The Weirdest Animal Facts People Know

Like Perry

"Platypus glow blueish green under ultraviolet light."

"They also don’t have nipples, they just exude milk from glands under the skin and the baby’s lap it up."

~ WakingOwl1

"They have electrolocation in their bills that lets them detect their food under water."

~ DrPlatypus1

"And they lay eggs."

"The more I find out about them the more I understand why people first thought they were fake."

~ Reidroshdy

"After seeing all these platypus facts I am convinced these things are aliens that have been abandoned on Earth."

~ SeattleOne206

Kapow!

"Mantis Shrimp have 16 different sets of cones. Rods and cones are in your eyes. Cones see color, rods see light and motion."

" Dogs have 2 sets of cones—green and blue. Humans have 3 sets of cones—green, blue and red."

"Mantis Shrimp are seeing colors we can't comprehend and explains why they're very colorful."

"That’s not even the strangest thing about them."

"They can also punch as fast as a .22 bullet which cause a cavitation bubble which boils the water around them at temperatures of several thousand Kelvins."

~ RigzDigz

Terrible Twos

"Cats have the mental capacity of a 2-year-old which makes a lot of sense."

~ Alive_Ad823

Like Tinder

"When a female sloth wants a mate she'll hang onto a tree branch and just scream."

~ Remarkable_Sink2542

Good Thing They're So Small

"Dragonflies are the most successful predators on Earth."

"When lions choose prey they have like a 10% chance of catching it."

"African painted dogs—who hunt in packs—have the highest kill rate of any mammal, successfully catching 51% of their prey."

"When a dragonfly locks onto a target, it has a 99.9% success rate!"

~ PurpleInevitable2103

On A Swivel

"Owls have really long necks, but it's hard to notice that because their feathers are so fluffy."

~ ergonaut

What About Cousin It?

"Sea otters are the most densely furred animal with 600,000 to 1,000,000 hair follicles per square inch."

"Dogs have about 15,000 per square inch, humans on average are between 800 to 1,290 hairs per square inch."

~ atom1129

Or Two Sets Of Twins

"Armadillos always have offspring as quadruplets."

~ Uncle_Bill

Sucker Punchers

"Octopus punch other fish for no reason—so, for fun."

~ Samanthalynn8915

"There's a direct correlation between species' intelligence and dickish behavior."

~ TheDesktopNinja

Looks Are Deceiving

"Polar bear fur isn't white—it's translucent (for most frequencies of light). And they have black skin underneath."

"So polar bear fur lets all the light through to their black skin to warm them—except for a few visible frequencies to keep them camouflaged as white."

~ seedanrun

Who's Going To Attack One‽‽

"Honey badgers can turn their a**holes inside out and use the smell to deter attackers."

"Not sure what exactly has the guts to attack a honey badger, but if they have the courage to do so, the badger sure as hell isn’t gonna make it easy."

~ nonexistantauthor

Big Momma

"The Blanket Octopus exhibits the highest degree of sexual dimorphism known."

"Females: About 6 feet across."

"Males: About one inch."

~ Fabulous-Pause4154

High Times

"Dolphins will intentionally use puffer fish to get high."

~ altkaldra

"They upset blowfish so they inflate, and therefore emit poison. It gets the dolphins high. Then they pass it around, literally."

~ smack4u

"Not just the dolphins. I recently saw a video about 10 animals that like to get high. Very interesting."

~ s137leo__

"Lemurs do that with giant centipedes/millipedes too."

~ chubbyknuckles420

Better Than Bike Helmets

"Woodpeckers' tongues wrap around their brains to cushion them from the vibrations of slamming their face into trees all day."

~ we_made_yewww

"Their tongues also have barbs to grab bugs out of the holes."

"Their brains have additional cushioning because, you know, they spend their days smashing their face as hard as possible into trees."

~ RhynoD

Detachable Organs

"Argonauts [paper nautili] are small octopuses that are too lazy to have intercourse."

"They detach their penises and toss them into the open sea to mate with female argonauts."

"The detachable 'd*ck' is a tiny tentacle, complete with suckers and sperm, that develops in a cavity under the eye of a male argonaut [paper nautilus]."

"When it's time to mate, the tentacle explodes out of the cavity, instantly killing the male argonaut. The tentacle then swims towards a female argonaut to insert itself."

"Sexy, huh?"

~ Schwarzes__Loch

What's your favorite weird animal fact?