I learned this today. Sloths move so slowly because they have an extremely low metabolic rate. There are six species of sloth that are divided into two different types of sloth: three-toed sloths and two-toed sloths. Both of these groups of sloths are from different families that are very distantly related. They have both evolved […]
#231 Why do sloths move so slowly? Read More »
I learned this today. Many animals can run quickly because they have four legs, run on their toes, and have bodies designed for speed. There are three types of animals when it comes to the shape of feet. There are plantigrades, digitigrades, and unguligrades. We are plantigrades. Along with rodents, rabbits, hedgehogs, kangaroos,
#224 Why can animals run so fast? Read More »
I learned this today. Deep sea fish can survive because they don’t breathe in the same way that we do. However, even they cannot survive at the very bottom of the ocean. Pressure at sea level is 14.7 psi (pounds per square inch). If someone weighing 14.7 pounds stood on you, you would
#219 Why don’t deep sea fish get crushed by the pressure? Read More »
I learned this today. Cows combine nutrients from their blood, sugar, fat, and water in their udders to produce milk. All mammals, except for monotremes (like the duck billed platypus) produce milk. In all but one case the milk is produced by the female mammal. The only male mammal that produces milk is the Dayak
#208 How do cows produce milk? Read More »
I learned this today. Fish that live in saltwater have evolved to draw in large amounts of water through osmosis to replace the water that they lose because of the salt. We cannot do this. Salt draws water out of cells by the process of osmosis. Osmosis is the process by which a liquid moves
#201 Why can fish drink saltwater but we can’t? Read More »
I learned this today. A pearl forms in the shell of a mollusk when an irritant becomes trapped there and the mollusk covers it with a fluid that hardens. There are three different types of pearl. There are natural pearls, cultured pearls, and imitation pearls. I am not going to look at imitation pearls. Natural
#192 How does a pearl form? Read More »
I learned this today. Vellum is a material for writing on that is made from prepared animal skin. The document on the front of this article is the Magna Carta. It is the document that tried to control King John of England and is one of the most famous documents in the UK. It was
#186 What is vellum? Read More »
I learned this today. Octopuses have blue blood because they have adapted to live in cold, deep water. Octopuses live in every ocean on Earth, and they live in a range of different conditions. A lot of them live at great depths and this is the main reason why they have evolved to have blue
#171 Why do octopuses have blue blood? Read More »
I learned this today. Dinosaurs were able to grow so big because they had hollow bones, could get more nutrition out of less food, and they didn’t need to chew their food. The largest land animal today is the African elephant and they grow up to about 3m and weigh about 6 tons. The largest
#158 How could dinosaurs grow so big? Read More »
I learned this today. Cats sleep as much as they do to conserve energy. Something we should probably learn from. Not that it’s today’s topic, but humans are the only animals that intentionally restrict their sleep. Cats sleep between 16 and 20 hours a day. However, not all of that sleep is deep sleep and
#149 Why do cats sleep for so long? Read More »
