Many animals have some fascinating features that are rarely known. Some of them are odd, many of them are sexual, and some of them are just plain sickening.

Given the sort of forum this is; all are welcome.

Post any obscure animal facts that you find interesting.

I'll start it off:

Most male mammals have a Penis Bone which helps them maintain erections.

Female Spotted Hyenas have a pseudo-penis, larger than a male penis, and it is through this that they urinate, copulate and give birth. This pseudo-penis is believed to be the reason that in Spotted Hyenas, unlike other Hyena species, the females are dominant.

Squid and other cephalopods have eyes very similar in structure to human eyes, except that they lack a blind spot, due to the fact that the blood-vessels in their eyes run behind the retina, rather than in front of it. They also have the ability to detect the polarisation of light. However, they are almost uniformly colourblind.

Elephants spend 23 hours a day eating. (Rosie O'Donald?)

The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards

Animals & Fish there, in Antarctica, have White Blood.

IIRC, this is only true of one type of fish: the Channichthyidae

Very interesting anyway though.


Another interesting fact about Elephants: Elephants die of old age not due to any more traditional cause, but simply because they run out of replacement teeth and so can't actually eat anything any more.

Time for a new experiment.

We continually give Elephants Dentures. Then see how long they live.


I also heard that Birds are unable to burp.

Oh, and Dogs are unable to get HIV or AIDS.

So you're telling me a person that has sex with a dog can't get AIDS? Sweet! Err.. I meant interesting, in a scientific way.

lol

but why can't dogs get AIDS or HIV?
very weird.....

Well, HIV is technically a human-only disease. It comes from SIV (Simian Immuno Virus IIRC)

It probably isn't very good at jumping species, and as such can't infect anything outside of the primates.

I'm not sure though.


Another interesting fact about HIV: The only known resistance to HIV is the same as the resistance to the Black Death: Hence it's actually quite common in some parts of Europe to be resistant to HIV.

The resistances are similar but not exactly the same I remember seeing something about it on discovery channel but forgot the details

Well dogs are better creatures anyway.
They entertain you. They just enjoy your presence and only thing they ask you to do is get them out sometimes. Even their tongue hygieny is on much higher level and they wont give you ADIS nor HIV.

They won't steal your money
They aren't planning nuclear attack
They don't care if you leave your socks to floor.

Gee, dog would be good wife! :0

Dogs are rubbish. And let us not forget about cat AIDS - I know someone who's cat died of it. Anyway, getting back to the original topic (and therefore away from various types of AIDS) there are several species of Arctic/Antarctic fish (and some northerly frogs) that have a form of natural Antifreeze in their blood to prevent them icing up. This also allows them to be frozen in the ice for up to months at a time with few ill effects (i.e. not having their cells ripped to shreds by ice-crystals)

Dogs also can't sweat. Their way of releasing body heat is panting.

Sweet. Though doesn't human do that too? Freeze your body and wait that in future someone invents something which can wake you up from deaths :P

Nah, that's why cryogenics at the moment isn't worthwhile. At the moment cryogenics relies on the future-people being able to fix the damage from the freezing, but TBH the brain is likely unrecoverable after that level of cellular damage (or at least, what you recover won't be exactly what was there before)

But if they can work out how to get those antifreeze agents to work properly in human bodies cryogenics may become worth considering.

But doesn't some rich guys freeze their bodies when their dead just because of the particular reason?

Yes, but this is mainly because money does not equate with a) scientific knowledge or b) common sense.

Indeed, when water turns solid it increases in size by about ~10%, and we're made up of quite alot of water. This basically means that freezing ourselves shreds our organism due to huge particles of ice within us.

Anyways, I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I've heard that Polar Bears are the only living beings that can choose not to shit (i.e. they re-digest the food).

I've heard that as well, although I'm doubtful as to its veracity (not that Polar Bears can't do it, just that no other organism can)

On the subject of faecal matter, sloths only go for a shit once a month, and it's the most perilous time of their existence as it involves leaving the trees to shit on the ground.

Also, sloths are, somewhat surprisingly, really rather good swimmers, swimming much faster than they do anything else (since they cannot jump, it's the only way to travel from tree to tree during the floods.) In fact, they are some of the best swimmers amongst all tree-dwelling animals. However, they can't swim for very long before they become waterlogged because of their thick fur and drown. One of the ironies of life, right there.