Cats lack a true collarbone. Because of this, cats can generally squeeze their bodies through any space they can get their heads through. You may have seen a cat testing the size of an opening by careful measurement with the head.

Flamingos are not pink. They are born grey, their diet of brine shrimp and blue green algae contains a natural pink dye called canthaxanthin that makes their feathers pink. Flamingos in zoos often lost their colouring, until zoo keepers supplemented their diets.

The world’s deadliest animal isn’t a shark, bear or tiger, but something far smaller — the mosquito. According to the World Health Organisation, 725,000 people are killed each year from mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever.

The horned lizard is able to shoot blood from its own eyes, up to a distance of three feet away. The rather bizarre and disgusting act is a defensive mechanism to confuse predators. Their blood contains a chemical that is noxious to predators, and this isn’t its only trick — short-horned lizards are also capable of inflating their bodies up to twice their size to scare anything away.

The domestic cat is the only species able to hold its tail vertically while walking. Wild cats hold their tail horizontally, or tucked between their legs while walking!

The Nile crocodile’s jaws can apply 5,000 pounds of pressure per square inch — the strongest bite of any animal in the world. A human jaw produces 100 pounds of pressure per square inch in comparison. A crocodiles bite is 10 times more powerful than that of a great white shark.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 27th, 2021