Why do ant bites hurt? Ants both bite and sting. They drip formic acid onto your skin and some ants inject venom. Not all ants bite. There are estimated to be 22,000 different species of ant and they are on pretty much every landmass except for Antarctica. It is estimated that ants make up between […]
#297 Why do ant bites hurt? Read More »
I learned this today. Why do horses need horseshoes? They only need horseshoes if they are going to be walking on hard or rough surfaces for a long time. The hoof of a horse consists of several different parts. The part that we can see is called the wall. This is up to two centimeters
#281 Why do horses need horseshoes? Read More »
I learned this today. How does fly spray work? By blocking the insect from using its nerves to move its muscles. There are two kinds of fly spray. There are repellents, which are sprays you apply to your body to stop insects landing on you and biting. Then there are insecticide fly sprays that kill
#280 How does fly spray work? Read More »
I learned this today. Mosquitoes come out at dusk and are active throughout the night because the temperature is lower than during the day, it is easier to find food, and there are fewer predators around. It is not true to say that all mosquitoes come out at night. There are more than 3,000 species
#276 Why do mosquitoes come out at night? Read More »
I learned this today. Pandas eat bamboo because it is such an abundant food source that they don’t need to fight over food or search for it. There is some argument over when pandas started eating bamboo. The general consensus is that they began to eat bamboo about 6 million years ago. Evidence for this
#271 Why do pandas eat bamboo? Read More »
I learned this today. Animals can sleep standing up by locking a set of muscles and tendons in their legs, using gravity to lock a joint, or using a flexor tendon. There are a lot of animals that can sleep while they are standing, but they can only do that through slow-wave sleep. To enter
#260 How do some animals sleep standing up? Read More »
I learned this today. Different species of extremophiles have evolved different ways to survive the extreme environments that they live in. The word extremophile comes from the Greek “extremus”, which means love and “philia”, which means love. They are organisms that not only survive in extreme environments they flourish in them. I learned about tardigrades
#237 How do extremophiles survive? Read More »
I learned this today. Tardigrades are incredibly strong and incredibly small micro-animals. Tardigrades are generally about 0.5mm long. Some of the big ones grow up to 1.5mm in size but they are usually much smaller. There are about 1,300 different species of them and they live all over the world. They are short and plump
#236 Why are tardigrades so tough? Read More »
I learned this today. Skunks smell so bad because they spray an organic compound that has sulfur in it. Skunks are mostly native to north and south America, although there is also a species of skunk that lives in Indonesia. This is called the Sunda stink badger. There are generally ten different species of skunk.
#234 Why do skunks smell so bad? Read More »
I learned this today. Porcupines don’t actually shoot their quills. The quills just detach very easily and stick in the predator. Porcupines are members of the rodent family. Males can grow to be almost a meter long and weigh up to 16 kg. They are not very fast, but they don’t need to be because
#233 How does a porcupine shoot its quills? Read More »
