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Amazing Animal Facts and Fugures

Tanzania info > Amazing Animal Facts and Figures

Ostrich:

The biggest bird in the world is the ostrich, which can grow up to nine feet tall.
The average adult male ostrich, the world's largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Elephants:

Elephants have been found swimming miles from shore in the Indian Ocean .
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
All elephants walk tip-toe, because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.
Blue Whales weigh as much as 30 elephants.
Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of a blue whale.
Elephants and camels both have four knees.
African elephants are the largest mammals living on solid ground. They reach lengths up to 7.5 m and weights up to 7500 kg.
Elephants can communicate using sounds that are below the human hearing range: between 14 and 35 hertz.
A baby elephant calf can weigh up to 260 pounds when it is born.
An elephant herd can move fifty miles in a day.

Cheetahs:

Cheetahs make a chirping sound that is much like a bird's chirp or a dog's yelp. The sound is so an intense, it can be heard a mile away.
A cheetah can reach a top speed approaching 70 mph.
The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract its claws.

Hippopotamus:

The hippopotamus has skin an inch and a half thick - so solid that most bullets cannot penetrate it.
Although a full grown hippo weigh from four to five tons, but they can run faster than man.
The hippopotamus gives birth under water and nurses its young in the river as well, though the young hippos do come up periodically for air.
‘Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' is the fear of long word.
Hippos have killed more than 400 people in Africa - more than any other wild animal.

Giraffe:

Giraffes have no vocal cords.
Giraffes can clean their ears with their half metre long tongue.
Giraffes were at one time referred to by Europeans as "cameleopards," believing giraffes were the offspring of camels and leopards.
Young giraffes can grow an inch a month.
The animal with the highest normal blood pressure is the giraffe. However the animal with the highest peak blood pressure is the flea, whose blood reaches a pressure of 10 atmospheres just before take off for a big jump.
Mice, whales, elephants, giraffes and man all have seven neck vertebra.

Rhinoceros:

A rhinoceros's horn is made of hair.
Rhinos are in the same family as horses, and are thought to have inspired the myth of the unicorn.

Crocodile:

A crocodile's digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
A crocodile can't move its tongue and cannot chew. Its digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail.
Crocodiles and alligators are surprisingly fast on land. Although they are rapid, they are not agile. So if you ever find yourself chased by one, run in a zigzag line. You'll lose him or her every time.
The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.

Zebra:

No two zebras have the same markings.
A zebra is white with black stripes.

Lion:

Because most of a lion's weight is made up of muscle, they are amazing athletes. With one slap of a paw they can knock a full-grown zebra off its feet. Like any good athlete, they need their sleep and a lot of it! Twenty hours out of each day is spent snoozing.
Lions have hair rather than fur. Hair is defined as a single-layered, thin coat and fur is a double-layered, insulated coat. Although lions seem to be all one color, closer inspection reveals patches of white inside their legs and on their bellies.
When an animal is killed, lions will eat virtually every part of it–the skin, meat, intestines, even the eyeballs. But they don't eat the stomach. It must smell bad to lions because they often bury it.
Lions can see very well in low-light conditions. One reason for this is the large size of a lion's yellow eyes. Another reason is their "tapetum lucidum", a lining of reflective cells at the back of their eyes. This lining acts like a mirror and directs light back across the vision cells, giving them another chance to absorb it.
Some lions can mate over 50 times a day.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
The female lion is a much more efficient hunter than the male.
An adult lion's roar can be heard up to five miles away, and warns off intruders or reunites scattered members of the pride.
The female lion does more than 90% of the hunting while the male simply prefers to rest. !!
Lions are the only truly social cat species, and usually every female in a pride, ranging from 5 to 30 individuals, is closely related.

Flamingoes are the some of the only creatures designed to survive in the caustic environment of a volcanic lake Equipped with a filter-feeding system unlike any other bird on earth, flamingoes' beaks have evolved to skim tiny algae from the water's surface. By swinging their upside-down heads from side to side or swishing water with their fat tongues, flamingoes siphon the lake water through their filters to trap algae. They can filter as many as 20 beakfuls of algae-rich water in a single second.

Others:

The world's smallest winged insect, the Tanzanian parasitic wasp, is smaller than the eye of a housefly.
The frog was an ancient Egyptian symbol, later adopted by the conquering Romans. The Frog-headed goddess Hekt was the goddess of birth and fertility, and later also of resurrection.
The study of ants is called Myrmecology.
You are more likely to be killed by a Champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
About 600 species of plants are carnivorous. Most eat insects but also on the menu are frogs, birds and even small monkeys.
Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
"Eat like a bird?" Many birds eat twice their weight a day.
The Honey Badger can withstand hundreds of African bee stings that would kill any other animal.
Goat's eyes have rectangular pupils.
Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.
Butterflies taste with their hind feet.
Birds sometimes do not sleep in their nests. They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Mosquitoes are attracted to the colour blue twice as much as to any other colour.
Mosquitoes have been found to prefer biting people with smelly feet.
Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, and blondes to brunettes.
A bee can see the colours green, blue and ultra-violet - but red looks like black.
A rhinoceros beetle can support up to 850 times its own weight on it's back. That would be the equivalent of a man carrying 76 family-sized cars around on his back.
There are an estimated five million, trillion, trillion bacteria on Earth.
Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
When a queen bee lays the fertilized eggs that will develop into new queens, only one of the newly laid queens actually survives. The first new queen that emerges from her cell destroys all other queens in their cells and, thereafter, reigns alone.
The cat was domesticated over 4,000 years ago. Today's house cats are descended from wildcats in Africa and Europe .
Many fish can change sex during the course of their lives. Others, especially rare deep-sea fish, have both male and female sex organs.
Camel milk does not curdle.
Cats respond better to women than men. One reason this might be is that women have higher pitched voices than men.
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
The largest cockroach on record is one measured at 3.81 inches in length.
A rat can last longer without water than a camel can.
Snakes are immune to their own poison.
The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs, covering a meter a second.
The honeybee kills more people world-wide than all the poisonous snakes combined.
A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.
A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.
Honeybees may collect pollen from as many as 500 flowers, all of the same species - in a single trip.
About three new species of bird are discovered each year.
Of the 4000 species of mammals on the planet, there are 900 different species of bats.
A snail only mates once.
A snail can sleep 3 years.
A snail's genitals are on its head.
The fastest moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph.
Snails produce a colorless, sticky discharge that forms a protective carpet under them as they travel along. The discharge is so effective that they can crawl along the edge of a razor without cutting themselves.
Flamingos are not naturally pink. They get their color from their food -- tiny green algae that turn pink during digestion.
Flies have 4000 lenses in each eye.
A fifteen year old cat has probably spent ten years of its life sleeping.
Of all known forms of animal life ever to inhabit the Earth, only about 10 percent still exist today.
Spider monkeys like banana daquiries.
A large porcupine can have over 30,000 quills covering its body.
Other than fruit, honey is the only natural food that is made without destroying any kind of life! What about milk, you say? A cow has to eat grass to produce milk and grass is living!
The word rodent comes from the Latin word `rodere' meaning to gnaw.
You can hypnotise a frog by placing it on it's back and gently stroking it's stomach.
Many animals seem to be able to detect the Earth's magnetism. The Arctic Tern's migratory route follows the Earth's lines of magnetic force. Many other animals such as sea turtles, whales, birds and fish may also use the Earth's magnetism to find their way.
One in four animals on our planet is a beetle!
If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
Spiders have noses on their feet that can pick up the odours of possible prey, predators, or mates.
Reptiles were responsible for such body part innovations as fur, feathers, claws, differentiated teeth, water impervious skin, water impervious eggs, and the penis.
A male moth can smell a female moth from 100 yards away.
Mosquito repellents don't repel - they hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
The owl can catch a mouse in utter darkness, guided only by tiny sounds made by its prey.
A young male gorilla (about 8 to 10 years old) is called a black jack. He's almost as big as a Silver Back, but his hair has not turned silvery yet, and he still has a lot to learn.
Ants are said to never cross a chalk line. So if you've got ants, draw a line on the floor with chalk or wherever the ants are coming in and see for yourself! They won't cross the line. Baking soda works, too!
All dogs are probably descended from an animal called Tomarctus. This animal lived approximately 15 million years ago.
A mature male gorilla is called a Silver back This refers to the silver-colored hair covering his back, which occurs when he's about 10-12 years old.
The only two animals that can see behind itself without turning it's head are the rabbit and the parrot.
You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other weather.
When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.
Dolphins are the only other animals besides humans that get pleasure out of sex. They are also the only other animals that have sex for reasons other than reproduction.
More than 99.9% of all the animal species that have ever lived on earth were extinct before the coming of man.
According to one study, plant and animal species are becoming extinct at the rate of 17 per hour.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Scientists estimate that there are currently 1.4 million animal species known to science; with possibly as many as 30 million on the planet.
When a female horse and male donkey mate, the offspring is called a mule, but when a male horse and female donkey mate, the offspring is called a hinny.
Rats are omnivorous, eating nearly any type of food, including dead and dying members of their own species.
Most lipstick contains fish scales.
Ants don't sleep.
Owls have eyeballs that are tubular in shape, because of this, they cannot move their eyes.
A bird requires more food in proportion to its size than a baby or a cat.
The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be its country of origin.
In its entire lifetime, the average worker bee produces 1/12th teaspoon of honey.
You're more likely to be a target for mosquitoes if you eat bananas.
The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
Hummingbirds are the only animal that can also fly backwards.
Insects do not make noises with their voices. The noise of bees, mosquitoes and other buzzing insects is caused by rapidly moving their wings
The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs covering a meter a second.
The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning it's head are the rabbit and the parrot.
A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.
The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons.
The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand , weighing less than a penny.
Reindeer like to eat bananas.
A whale's penis is called a dork.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink."
A group of frogs is called an army.
A group of rhinos is called a crash.
A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
A group of whales is called a pod.
A group of geese is called a gaggle.
A group of ravens is called a murder.
A group of larks is called an exaltation.
A group of owls is called a parliament.

Places:

The famous Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area lie between Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria . They contain the largest concentration of migratory game animals in the world , including elephants, buffaloes, lions and rhinoceroses. Visitors to the park would often ask about the origin of the beautiful word ' Serengeti '. It is definitely a Maasai name, but it has been changed by both Swahili and English. Originally it was Siringet, but the English rendered it Serenget and the Kiswahili language added the final 'i'.
The word itself appears to be taken from Siringitu meaning 'tending to extend', and is closely related another Maasai word 'siriri' meaning straight or elongated. Either way, the sense of space is clear: the place where the land runs on for ever.

Ol Doinyo Lengai - means "Mountain of God" in Massai language. It is a steep around 2900 m high stratovolcano located in a section of the East-African rift valley in northern Tanzania, near the Ngorongongo and Serengeti National parks. The volcano is known for its unique type of natrocarbonatite lava and as such it is the only known active natrocarbonatite volcano on earth.

Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa and the is the world's second-largest freshwater lake - covering an area of 69,490 sq km (26,830 sq mi) and lies 1,130 m (3,720 ft) above sea level. Its greatest known depth is 82 m (270 ft).

Lake Tanganyika is the deepest lake in Africa reaching at its greatest depth is 1,436 m (4,710 ft), making it the second deepest freshwater lake in the world after Lake Baikal.

The River Nile drains north-eastern Africa, and, at 6,650 km (4,132 miles), is the longest river in Africa and in the world.

The Rift Valley extends more than 4,830 km (3,000 mi) from Syria in south-western Asia to Mozambique in south-eastern Africa. The width of the valley ranges from a few miles to more than 160 km (100 mi). In eastern Africa, the valley splits into two branches: the Eastern Rift and the Western Rift. The fault in which the Rift sits is still moving: the western side of the rift is pulling away from the eastern ridge at about 6 mm per year, while in the south it is moving together at a rate of 2 mm per year.

Kopjes – the most striking feature [of the Serengeti] is the great Kopjes ('small heads' in Afrikaans) which emerge out of the sea of grass. The technical term for these rock outcrops is inselberg. Made from old granite, deposits of volcanic ash and dust have accumulated around them to form the Serengeti plain. They have their own range of vegetation and wildlife.

Mto wa Mbu village - has long been a trading centre where many different people have settled, notably the Mbugwe , Iraqw , Gorowa , Irangi , Totoga , Chagga and Maasai . The area ... is in fact the most linguistically diverse and complex in Africa. It is the only place in the continent where the four major African language families - Bantu, Khoisan, Cushitic, and Nilotic - occur together.

Arusha - A flourishing town of trees and flowers, Arusha is 4,560 feet above sea level. Once a small trading post it is now the agricultural, industrial and administrative centre of the region. Its importance is primarily due to its geographical position, situated as it is in the centre of East Africa and half-way between Cairo and the Cape.

Manyara - known after the Maasai name (emanyara) for the Euphorbia tirucalli bush.

Oldupai - Named after the sansevieria plant (tall, wild sisal, aka bayonet aloe) called Oldupai or ol duvai in Maasai.