Amazing Animal Facts
FACT: Baleen whales don’t just swallow krill. Often fish, penguins and even medium sized sharks can be unintentionally swallowed by the giant filter feeders. Smaller fish are usually digested whereas larger fish, penguins, and sharks are often expelled through the whale’s blowhole, shooting them fifty feet or more into the air.
FACT: Hippos seldom swim in the sea in case they get attacked by sperm whales, which have mouths and stomachs exactly big enough to swallow them whole.
Hard to Believe History
FACT: The ancient Greek ruler Thermystopyle was born with only one eye and had a false one made out of marble. During the first Olympic games a javelin thrower tripped on his run up. Thermystoplye laughed so hard that his false eye popped out and could not be found, which is where the expression, ‘it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye’ comes from.
FACT: After Hiroshima the Russians began their own programme to make the atomic bomb. In parallel, just in case they could not build atomic weapons, they planned rockets using conventional explosives with the same yield. The largest rocket planned was the size of the empire state building and weighed almost a million tonnes. Any larger than this and the rocket would need so much fuel it would be too heavy to get off the ground.
Bizarre Human Body
FACT: It is impossible to keep your eyes open when chewing penguin meat.
