8 Fun Facts About Wildlife

As I said a few days ago, the fourth of September is National Wildlife Day, so I thought I would do one of my favourite posts/contents, which is bite-sized fun facts, and the topic today is, of course, wildlife. My first question was, how many animals are considered wildlife species? In reality, I learnt that all non-domesticated animals living in natural environments fall under wildlife. There are over 8 million species of wildlife globally.

Elephants can recognise themselves in mirrors, showing signs of self-awareness and baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort.

Polar bears have black skin under their snow-white fur, which helps them absorb heat from the sun to stay warm in an Arctic climate, and it likely protects the bears from harmful UV rays.

Owls don’t have eyeballs. They have eye tubes, and a group of owls is called a “parliament.”

Hummingbirds are the only known birds that can also fly backwards.

Dolphins deliberately handle pufferfish, causing them to release toxins as a defence mechanism. These toxins can be deadly in high doses, but also have a narcotic effect, and are a powerful hallucinogen, which dolphins appear to enjoy.

What animal can sleep for close to a whole day? If you answered Koalas, that is correct. This is due to their diet containing eucalyptus leaves, which are not only high in toxins but also very low in nutrition and high in fibrous matter, so they take a large amount of energy to digest.

A Blue Whale‘s tongue can weigh as much as a car or a small adult elephant, which is around 2.7 tonnes, or 6,000 – 8,000 pounds (2,720 – 3,630 kg).

Reindeer eyeballs turn blue in winter to help them see at lower light levels. (They’re golden-coloured in summer.) No other mammals are known to have this ability.

I get that this isn’t my typical post, but it took me more than a week to put together, so even if it’s not as rich as I like it to be, I’m still posting.