Animal Kingdom:

Who's the cleverest? This list of the most intelligent mammals is based on research carried out by Edward O.Wilson, Professor of Zoology at Harvard. He defined intelligence on the basis of how fast and how well an animal can learn a wide range of tasks. He also takes into account the size of the animal's brain compared with its body. 1. Human 7. Monkey 2. Chimpanzee 8. Small toothed whale 3. Gorilla 9. Dolphin 4. Orang-utan 10. Elephant 5. Baboon 11. Pig 6. Gibbon

How many legs? Some animals have as few as two legs, others as many as 750. Some, such as snakes and worms, have no legs at all! Most people think that centipedes have 100 legs and millipedes 1,000. But centipedes, depending on their species, have anything from 28 to 354 legs and millipedes up to 750. Creature No of legs Birds 2 Mammals 4 Reptiles with legs 4 Insects 6 Spiders 8 Crabs, shrimps 10 Woodlice 14 Most caterpillars 16 Most millipedes 30 Centipede with most legs 354 Millipede with most legs 750

Bird's eggs The biggest ostrich eggs weight as much as 2.35kg, but they are not the largest eggs of all time. The extinct elephant bird, Aepyornis maximus, of Madagascar laid eggs that were up to 33cm long and contained 8.88 litres of liquid. This is larger than the eggs of any dinosaur, seven times bigger than an ostrich egg, 180 times bigger than a chicken egg and over 20,000 times the size of a hummingbird's egg! Bird Average weight of egg(g) Ostrich 1,600 Albatross 595 Kiwi 450 Emperor penguin 450 Mute swan 340 Little spotted kiwi 310 Eagle 145 Snowy owl 83 Domestic hen 65 Mallard 54 Peregrine falcon 52 Sparrow 3.0 Wren 1.3 Goldcrest (smallest UK) 0.6 Vervain hummingbird 0.375

How long do they live? Who would have though that a sea anemone could live for 80 years? All these figures are the longest ever recorded.Most of these animals will have much shorter lives. Animal Longest life-span(Years) Quahog (marine clam) 200 Gaint tortoise 150 Human 122 Killer whale 90 Sea anemone 80 Asiatic elephant 78 American alligator 66 Blue macaw 64 Horse 62 Chimpanzee 56 Hippopotamus 54 Slow-worm 54 Beaver 50 Bactrian camel 50 Grizzly bear 50 Blue whale 45 Boa constrictor 40 Domestic cat 34 Lion 30 Pig 27 Common rabbit 18 Queen ant 18 Gaint centipede 10 Millipede 7 House mouse 6 Bedbug 6 months Common housefly (male) 2 weeks

How fast? Most of the creatures in this list can only keep up these speeds for a short time-not as long as an hour, The peregrine falcon achieves its record breaking speed as it dives through the air to catch prey-not in level flight. Animal Average speed(Km/h) Peregrine falcon (diving speed) 298 Spine-tailed swift 171 Eider duck 113 Sailfish (fastest fish) 110 Cheetah (fastest on land) 105 Pronghorn antelope 89 Racing Pigeon 80 Lion (charging) 80 Brown hare 72 Ostrich (fastest flightless bird) 72 Blue shark 69 Horse 69 Greyhound 68 Killer whale 56 Death's head hawkmoth (fastest flying insect) 53 Guano bat (fastest flying mammal) 51 Butterfly 48 Dolphin 40 Fastest man over 100m 37 Gentoo penguin 35 Cnemidophorus lizard (fastest reptile) 30 Blue whale 24 Black mamba snake 19 Bumblebee 18 Rat 9.5 Tegenaria atrica spider 1.8 Common garden snail 0.05 Army ant 0.032

Big babies The African elephant has the longest pregnancy of any mammal. She carries her baby for an average of 660 days. When the baby is born it weights 90-120kg. A baby blue whale is even bigger. It weights 2,000kg and is 7m long. It puts on weight at the astonishing rate of 90kg a day.

Found interesting? Share this to: