Interesting science facts - Animals

Polar bear is the world's largest carnivore found on land. Polar bears are excellent swimmers but also very good runners with speed up to 25 miles per hour.

Lion is only the second largest living cat. The largest living cat is tiger. Lions are the only members of the cat family that show clear distinction between males and females.

Turtles date long long back, with the earliest known turtles date from 215 million years ago, even before snakes and lizards. Turtles usually take many years to reach breeding age, and in many cases breed every few years rather than annually.

The Giant Panda can usually live to be 25-30 years old in captivity. Pandas usually spend their lives roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests where each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range.

The largest living penguins species is the Emperor Penguin with adults averaging about 1.1 m. Penguins usually don't fear humans. Scientists believe this is because their habitats are without any land predators.

Cheetah is the fastest land animal that can reach the speed between 112 and 120 km/h (70 and 75 mph). Cheetah acceleration abilities are also amazing 0 to 110 km/h (68 mph) in three seconds. This is better acceleration than in average supercar.

Elephants are the largest land animals. Elephants are spending in average 16 hours a day collecting plant food. Adult elephant can consume incredible 140–270 kg (300–600 lb) of food a day (mostly grass and leaves).

Rhino's horn is made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails. Their average life span is somewhere about 60 years.

Ostrich lives in nomadic groups which up to 50 birds. Ostrich has ability to run at speeds of about 74 km/h (46 mph).

Whales entered the water about 50 million years ago. Whales are mammals that breathe air into lungs, they are warm-blooded, and feed their young milk.

Horses were domesticated some 4500 BC. Today there are over 300 breeds of horses in the world today, developed for many different uses.

Estimations say that there are somewhere around 1.3 billion cattle in the world today.

Dogs were domesticated some 15,000 years ago. Today there are more than 400 million dogs in the world.

Cats are extremely skilled predators that has a hunt span of over 1,000 species for food.

There are about 3,500 species of mosquitoes in the world.

Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the Earth. There are over million described species of insects in the world.

There are around 10,000 living species of birds. Birds evolved from dinosaurs during the Jurassic period.

Sharks can lose 30,000 teeth in a lifetime. Most sharks have lifespan of 20 to 30 years.

There are about 14000 species of ants. Ants do not sleep. Ants live in highly organized colonies.

Bats make all kinds of sounds to communicate with others. Larger bats can give a nasty bite that can cause serious injuries.