale.
Wombats poop in cubes.
hi im australian and i live on a farm in the bush and until i saw this on the internet i legit never noticed and went outside and checked for myself, tis legit
Squirrels forget where they hide about half of their nuts.
Crows and Ravens can learn to imitate human speech.
Squids have doughnut shaped brains!
There are pink dolphins in the amazon river
In the Amazon region it's believed that the pink dolphin (boto) turns into a handsome man and seduces young women. A way to spot a pink dolphin in human disguise is that they always wear a hat (to hide their respiratory hole)
If you lift a kangaroos tail of the ground it can't hop (but he will not be happy).
You can hear a lion roar from up to 5 miles away.
Good to know. I would have enough time to get my affairs in order before the lion catches me.
Nutella was invented during WWII, when hazelnuts were mixed into chocolate to extend chocolate rations.
There are more plastic flamingos in the world than real flamingos.
Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln was a wrestler.
There are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on the earth (approximately 10 times more)
If you cut a hole into a net, there are less holes than there were to begin with.
Jelly fish don't have brains.
Termites in Australia by mass weigh more then humans on earth.
The word buffalo eight times in a row is a real sentence.
It means that there are buffalo from Buffalo that other buffalo from Buffalo intimidate, and they themselves also go on to intimidate other buffalo who are also from Buffalo.
reminds me of the story where u can use "and" in a sentence 5 times and-5ece9a...3d06fe.jpg 
bananas are berries
A lot of fruit/vegetables are actually berries (tomatoes, melons, cucumbers...). A lot of berries are actually not (strawberry, raspberry, blackberry. A lot of nuts aren't nuts, either (coconut is a stone fruit). It's actually pretty straightforward when you know the botanic reasoning and know something about plant morphology. Fruit are "ripe flowers" and are categorized by what tissue of the original flower forms which part of the fruit (though last time I checked, there was still some discussion about what tissue becomes what in the case of the apple, which is a pome fruit). It's like with zoology, really... whales aren't fish, after all. The first impression is often deceiving but it's what colloquial names tend to be based. on.
You share 50-65% of DNA with bananas
Most of the mass trees and plants get to grow comes from the carbon dioxide in the air, not from the soil. Trees are built from air.
Great white sharks have been known to run away from killer whales.
Mammoths were still wandering around somewhere whilst the Pyramids were being built
Coconts aren’t nuts at all, they’re fruit.
It does not matter if they're nuts or fruit. They still hurt like hell when they hit you in the head
Flamingos get their pink color from pigments in the organisms they eat.
The average human produces enough saliva over their life to fill 2 swimming pools.
All of the other planets can fit in the space between the Earth and the Moon.
Distance from Earth to Moon: 238,900. Planet diameters: Mercury 3031, Venus 7520, Mars 4212, Jupiter 86,881, Saturn 72,367, Uranus 31,518, Neptune 30,599, TOTAL 236,128. If you throw in Pluto, 1476 for old times sake it would tight but it still works.
Giraffes fall about 1.8 meters when they are born
Baby whales drink milk from their mothers nipples, just like baby humans. Except they do it under water.
Pink used to be a boys color
The average person farts over 500,000 times in their life.
Platypus don't have stomachs.
A baby spider is called a spiderling.
It's debated what the largest flower on Earth is, but the two leading contenders Amorphophallus titanum, (Titan arum) and the rafflesia, both smell like rotting meat. This vile smell is used to attract flies and other insects that act as pollinators.
the ideal gift for mothers day : the largest flower in the world
Flamingos eat with their heads upside down.
Mantis shrimp can see more colours than humans can.
A tortoise’s shell is joined to its back
By the time an Elk reaches adulthood it has shed more bone from losing its antlers than the bone contained in its entire skeleton!
Cuttlefish can change its texture and shape to anything in it's environment but it actually cant see all that well!
Some awesome and interesting facts but quite a few don't seem easy to understand for a child that young.
Fun fact: humans are bioluminescent. We can glow in the dark, our eyes aren't strong enough to see it.
I need my eyes testing. I read that as "humans are blancmange". Mind you, that explains a lot.
Load More Replies...
I bought an e-book myself to help me get my baby to sleep properly. More information at:https://linktr.ee/toplinks4you
what I don't understand is why people just can't have fun and why they feel the need to turn everything into a political bashing downer... Think nice thoughts
You gone have fun and one day end up dead. One has to know what's going on in the world, Darlene.
Load More Replies...
If you have more cheese, there will be more holes. More holes mean less cheese. So more cheese is equal to less cheese.
Dude... chill. Some people don't really care that much, some don't understand it as much. It kind of brought my mood down when I saw you correcting people. Trust me, I'm a smart *ss too. I've lost lots of good friendships because of it. It's not healthy.
Load More Replies... Some awesome and interesting facts but quite a few don't seem easy to understand for a child that young.
Fun fact: humans are bioluminescent. We can glow in the dark, our eyes aren't strong enough to see it.
I need my eyes testing. I read that as "humans are blancmange". Mind you, that explains a lot.
Load More Replies... I bought an e-book myself to help me get my baby to sleep properly. More information at:https://linktr.ee/toplinks4you
what I don't understand is why people just can't have fun and why they feel the need to turn everything into a political bashing downer... Think nice thoughts
You gone have fun and one day end up dead. One has to know what's going on in the world, Darlene.
Load More Replies... If you have more cheese, there will be more holes. More holes mean less cheese. So more cheese is equal to less cheese.
Dude... chill. Some people don't really care that much, some don't understand it as much. It kind of brought my mood down when I saw you correcting people. Trust me, I'm a smart *ss too. I've lost lots of good friendships because of it. It's not healthy.
Load More Replies...
