Weird And Disturbing Animal Facts

Baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort just like human babies suck their dummies and thumbs. Whilst it is most common in baby elephants, Adult bull elephants suck their trunks at times when they feel nervous or unsure.

This penguin population has made a sanctuary on a minefield in the Falkland Islands. The penguins are light enough to go about their business without setting the mines off.

This beetle is a flesh eating beetle called Dermestids. These beetles will eat the flesh off carcasses but leave the skeleton clean. Wildlife law enforcement agents sometimes use these beetles when chemicals might damage evidence. Museums and taxidermists also use the bugs for research and displays.

Reindeer in Eastern Europe purposefully forage for the Amanita muscaria msuhroom (fly agaric) which is highly toxic and hallucinogenic. It makes the Reindeer high and act almost drunk like. Siberian natives would also feed the reindeers the toxic mushrooms so they could drink the Reindeers urine to get high, without any of the nasty side effects.

Spiders live on every continent except for Antarctica and it is estimated that there are 50,000 spiders per acre in green areas.

Also many spiders can be seen at night by shining a torch, you will see the eyes reflect a blue colour like little jewels.

Tigers have striped skin just like their fur and their patterns are unique like a fingerprint.

In 1924, a Labrador named Pep was sentenced to life in prison without parole in Pennsylvania for killing a cat owned by the Governor. The dog ended up doing about 10 years in Eastern state penitentiary.

On another note, a Labrador named Bosco won an election in 1981 for honorary mayor of Sunol, Calif and remained in that position until his death in 1994.

Bats give birth upside down, they have to be quick to catch the babies with their wings before they fall.

Koala's fingerprints are almost identical to humans. Even with careful analysis under a microscope it is difficult to distinguish the difference between the two.

Cats lack the taste buds to detect sweetness. Humans have about 9,000 taste buds yet cats only have about 480, which can differentiate the various tastes except for sweet as their taste receptors can't detect sugar.

Manatees have fart storage pouches that they use to control their buoyancy and balance. Storing or releasing gas helps them sink or float. Farting is extremely important to the Manatees coz if they don't they become constipated which means they are unable to dive properly and struggle to keep their balance.

The Greater Short Horned Lizard squirts blood from it’s eye when threatened. It is real blood that squirts like a water gun and can splatter up to 4 feet away.

It appears that Dolphins get high from Pufferfish. A BBC documentary shows a small pod of Dolphins passing around a pufferfish and behaving as they are in a trance like state.

Most Nine Banded Armadillos give birth to identical quadruplets. A single egg is produced but once fertilized it then splits into 4 genetically identical embryos attached to the same placenta.

Ring Tailed Lemurs have stink fights. When 2 male Lemurs face off whether it be for a mate, food and territory they secrete a strong short lived smell from their wrist glands and their shoulder glands produce a brown toothpaste like substance that has a long lasting smell.

The lemurs will then waft the smell in the direction of each other by waving about and using their tails until one of them gives up and backs off.

All clownfish are born male, they will turn female for mating but once they change they can't change back. Some even change as they are mating, the larger more dominant fish will become female.

They like to live in small groups, with the largest fish being the female leader. If that dominant female dies the dominant male will become a female to replace her and then the next largest fish of the group would become the next dominant male.

This creepy looking creature is called an Antarctic Scale worm (Eulagisca Gigantea) and is found in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. It can grow up to approx 20cms (8inches) in length.

What appears to be it's head is in fact a retractable throat that extends outwards of about 5cm (2inches) when it is feeding

Some species of Pearlfish often hide inside the Sea cucumbers anus. The Pearlfish propels itself into the anus and if the sea cucumber rejects the pearlfish it will clench it's anus. The problem with that is Sea cucumbers also breathe through their anus so clenching prevents them from breathing which gives the Pearlfish a great advantage.

Some Pearlfish are parasites and once they are inside the Sea Cucumber, it will eat it's gonads.

An Ostriches eye is bigger than any other land animal measuring at approx 5cm in diameter. The Ostriches eyes are even bigger than their brains.

A newborn Chinese water deer is so small it can almost fit in the palm of your hand. As they get older they develop fang like teeth like vampires. These tusks are moveable because they are loosely attached to the socket by a band of tissue from the gum looped around the tusk.

Superb Fairywrens teach a secret password to their embryonic chicks to tell them apart from the Horsfield bronze cuckoo which is a "Brood parasite". The fairywrens sing a special tune to the eggs before they hatch, the chicks learn it and use the tune in their begging calls. The chicks in the cuckoo eggs don't have enough time to learn the tune from when the fairywrens lay their eggs to the time cuckoos lay theirs. If the chick doesn't sing the secret password the wrens will leave and create a new nest.

The Slow Loris is the only venomous primate, it is also one of the rarest primates. The venom secretes from a gland and has caused anaphylactic shock and even death in humans.

The male Platypus has a spur on the back of it's feet which secretes venom, more venom is produced during mating season which leads scientists to believe the Platypus use the spurs to compete for mates. The venom isn't fatal to humans but can very painful.

Birds are immune to the burn of capsaicin, but that's not all. Birds don't digest the chilli/pepper seeds, their gut seperates the seeds from the pulp. Which means the seeds are more likely to germinate when excreted from the birds.

The Gastric Brooding frog is the only frog known to give birth from it's mouth. Sadly this frog is now extinct mainly due to parasites. These frogs would lay their eggs but then swallows them. The eggs are coated in a substance that stops the production of gastric acid in the stomach. The frog also can't eat until the baby froggies are born, out of the frogs mouth.

Out of the entire animal kingdom, Seahorses, pipefish and seadragons are the only males in the world to give birth to their offspring.

This colourful creature is a Peacock mantis shrimp. Don't let the beauty fool you coz they use 2 appendages called dactyl clubs to strike their prey at the acceleration faster than a .22 calibre bullet. The dactyl clubs can hit their pray at a whopping 160 pounds of force

Believe it or not this Elephant shrew is not in fact a shrew at all. It is more closely related to a group of animals that include Elephants, Manatees and Aardvarks.

Frogs cannot vomit, so if it eats something toxic the frog throws up it's entire stomach. It's called full gastric eversion.

The frog wipes it's stomach with eats feet trying to rid the toxins and then pushes their stomach back into their bodies.

The Blue Whales are the biggest animals that has ever lived. It's tongue weighs bout the same as an elephant and the aortas are large enough for a human to go through.

Some moths including the Luna Moth do not have a mouth and can't eat. They only live for around a week, so just enough time to mate.

Hippos have special glands on their skin that secretes a pink/reddish oily fluid. It acts as a skin moisturiser, water repellent and antibiotic. The fluid appears red when exposed to sunlight and prevents their sensitive skin from drying and sunburn.

Naturally Flamingos are actually white, it is their diet of shrimp, algae and brine that turns them pink. There are also more fake plastic flamingos in the world than real ones.

Shield shrimp have been found on top of Uluru.

These shrimp are more sea monkey like than actual edible shrimp and can grow to 7cm long. The eggs dehydrate and can lay dormant for up to 7 years. After heavy rains the eggs hatch and the shrimp appear in the millions. The wind spreads the eggs across Australia and that is why they can be found in some of the driest areas of Australia including atop the famous Uluru.

Flies really are disgusting, not only to they roll around and eat faeces, they also puke on their food. They do this to cover it in digestive juices that dissolve the food into a liquid type substance that they then suck up through their straw like tongue. They also lay their eggs in rotting flesh and the maggots will only grow into flies after eating the rotten flesh.

Dragonflies and Damselflies often form a heart shape with their tails when they are mating.

After a male honeybee finishes mating with the Queen it's sexual organs (endophallus) fall off inside the queen. This then paralyses the bee and soon after it dies. The next bee will remove the previous bees endophallus to insert his to mate and then also dies. Queen bees will mate with around 10-20 drone bees.

About 14 species of Scorpions can discard their stingers just like some lizards discard their tails. The problem is that the stinger part that detaches has the anus and some of the digestive track in it. This causes the Scorpions abdomen to swell and poop to build up within weeks. They then have roughly 8 months to survive and mate before they die of constipation.

Cows have no upper front teeth but they have a hard palate that the sharp bottom teeth press against when chewing food.

It takes 3000 cows to produce enough leather to supply the NRL with footballs for a year.

Capuchin and some other species of monkeys pee on their hands to wash their feet and other parts of their body. Scientists believe they do this to attract a mate.