Katie Adams - Wombats Poop Cubes: Saturn Rains Diamonds, Pandas Fake Pregnancies, and Other Mind-Blowing Facts in Three Words or Less

LIKE ANIMALS , THESE FACTS ARE TINY AND INTERESTING. (WELL , NOT THE LARGE ANIMALS.)

RABBITS DISLIKE CARROTS.

RABBITS ARENT ESPECIALLY FOND OF CARROTS, no more or less than any other vegetable. We only think they do because Bugs Bunny munches them all the time. And the reason he did it in the first place was a reference to the carrot-munching habit of Clark Gables character from the 1934 movie It Happened One Night .

PANDAS ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES and theyre shy when it comes to mating. On the relatively rare occasion when a panda in captivity does get pregnant, well, it might just be fake. In 2015, Yuan Yuan, a giant panda at the Taipei Zoo in China, exhibited all the normal signs of panda pregnancy. Then an ultrasound revealed that the artificially inseminated Yuan Yuan wasnt really carrying a baby. So whats up? Experts say that pregnant pandas are so rare that theyre lavished with attention and extrasparticularly more, and better foodthat Yuan Yuan falsified her pregnancy to get that special treatment.

LIKE HOW HUMAN BABIES , toddlers, and children will console themselves with the habit of sucking on their thumb, baby elephants do the same thing. Theyll put the ends of their trunks in their own mouths to make themselves feel better when nervous.

THEY REALLY HATE IT when they get a piece of banana between their teeth they cant get out with their tongue. So, they figured out a way to floss their teeth, long before humans invented thin, waxed dental floss. Monkeys use either blades of grass or bird feathers.

HAVE YOU EVER been playing with a dog, and amidst all the bounding and running around the pooch has a sneezing fit? They arent allergic to grass or dust or anything like thattheyre trying to communicate with you. Dogs sneeze to let you (and other dogs) know that their biting and jumping isnt meant to be aggressive, its out of play.

CHEETAHS ARE CATS , and big, spotted cats at that. But while they have a lot in common with their domesticated cousins, one unexpected thing is that they make similar sounds. Unlike lions, cheetahs dont let loose with a loud roar, preferring to chirp, meow, and even purr.

SLITHERY SNAKES dont have ears in the traditional sense. (After all, where would they go? Theres nothing hanging off the sides of their heads, and no entry point, either.) This doesnt mean they cant hear. They dosnakes tongues sense the vibrations caused by sounds.

AN INTERESTING CREATURE , the duck-billed platypus has feet like a duck, but is furry. Theyre mammals, and they nurse their young despite a complete and total lack of nipples. Female platypuses have mammary glands that secrete milk, which then oozes out across their skin, which their young can lap up at will.

HUMANS ARENT THE ONLY CREATURES on this planet that use substances to alter their realities. In other words, some people do drugs, and so do dolphins. Theyll seek out pufferfish, which is toxic to them if consumed. But if they chew it, it delivers a disorienting head change (if youre a dolphin).

FORGET EVERYTHING you know about bats. Yes, they fly, but they are not birds. And sure, they look like rats, but they arent rodents either. Theyre mammals. Also, the phrase blind as a bat is inaccurate, because bats arent blind. They rely on echolocation to navigate, but their eyes work, although primarily in shades of gray.

RELATIVE TO THEIR SIZE , fleas possess a superhuman (or super flea ) level of jumping ability. Researchers at the University of Cambridge studied fleas leaping ability, and they maxed out at seven vertical inches. Thats more than 80 times the height of a single flea.

RESEARCHERS HAVE NOTICED that dolphins will emit a unique whistling pattern. Other dolphins in their pod, or community, will then later repeat that pattern to communicate with and get that first dolphins attention. In other words, dolphins have names that they use to refer to themselves and each other.

EVER WONDER HOW SQUIRRELS remember where they bury their acorns? Well, they usually dont. Scientists attribute the planting of thousands of new trees each year to squirrels who put acorns underground and forgot about them.

MOSQUITOS DONT ACTUALLY BITE YOU. They dont have teeth, but puncture the skin with a super-sharp proboscis. While theyre collecting your delicious blood, they also urinate on you. (Theyve got to make room, it would seem.)