What is a black swan event? It is a completely surprising and unpredictable event that has major consequences. It is something that is as rare as a black swan. The phrase was first used in Rome in the 2nd century BC and its usage was to show that an event was as rare on Earth […]
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Why do woodpeckers peck wood? They are trying to find food, mark their territory, find a mate, or make a nest. There are 240 different species of woodpecker, and they live in most countries except for Australasia, Madagascar, and Antarctica. Other than their pecking and the adaptations they have to enable it, they are normal
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How did a pterodactyl fly? By jumping 2.5 meters into the air and then flapping. These days, we use pterodactyl to refer to any of the flying dinosaurs that looked similar, but pterodactyl is only one species. The family is called pterosaur. In Greek, “pteron” means winged and “sauros” means lizard. Pterodactyl comes from “pteron”
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Why don’t more animals use two legs? Because they wouldn’t be able to balance, run as fast, and they can’t use their forelegs for anything other than standing. Walking on two legs has given us several evolutionary advantages which means the ability has been passed on. Most animals don’t get this advantage, so evolution has
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Why do geese fly in a V-formation? To aid communication and to fly more efficiently. Geese don’t always migrate, but when they do, they can fly for thousands of kilometers and Canada geese can fly 2,400 km in 24 hours! If they find a good tailwind, they can reach speeds of 110 km/h. You may
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How do flies perceive time? Flies see the world in slow motion, possibly seeing things four times slower than we do. We have probably all tried to swat a fly sitting on a table. You swing your hand towards it, you impact the table and you’re sure you got it, only to see the fly
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Is a whale shark a whale or a shark? A whale shark is a shark and not a whale. The difference between whales and sharks is that whales are mammals and sharks are fish. What are the differences between mammals and fish? Mammals are “vertebrate animals in which the young are nourished with milk from
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What is the smallest mammal? The Etruscan shrew is the smallest mammal in the world right now. Etruscan means “of Etruria”, which was an ancient group of people that lived in central Italy from roughly 900 BC until 27 BC when it was dissolved into the Roman Empire. Rome was heavily influenced by Etruria and
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Why does Australia have so many dangerous animals? It actually doesn’t have as many dangerous animals as people think and there are other countries that have more. However, for a single country it does have a large number of dangerous animals, partly because of its location, its size, and because of evolution. Let’s try and
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How does an octopus’s suction cup work? It reduces the pressure inside the sucker to create an extremely strong seal. Incidentally, I’m going with octopuses as the plural of octopus. Octopi is equally valid, but octopuses is apparently the more common term amongst the scientific community. Octopus comes from a Latin word and when Latin
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