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Ever wonder why buttered popcorn smells so good?
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The binturong, or bearcat, is a rare species found in Southeast Asia. The females are usually 20% larger than the males, and they communicate amongst themselves using scent glands located on either side of the anus. These scent glands emit an odour that smells exactly like buttered popcorn.
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8195 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Can you guess the length of a giraffe's tongue?
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Hungry? A snacking giraffe showing off its blue/black tongue, which can grow 45 to 50 cm long. The dark colour protects the species' prehensile tongues from sun damage during long periods of exposure, when its helping the giraffe navigate between thorns and leaves.
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8933 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Wombats have cube-shaped poop
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Wombat droppings are cube-shaped. This prevents them from rolling away when marking their territory. These cube-shaped poop looks like, but doesn't taste like chocolate brownies.
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12073 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Dental hygiene and the rainforest
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 Chewing sticks are used by many people instead of toothbrushes. The neem tree grows in many Asian, African, and Middle Eastern countries. Indigenous people in these areas know that chewing neem twigs is good for their teeth. The epidermal tissues contain chemicals that kill bacteria and reduce inflammation. The study of how indigenous (native) plants are used by different cultures is known as ethnobotany.
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7304 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Birds with purple crowns
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These beautiful birds are called purple-crowned fairy wrens, endemic to northern Australia. The picture was taken by ornithologists (bird banders) studying the birds as part of population monitoring in Australia. The way they are holding them is called "photographer's grip" which gently secures the legs while keeping the rest of the bird free. Handling time is generally very short.
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5933 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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How much memory does our brain have?
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While it's hard to calculate the memory capacity of the human brain, some estimates have put the number closer to 2.5 petabytes. But this is a great rough comparison.
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7320 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Oldest recorded tortoise
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The oldest recorded tortoise was Tu'i Malila, who died in 1965 aged 188. The tortoise in the image was named Harriet, and was the third oldest recorded tortoise.
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5059 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Crows are impressive
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Nature always finds a way. Natural materials can be hard to come by in large cities, so the very industrious crows living in Tokyo, Japan occasionally resort to stealing clothes hangers from people's apartments to carefully assemble them into nests.
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4402 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Why do men have bigger noses than women?
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Men’s noses are 10% larger than female's. Males generally have leaner muscles and need more oxygen for muscle growth and maintenance—and larger noses mean more oxygen can be breathed. A new study found that the difference in nose size between males and females of European descent starts showing in early puberty, when 95% of body weight gain in males comes from fat-free mass, compared to 85% in females.
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6491 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Zonkey?
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This is Ippo, a three-month-old Italian zonkey. She is the result of a union between a male zebra and a female Amiata donkey, which is an endangered breed of donkey native to southern Tuscany. Genetic differences between the zebra and the donkey - donkeys have 62 chromosomes and zebras have between 32 and 46 - mean that hybrids like this are most often the result of a male zebra pairing with a female donkey. So far there have only been three recorded cases of a male donkey siring a zebra hybrid. ...
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4486 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Why do tigers swim?
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Often dealing with hot, sweaty climates, tigers have learned to enjoy water, using it as a way to cool off, capture prey and relax.
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1 |
7921 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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Legalize puffer pots!
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Puffer fish release a toxin to protect themselves from predators, but dolphins have figured out how to make the fish release just the right amount and use it to get high and enter in what seems to be a trance-like state. “They [dolphins] began acting most peculiarly, hanging around with their noses at the surface as if fascinated by their own reflection,” said one of the researchers.
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5350 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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No fingerprints?
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People born without fingerprints suffer from adermatoglyphia. People with this genetic condition have a mutation in a region of DNA that prevents a protein from forming correctly.
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1 |
4960 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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World’s oldest flamingo
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Did you know Australia was home to the world’s oldest flamingo? Unfortunately 'Greater' has died at the grand old age of 83 at Adelaide Zoo in South Australia. Greater was almost blind, and quite an enigma - its sex and origin was a complete mystery.
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2992 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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World's largest animals
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The blue whale is not only the largest animal alive currently, but is likely the largest animal ever to have lived. Depending on the location, blue whales can grow to be 33 meters (108 feet) and weigh as much as 181 metric tons (200 imperial tons).They can live to be 90 years old and ingest about 3.6 metric tons (4 imperial tons) of krill each day. Blue whale are considered endangered by the IUCN.
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4213 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
