Funny Weird Amazing Facts!!

Wild turkeys can run at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour.

Benjamin Franklin wanted the national bird to be a turkey.

A spooked turkey can run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. They can also burst into flight approaching speeds between 50-55 mph in a matter of seconds.
So close, yet so far

A wild turkey has excellent vision and hearing. Their field of vision is about 270 degrees. This is the main reason they continue to elude some hunters.

Gobbling starts before sunrise and can continue through most of the morning.

Turkeys fly to the ground at first light and feed until mid-morning. Feeding resumes in mid-afternoon.

Turkeys spend the night in trees. They fly to their roosts around sunset.

Minnesota led the United States in turkey production in 2001. Forty-three million turkeys were produced.

Turkey eggs hatch in 28 days.

The fleshy growth under a turkey’s throat is called a wattle.

Turkeys have a long, red, fleshy area called a snood that grows from the forehead over the bill.

The caruncle is a red-pink fleshy growth on the head and upper neck of the turkey.

Israelis eat the most turkeys.....28 pounds per person.

The costume that "Big Bird" wears on Sesame Street is rumored to be made of turkey feathers.

Turkey skins are tanned and used to make cowboy boots and belts.

Most turkey feathers are composted.

Turkeys have been bred to have white feathers. White feathers have no spots under the skin when plucked.

Turkeys will have 3,500 feathers at maturity.

For their first meal on the moon, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin ate roast turkey in foil packets.

White meat has fewer calories and less fat than dark meat.

Turkey is low in fat and high in protein.

According to the 2002 census, there were 8,436 turkey farms in the United States.

50 percent of U.S. consumers eat turkey at least once per week.

Eating turkey does not cause you to feel sleepy after your Thanksgiving dinner. Carbohydrates in your Thanksgiving dinner are the likely cause of your sleepiness.

The five most popular ways to serve leftover turkey is as a sandwich, in stew, chili or soup, casseroles and as a burger.

Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented a live turkey and two dressed turkeys to the President. The President does not eat the live turkey. He "pardons" it and allows it to live out its days on a historical farm.

June is National Turkey Lover’s Month.

Turkey breeding has caused turkey breasts to grow so large that the turkeys fall over.

In England, 200 years ago, turkeys were walked to market in herds. They wore booties to protect their feet. Turkeys were also walked to market in the United States.

Wild turkeys were almost wiped out in the early 1900's. Today there are wild turkeys in every state except Alaska.

Wild turkeys spend the night in trees. They especially like oak trees.

Turkeys have heart attacks. The United States Air Force was doing test runs and breaking the sound barrier. Nearby turkeys dropped dead with heart attacks.

Commercially raised turkeys cannot fly.

Turkeys are related to pheasants.

A domesticated male turkey can reach a weight of 30 pounds within 18 weeks after hatching.

2.74 billion pounds of turkey were processed in the United States in 1994.

Turkeys do not see well at night.

A large group of turkeys is called a flock.

Turkeys can see in color.

Turkeys don’t really have ears like ours, but they have very good hearing.

The ballroom dance the "turkey trot" was named for the short, jerky steps that turkeys take.

A 16 week old turkey is called a fryer. A five to seven month old turkey is called a young roaster and a yearling is a year old. Any turkey 15 months or older is called mature.

Illinois produced 2.9 million turkeys in 2003 and ranked 15th in turkey production in the United States.

Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia, Missouri and Virginia are the leading producers of turkey in 2003. These states produced 75% of all the turkeys raised in 2003.

Gobbling turkeys can be heard a mile away on a quiet day.

Male turkeys gobble. Hens do not. They make a clicking noise.

Nineteen million turkeys are eaten each Easter.

Twenty-two million turkeys are eaten each Christmas.

Forty-five million turkeys are eaten each Thanksgiving.

United States turkey growers raised 270 million turkeys in 2003.

It takes 75-80 pounds of feed to raise a 30 pound tom turkey.

Turkey eggs are tan with brown specks and are larger than chicken eggs.

Most of the turkeys raised for commercial production are White Hollands.

Baby turkeys are called poults and are tan and brown.

Turkey feathers were used by Native Americans to stabilize arrows.

Turkeys lived almost ten million years ago.

Turkeys can see movement almost a hundred yards away.

Six hundred seventy-five million pounds of turkey are eaten each Thanksgiving in the United States.

Turkeys’ heads change colors when they become excited.

Tom turkeys have beards. This is black, hairlike feathers on their breast. Hens sometimes have beards, too.

Wild turkeys can run 20 miles per hour.

Wild turkeys can fly for short distances up to 55 miles per hour.

The turkey was domesticated in Mexico and brought to Europe in the 16th century.

The female turkey is called a hen.

The male turkey is called a tom.

The wild turkey is native to Northern Mexico and the Eastern United States.

A 15 pound turkey usually has about 70 percent white meat and 30 percent dark meat.

The heaviest turkey ever raised was 86 pounds, about the size of a large dog.

In 2003, the average American ate 17.4 pounds of turkey.

Turkeys can drown if they look up when it is raining.

Turkeys have heart attacks. When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead.

The best time to see a turkey is on a warm clear day or in a light rain.

The bright skin that hangs from a turkey's neck is called a "wattle."

Turkeys are able to adapt to a wide variety of habitats. However, most turkeys are found in hardwood forests with grassy areas.

Turkeys have a wingspan of approximately 4.5 feet.

The turkey was once nominated to be the official bird of the United States.

The thing that hangs from the top of the beak of a turkey is called the snood.

Over 100 million birds die annually by crashing into glass windows in the United States.

Kiwis are the only known bird to have nostrils located at the tip of their beak.

In the United States birds and planes collided more than 22,000 times between the years of 1990 and 1998.

In the Middle Ages, peacocks and swans were sometimes served at Christmas dinners.

In order to scare away predators, Giant petrels, a type of seabird, throw up all over the intruder.

The Arctic Tern, which is a small bird, can fly a round trip from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back. This can be as long as twenty thousand miles per year. This is the longest migration for a bird.

The American Kestrel hawk weighs only four ounces.

Storks were a symbol of fertility in Europe and were considered to bring good luck.

Some birds have been know to put ants into their feathers because the ants squirt formic acid, which kills parasites.

Pigeons can see ultraviolet lights.

In 1681, the last dodo bird died.

Flamingos are able to fly at a speed of approximately 55 kilometers an hour. In one night they can travel about 600 km.

Blue Jays can imitate the calls of hawks.

Birds do not sweat, as they do not have sweat glands.

A seagull can drink salt water because it has special glands that filter out the salt.

A peregrine falcon can reach speeds up to 200 miles per hour.

Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day!

The scarlet tanager, a songbird native to Illinois, can eat as many as 2,100 gypsy-moth caterpillars in one hour.

The oldest bird on record was Cocky, a cockatoo, who died in the London Zoo at the age of 82.

The highest flight by a bird was by a Ruppell's vulture at 37,000 feet. The bird hit a plane at this height.

The fastest bird in the world is the Peregrine Falcon, which can reach speeds in excess of two hundred miles per hour.

There are an estimated 2,500 collisions between birds and planes each year in the US.

The flying fox of Africa has a wingspan of fifty inches!

Birds save energy by flying in a "V" formation.

The largest bird egg ever laid was laid millions of years ago by the Madagascar, or the elephant bird.

Wild Flamingos are pink because they consume vast quantities of algae and brine shrimp.

Whooping cranes are born with blue eyes that change to bright gold by the time they six months old.

Blue jays often forget where they hide winter supplies of food.

Sometimes birds show anger towards humans by taking out its feelings on other birds nearby, because they are too afraid to attack humans.

The Egyptian vulture uses stones to smash ostrich eggs.

Vultures can soar for hours without one beat of their wings.

The dipper bird builds nests behind waterfalls for protection.

When two lovebirds appear to be kissing, they are actually grooming each other with their bills to keep clean and neat.

The fastest bird is the peregrine falcon. It can fly at a speed of 168-217 miles per hour.

A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.

There are about 100 billion birds in the world, and about 6 billion of them make their homes in the United States.

Most dinosaurs walked on their toes.

The stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut!

Dinosaurs probably lived to be between 75 to 300 years of age. Scientists figured this out from looking at the structure of their bones.

The black-necked cobra, which lives mostly in Africa, spits its venom into the eyes of its victim, to cause it blindness.

There are no snakes in New Zealand.

The venom of the king cobra is so deadly that one bite can kill twenty people or one elephant.

The fastest moving land snake is the Black Mamba, which can move up to 7 miles per hour.

The King Cobra has enough venom in its bite that it can kill up to 13 adults.

The Australian Brown Snake's venom is so powerful that only 1/14,000th of on ounce is needed to kill a human being.

Taipan snakes have 50 times more toxic than a cobra snake.

Snake venom is ninety percent protein.

Snake is a delicacy in China.

Most snakes have six rows of teeth.

A snake charmer in Bangladesh once found 3,500 poisonous cobras and their eggs hidden underneath the floors of two suburban homes.

Sea snakes are the most poisonous snakes in the world.

The chameleon has a tongue that is 1.5 times the length of its body!

Squirrels can't remember where they hide half of their nuts.

Only male crickets can chirp.

A rabbit's teeth never stop growing.

Alligators cannot move backwards.

Texas horned toads can shoot blood out of the corners of their eyes.

The faster kangaroos hop, the less energy they use.

An okapi's tongue can grow to be 17 inches long.
An owl's eyes are bigger than its brain.

Salamanders breath through their skin.

The guanaco of South America, a cousin of the camel, has pads on its feet to keep its feet from burning on desert sand or freezing in mountain snow.

Foxes sometimes nip at the heals of cattle so the stomping of the cattle makes mice and other rodents come out of the ground, for the fox to eat.

Salamanders are known to come out of wood when it was burning inside a fireplace, this is because Salamanders hibernate in wood.

Whether an alligator is a male or female is determined by the temperature of the nest where the egg is hatched – 90 to 93 degrees will make it a male; 82 to 86 degrees will turn it into a female.

Some animals produce their own lights, called bioluminescence. The Brazilian railroad worm has a red light on its head and green lights down its side. All it needs to drive on the street is a turn signal.

You may have heard someone say, "It’s raining cats and dogs." There have been actual documented cases from all over the world of fish, frogs, dead birds, snakes, snails, beetles, worms and jellyfish raining down from the sky in great numbers, but no reports of showers of cats or dogs.

Skunks can shoot their bad-smelling spray only about two yards, but you can smell it up to two and a half miles away.

A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

It is physically impossible for a person to lick their own elbow.

The stonefish, which lives off the coast of Australia, is the most poisonous fish in the world.

A slug has four noses.

Octopuses have 3 hearts.

A goldfish can live up to 40 years.

A starfish doesn't have a brain.

Killer Whales are the only sea animal that outranks the Tiger Shark as top predator of the sea.

The lung fish can live out of water for as long as four years!

Scallops swim with jet-propelled speed by clapping its shell open and shut.

Starfish have eight eyes - one at the end of each leg.

The snapping shrimp, only 1 1/2 inches long, makes a noise with its one big claw, which sounds exactly like a firecracker.

The leatherback is the biggest sea turtle, and it can weigh as much as 1,500 pounds.

The emperor penguin is playful, and often times lies on its chest and side to slide along the ice and snow.

A Giant squid's eye can be as big as a basketball.

A jellyfish is 95 percent water!
Some fish have eyes that are the same size as their stomach!

The hippopotamus gives birth under water and nurses its young in the river as well, though the young hippos do come up periodically for air.

Animals with some of the longest lives are the Marion’s tortoise (152 years), the fin whale (116 years) and the deep-sea clam (100 years).

The largest member of the dolphin family is called an orca or killer whale.

There are about 40 species or kinds of porpoises and dolphins.

Porpoises and dolphins communicate with each other by squeaking, growling, moaning, and whistling.

Flying fish actually glide on wind currents above the surface of the water, sometimes up to 20 feet above the surface.

Starfish can have up to 16 arms!

The 14-foot-long narwhal is a whale whose tooth can reach up to eight feet long!

Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

The blue whale, the largest animal to have ever existed, is 96 feet long and weights 125 tons. This is as much as 4 large dinosaurs (Brontosauri), 23 elephants, 230 cows or 1800 men.

When an octopus gets angry, it shoots a stream of black "ink".

Minnows have teeth located on a bone in their throat.

The smallest fish in the world are the pygmy goby and the Luzon goby, from the Philippines, which are only one-half-inch long when they are full grown.

The world's largest rodent is the Capybara. An Amazon water hog that looks like a guinea pig, it can weigh more than 100 pounds.

A newly hatched fish is called a "fry."

At 188 decibels, the whistle of the blue whale is the loudest sound produced by any animal.

Fish have gel-slime on their bodies that protects them from parasites.

Fish swimming at depths of 15,000 feet (almost 3 miles down!) can withstand a pressure of 7,000 pounds per square inch. They are able to live in these crushing depths by pumping gas into their swim bladder.

One way to tell the age of a fish is by looking at its scales. They have growth rings just like trees. These are called circuli. Clusters of them are called annuli. Each annuli show one year.

The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons.

In the U.S., the milk production per dairy cow is approximately 12,000 pounds.

In Colorado, there are about 83,000 dairy cows.

Humans and cows have the same gestation period, which is about nine months.

Dexter is the smallest type of cow. This cow was bred to be a small size for household living.

Dairy cows can produce 20 to 35 gallons of saliva a day.

Cows drink anywhere from 25-50 gallons of water each day.

Cows do not have any upper front teeth. Instead they have a thick pad on the top jaw.

Cows can detect odors up to five miles away.

Cows are able to hear lower and higher frequencies better than human beings.

You would have to milk 260 cows for an entire year to fill a space shuttle's external fuel tank with 529,000 gallons of milk.

There are over 9 million beef and dairy cattle in New Zealand.

There are an equivalent number of cows and people in Friesland, Netherlands.

The temperature of milk when it leaves the body of a cow is 101 degrees Fahrenheit. The milk is then quickly chilled and stored at a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The temperature of milk when it is coming out of a cow is about 36 degrees Celsius.

Studies have shown that classical music helps cows produce more milk.

On average, a typical dairy cow lies down and stands up about 14 times a day.

On average, 350 squirts are needed from milking a cow to make a gallon of milk.

A group of crows is called a murder.

A cow releases about 125 gallons of gas per day.

A cow averages 40,000 jaw movements a day.

You can lead a cow up a stairwell but not down a stairwell.

Cows have four-chambered stomachs.

Cows can sleep standing up.

A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime

The mandrill baboon has a red nose, blue cheeks, and an orange beard!

Chimpanzees use tools more than any other animal except man.

A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.

Squirrel Monkeys are the most common monkey in South-America.

Squirrel Monkeys tails are only partly prehensile.

Squirrel Monkeys move through trees by leaping.

Colobus monkey’s bushy tails, which often exceeds the length of their bodies.

Colobus monkeys have a long, black fur coat with a white stripe running down the sides of their backs to their tails.

Zanzibar is the only place where you will find the Kirk's Red Colobus monkey.

The male howler monkey of Central and South America is the noisiest land animal, which can be heard clearly from a distance of ten miles away.

The Spider Monkey offspring are dependent on their mothers for the first 2 to 3 years, with the females giving birth every 3 to 4 years.

Spider Monkeys will use all five appendages; arms, legs and tail, to scramble through trees.

Spider Monkeys have hook-like fingers, but no thumb, and the tip of their tail can support the weight of their entire body.

Spider Monkeys are very good climbers and are usually found in groups of around 30, often broken up into smaller sub-groups of around 3 or 4.

Groups of Snow Monkeys are primarily formed by adult females, there are roughly three time the number of adult females than there are adult males and young.

Human birth control pills work on gorillas.

Gorillas can catch human colds and other illnesses.

Gorillas are considered apes, not monkeys. The way to distinguish between an ape and a monkey is that apes do not have tails.

Gorilla's have unique nose prints just as humans have unique fingerprints.

Snow Monkeys live in areas where the temperature is an average of -10ºC.

The Old World monkeys include some terrestrial species such as the baboons, while New World monkeys are exclusively arboreal. Some New World monkeys have a prehensile, or grasping, tail. The tail can be used like a hand.

Monkeys are divided into two geographically separate groups - the New World monkeys of South America and the Old World monkeys, found in Africa and Asia.

When the reindeer make their yearly journey across the icy Arctic region, the chemical keeps them from freezing—much as antifreeze keeps a car from freezing up in winter.

The moss contains a special chemical that helps reindeer keep their body fluids warm.

Most animals don’t eat moss. It’s hard to digest, and it has little nutritional value. But reindeer fill up with lots of moss.

A kangaroo can jump 45 feet!

The faster kangaroos hop, the less energy they use.

When the are in danger, kangaroos will beat the ground loudly with their hind feet.

Unlike other four legged mammals, kangaroos cannot walk backwards.

There is a certain species of kangaroo that is only 2.5 centimeters long when it is born.

A newborn kangaroo weighs approximately 0.03 ounces and is small enough to fit in a teaspoon.

Young kangaroos are called joeys.

A group of kangaroos is called a mob.

Kangaroos are native of Australia.

There are more than 50 different kinds of kangaroos.

Mules have one horse and one donkey for a parent.

Baby donkeys or baby mules are also known as "Foals."

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

A female donkey's milk is closest to human milk.

Elephants have a slower pulse of 27 and for a canary it is 1000!

Only one mammal can't jump -- the elephant.

The trunk of an elephant can hold up to two gallons of water.

The elephant is the national animal of Thailand.

In a day, an elephant can drink 80 gallons of water.

In 1916, an elephant was tried and hung for murder in Erwin, Tennessee.

Elephants have been known to learn up to 60 commands.

During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

An elephant's trunk can hold 2.5 gallons of water.

An elephant's tooth can weight as much as three kilograms.

An elephant in the wild can eat anywhere from 100 - 1000 pounds of vegetation in a 16 hour period.

An elephant can live up to the age of seventy, or in some cases even more.

Elephants purr like cats do, as a means of communication.

An African adult elephant eats about six hundred pounds of food a day; that’s four percent of the elephant’s body weight!

Alaskan brown bears, world's largest meat-eating animals that live on land, can weigh as much as 1,700 pounds (771 kilograms)

The grizzly bear can run as fast as the average horse!!

Bears are native to the continents of North America, Asia, Europe, and South America.

At birth, a panda is smaller than a mouse and weighs about four ounces.

The wild panda's diet consist 99% of bamboo.

The only predator that polar bears have are humans.

The Kodiak, which is native to Alaska, is the largest bear and can measure up to eight feet and weigh as much as 1,700 pounds.

Polar bears have been known to swim more than 60 miles without resting.

Polar bears can smell seals who are 20 miles away.

Polar bears can eat as much as ten percent of their body weight in less than one hour.

Polar bears are excellent swimmers. They have been known to swim more than 60 miles without a rest.

Polar bear livers contain so much Vitamin A that it can be fatal if eaten by a human.

Not all polar bears hibernate; only pregnant females polar bears do.

In the last 30 years, only seven people have been killed by a polar bear in Canada.

If you spray an antiseptic spray on a polar bear, its fur will turn purple.

98% of brown bears in the United States are in Alaska.

Female and male black bears cannot tolerate being around each other except when they breed.

All polar bears are left handed.

Male bears are called boars.

The smallest species of bears is called sun or Malayan bears.

Bears whose brown fur is tipped with lighter-colored hairs are called grizzly bears .

A giraffe's heart weighs an incredible 24 pounds.

A giraffe can go longer without water than a camel.

A full grown giraffe's neck can weigh as much as 500 pounds.

The tallest mammal in the world is the giraffe.

Giraffes have black tongues.

In one minute, the heart of a giraffe can pump 160 gallons of blood.

An adult giraffe's kick is so powerful that it can decapitate a lion.

Adult male giraffes bang their long necks together in a form of ritual fighting, during which no harm is done to either giraffe.

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!

Phew! I think that's enough for today.
Post the FACTS you lot know.