Hi, I’m John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube and yes, I
do know that I need a haircut. But did YOU know that bats account for one-quarter of
the mammal population in the world? There are 1,100 different bat species.
Well that’s the first of many astounding facts about animals I’m going to share with you today!
Archeologists have discovered a man’s grave in Jordan who was buried with his fox 16,500
years ago, meaning the Middle East had pet foxes before pet dogs.
Weasels eat about one-third of their body weight every day.
A jellyfish can still sting you, even if it’s dead.
And Reindeers’ eyes change color through the seasons. They’re gold during the summer
and blue in the winter.
Also, bonus fact -- on Christmas, their noses are are red!
In 2013, scientists created a prosthetic tail for an alligator who had lost his (probably
due to another alligator biting it off).
Lemur communities are usually matriarchal.
And the antlers of a male red deer grow up to an inch per day. But they also shed and
regrow them each year, so they don't get you know, like 30 feet long.
Moose have very sensitive antlers -- in fact, they can feel a fly landing on them. And one
study suggested that those who have antlers actually have better hearing than those who don’t.
Jules Grévy, the president of France in the 1880s, received a zebra as a gift from the
Abyssinian government. And then, the species “Grévy’s zebra” was named after him.
Which is good to know, because previously I just believed that those zebras hated dry turkey.
There are forty English words for the cougar, including mountain lion, catamount, puma,
panther. Also Demi Moore.
Speaking of which, there's actually NO such thing as a panther. It's a word we use to
describe cats like black jaguars or black leopards.
Jaguar, by the way, comes from a Native American word meaning any large predator. Like it’s
sometimes even applied to dogs.
In 2011, two artists from Winnipeg started going out to sea and playing music for beluga
whales with an underwater sound system. And the whales actually gathered and enjoyed the
music in large groups. They went to a concert.
Ah, the simple life of being Canadian. Mark, did you ever play music for beluga whales?
One of the most critical components of building the 250 million dollar national accelerator
laboratory was a 35 dollar ferret named Felicia, who saved the government thousands of dollars
by cleaning the pipes. Until she was eventually retired for a robot.
BYE FELICIA. That's my Ice Cube impression.
By the time she died in 2007, Washoe the chimpanzee had learned around 350 words of American Sign
Language.
The spotted hyena laughs to communicate fear or excitement. Other hyenas can hear the laugh
from up to three miles away.
An animal you might never have heard of, the Australian quokka, has a permanent smile.
Another animal that looks so amazing that a picture of it is enough: the pom-pom crab.
Geckos sometimes shed their tails. And then they often eat them so they can regain some
of the nutrients. That's how my son feels about boogers.
One of the Australian Aboriginal groups, the Yuwaalaraay, had a creation myth that the
sun was created when an emu egg was thrown into the sky.
And speaking of Australia, around 80% of koalas are infected with chlamydia. In fact, in 2012
there was concern that a koala may have infected two members of One Direction -- Liam and Harry
-- during a photoshoot. But I want to be clear, that concern came not from doctors, but from
Directioners. It's worth noting, Liam and Harry were also concerned saying that they
never would have held the koalas if they'd known about the chlamydia rates, although
really, Liam and Harry? Is that your greatest chlamydia risk? Really?
In 2004, a black bear raided the cooler of some campers in Washington and he drank 36
cans of Rainier beer, specifically avoiding the cans of Busch. Basically, bears have better
taste in beer than humans.
Sea otters have a LOT of fur -- up to 1 million hairs per square inch.
Also vultures urinate and defecate on their legs to kill bacteria that are living on their
The kiwi is the only bird with nostrils at the end of its bill.
Seals use their whiskers to sense what’s going around them in the water. They can feel
a small submarine from 130 feet away, for instance
We've got a seal. We named him Seal, after the singer.
In the late 2000s, reports came from Japan of Macaques learning how to use vending machines.
Ostriches are faster than most horses.
And pregnant giraffes will sometimes try to give birth where they themselves were born.
You guys better now get pregnant or you're gonna have to go back to that plastic giraffe factory.
Now lets move on to kangaroo uteri. So female kangaroos have two uteruses and one pouch
and three vaginas, which allows them to be perpetually pregnant.
You know that thing when a rabbit jumps around and twists in the air, it’s known as a binky.
Also flamingos have 19 vertebrae in their necks.
Opossums don’t usually get rabies -- only around 1 in 800 have it. They’re also at
least partially immune to rattlesnake and cottonmouth venom.
A group of rattlesnakes, by the way, is known as a rhumba.
Raccoons are very dexterous -- they can even unlace shoes. Although they can't tie them,
so we've still got that on you, raccoons.
Scientists have found evidence that walruses lived off the coast of San Francisco around
5 million years ago.
Iguanas have a third eye on top of their heads. It has a retina and a lens, but it only detects
light, dark, and movement. You know, you don't need to be watching football
in HD if you're an iguana, you need to be like, is that thing gong to kill me, can I
eat that thing, and would that thing be appropriate to mate with. Those are the basic questions.
One of the biggest threats to lions are porcupines. If a lion gets too close, it can get quills
stuck in its mouth and nose.
According to a study done in 2012, goats have accents. Goat bleats sounds different depending
on which group that goat belongs to. Goat accents are of course also related to
whether that goat is listening to Taylor Swift.
The word “peacock” only refers to males. Freaking patriarchy. The bird’s real name
is “peafowl.” And females can be called “peahens.”
In 2007, the Iranian army arrested fourteen squirrels. They believed the squirrels were
concealing spy equipment and had been sent across the border intentionally.
An anteater is capable of eating around 30,000 insects per day.
Whatever, so am I. I choose not to, but I could.
When manatees rise above the water to breathe, they replace 90% of the air in their lungs.
To compare, humans doing the same thing replace about 10%.
Baboons have been known to find stray dogs and keep them around as playmates.
It’s illegal to import most mongoose species into the U.S. because they can ruin the population
of birds and rodents and many other small animals.
In Kenya, there’s a Camel Mobile Library -- camels transport books from the capital
to villages that are up to 400 km away.
Every year, the southern United States there's around $100 million in property damage caused
by beavers.
The elephant’s closest living mammal is the 4 kg or 8 pound rock hyrax. They’re
small and furry and yes, share an ancestor with the elephant. I mean, I guess we all
share ancestors if we go back to single-cell organisms, but they share a recenter ancestor.
Eels typically live between 15-20 years, but one eel in a Swedish aquarium lived for 85.
And finally, I return to my salon to tell you that female wallabies can produce two
different types of milk at once. They have different compositions -- one more suitable
for the developing joey in their pouch and one for the joey that has left the pouch.
I know what you're wondering -- but do wallabies have 3 vaginas? They do not.
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