No. 01MammalsChecked 5 October 2026
Sea otters have the densest fur of any mammal.
They have no blubber, so this coat is what keeps them warm in cold water. That is also why oil is so dangerous: oiled fur loses its insulating power.
Fun Facts
Twenty true surprises, each with its source.
No. 02MammalsChecked 5 October 2026
Bare-nosed wombats produce cube-shaped droppings.
The cubes form inside the last part of the intestine, where the wall has stiffer and more flexible regions that shape the droppings.
Source: Royal Society of Chemistry
No. 03MammalsChecked 5 October 2026
Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight.
Their scientific order, Chiroptera, means 'hand wing' in Greek. Flying squirrels and similar animals glide rather than fly.
Source: Grand Rapids Public Museum
No. 04MammalsChecked 5 October 2026
The blue whale is the largest animal known to have lived on Earth.
It is larger even than the dinosaurs were — yet it feeds on tiny krill, eating up to about six tons in a day.
No. 05BirdsChecked 5 October 2026
Tracked Arctic terns flew about 70,900 km in a single year.
Tiny geolocators showed the birds travelling between Arctic breeding grounds and the Southern Ocean — nearly twice the distance often quoted before.
Source: Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
No. 06BirdsChecked 5 October 2026
Common swifts can stay in the air for about ten months without landing.
Researchers from Lund University fitted swifts with tiny data loggers and found that some never touched down outside the breeding season.
Source: National Audubon Society
No. 07BirdsChecked 5 October 2026
Flamingos get their pink colour from their food.
Algae and brine shrimp contain natural pigments called carotenoids. A flamingo’s body processes them and its feathers turn pink.
Source: Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute
No. 08BirdsChecked 5 October 2026
A flamingo is essentially standing on tiptoe.
Flamingo legs bend much like ours do. The joint that looks like a backward knee is closer to an ankle.
Source: Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute
No. 09Ocean LifeChecked 5 October 2026
An octopus has three hearts.
Two pump blood through the gills; the third sends oxygen-rich blood around the rest of the body. Their copper-based blood is blue.
Source: National Wildlife Federation
No. 10Ocean LifeChecked 5 October 2026
Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are in its arms, not its head.
That spread-out nervous system helps the arms act with a surprising degree of independence.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
No. 11Ocean LifeChecked 5 October 2026
Starfish are not fish.
Sea stars have no gills, scales or fins. Instead of blood, they use seawater to move nutrients through their bodies, and some can regrow a lost arm.
Source: NOAA National Ocean Service
No. 12Ocean LifeChecked 5 October 2026
In seahorses, the father carries the pregnancy.
The female places her eggs in a pouch on the male, where the embryos develop. Researchers found that the pouch forms placenta-like structures.
Source: The University of Sydney
No. 13Tiny CreaturesChecked 5 October 2026
A tardigrade can dry out completely and come back to life.
When conditions turn harsh, it shrivels into a dried ball called a tun. It can survive like that for years and recover when it gets water again.
No. 14Tiny CreaturesChecked 5 October 2026
Tardigrades have survived direct exposure to space.
In 2007 they became the first animals known to survive the vacuum and ultraviolet radiation of space.
No. 15Tiny CreaturesChecked 5 October 2026
Honey bees dance to give directions.
In the waggle dance, the angle of the bee’s run shows the direction of food relative to the sun, and the length of the waggle shows how far away it is.
Source: NC State Extension
No. 16Tiny CreaturesChecked 5 October 2026
One microscopic ocean organism produces up to 20% of the oxygen in our biosphere.
It is called Prochlorococcus, the smallest photosynthetic organism on Earth.
Source: NOAA National Ocean Service
No. 17Planet EarthChecked 5 October 2026
Roughly half of Earth’s oxygen production comes from the ocean.
Most of it is made by drifting plankton. Marine life uses about the same amount of oxygen again.
Source: NOAA National Ocean Service
No. 18Planet EarthChecked 5 October 2026
In ideal conditions, kelp can grow about 45 cm in a day.
Kelp forests are made of large brown algae and grow in cool, shallow coastal water.
Source: NOAA National Ocean Service
No. 19Planet EarthChecked 5 October 2026
Most mangrove trees are flooded by the sea at least twice a day.
Their tangled prop roots let them cope with the tides, and slow the water so that mud builds up and the coast is stabilised.
Source: NOAA National Ocean Service
No. 20Planet EarthChecked 5 October 2026
The green of the northern lights comes from oxygen.
Oxygen glows green roughly 100–200 km up and red even higher. Nitrogen adds blue and pink.
Source: NASA Science
No. 21Ocean LifeChecked 10 November 2026
Humpback whales hunt with nets made of bubbles.
Working together, they release curtains of air bubbles that squeeze shoals of fish together and push them towards the surface — then lunge up through the middle.
Source: NOAA Fisheries
No. 22Ocean LifeChecked 10 November 2026
Male humpback whales sing songs that keep changing.
Their breeding-season songs are complex and repetitive, and they change continually over time — while many of their other calls stay the same for decades.
Source: U.S. National Park Service
No. 23BirdsChecked 10 November 2026
Emperor penguins are the only animals that breed during the Antarctic winter.
The breeding cycle starts around April, when the sea ice forms again. The males then keep the egg warm through the darkest months.
Source: Australian Antarctic Program
No. 24BirdsChecked 10 November 2026
Inside an emperor penguin huddle it can be as warm as +24 °C.
Up to ten penguins pack into every square metre. Huddling cuts their heat loss by as much as half.
Source: Australian Antarctic Program
No. 25BirdsChecked 10 November 2026
A hummingbird’s heart can slow from about 1,200 to 40 beats a minute overnight.
On cold Andean nights, hummingbirds enter torpor: they let their body temperature fall and slow their heart to save energy.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
No. 26Tiny CreaturesChecked 10 November 2026
One generation of monarch butterflies lives up to nine months — the others live only weeks.
The long-lived generation flies thousands of kilometres south to Mexico in autumn and starts the journey north again in spring.
Source: USDA Forest Service
Read the story: The butterfly that outlives its parents by months
No. 27AmphibiansChecked 10 November 2026
Axolotls can regrow limbs, eyes and even parts of their brains.
Scientists study the genes involved, which may switch back on after an injury. In the wild, though, axolotls are critically endangered.
Source: Natural History Museum, London
No. 28Ocean LifeChecked 10 November 2026
Coral reefs cover about 1% of the ocean but shelter at least 25% of marine life.
Reefs are home to more than 4,000 species of fish, corals and other marine life.
Source: NOAA National Ocean Service
No. 29Ocean LifeChecked 10 November 2026
A bleached coral is not dead — yet.
Stressed corals expel the algae that feed them and turn white. If the stress eases, they can recover; if it continues, they eventually die.
Source: NOAA National Ocean Service
No. 30Ocean LifeChecked 10 November 2026
About 80% of animals living 200–1,000 m deep in the open ocean make their own light.
The light is usually blue, because blue light travels best through water.
Source: NOAA Ocean Exploration
No. 31Planet EarthChecked 10 November 2026
Peatlands cover about 3% of the land but hold more carbon than all the world’s forests.
Their waterlogged soils slow down decay so much that dead plants pile up as peat — storing more than 600 gigatonnes of carbon.
Source: IUCN
No. 32Planet EarthChecked 10 November 2026
Lightning can strike the same place twice.
The old saying is wrong: lightning does hit the same spot, or almost the same spot, more than once.
Source: NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory
Read the story: A spark several times hotter than the Sun’s surface
No. 33Planet EarthChecked 10 November 2026
The Himalaya are still rising — by more than 1 cm a year.
India is still pushing into Asia, a collision that began about 40 to 50 million years ago.
Source: U.S. Geological Survey
No. 34Planet EarthChecked 10 November 2026
Some parts of the Atacama Desert have not seen rain for centuries.
Cold ocean water and sinking dry air keep rain away. Scientists use the desert to learn how dryness limits life — on Earth and on Mars.
Source: NASA Astrobiology
No. 35MammalsChecked 10 November 2026
When a bat closes in on an insect, its calls speed up into a “feeding buzz”.
Faster calls give it more frequent echoes — and a more precise fix on its prey in the final moments.
Source: U.S. National Park Service
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