1African rats
Trained African giant pouched rats have found thousands of unexploded landmines and bombs. Researchers have also trained these rats to detect tuberculosis and most recently they are training them to sniff out poached wildlife trophies being exported out of African ports.
2. Seagulls stomping on grass is called the rain dance. This mimics rain by vibration and brings earthworms and other bugs to surface.
3. In 1908, the Russian Olympic team arrived at the Olympics in London 12 days late because it was still using the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar.
4. Norway's coastline is so complex that if you stretched it all into a straight line it would circle the Earth two and a half times.
5. J.K. Rowling was famously rejected by 12 publishers before Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone was accepted by Bloomsbury - and even then only at the insistence of the chairman's eight-year-old daughter.
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6Akron police car
The first police car was bought in Akron, Ohio in 1899. Its first assignment was to pick up a drunk man.
7. Cristiano Ronaldo bought his agent (Jorge Mendes) a whole Greek Island as a wedding present.
8. In 2009, Stephen Hawking held a party open to all, but only publicized the party after it was over so that only time-travelers would know to attend. As expected, nobody showed up to the party.
9. A blue whale's heart can weigh in excess of 1,300 lbs and be the size of a small car. Their heart beats at a rate of 8–10 beats per minute and can be heard from over 2 miles away.
10. People living in Hong Kong and Japan who cannot afford to live in a house, take advantage of McDonald's "doors are always open" policy and live in their restaurants. These people are also known as McRefugees.
11Extreme Ironing
There is a sport called Extreme Ironing, in which people take ironing boards to remote locations and iron items of clothing.
12. After "the world’s largest beach clean-up" at Mumbai's Versova beach, Olive Ridley turtles returned to lay eggs for the first time in 20 years.
13. The oldest recorded Yo Mama joke comes from a Babylonian stone tablet. The tablet is from around 1,500 B.C.E. and was written by a student.
14. A sloth can hold its breath for up to 40 minutes, 4 times longer than a dolphin. They sleep for 15 hours a day and its internal organs like the heart, spleen, and liver are arranged to accommodate living upside down. The grip of a sloth is so strong that when they die they sometimes remain hanging on trees.
15. According to FDA standards, an eight-ounce glass of juice is allowed to have up to 5 fruit flies.
16Okunoshima Island
There is a small island named Okunoshima Island in Japan that is the site of an abandoned World War 2 chemical weapons manufacturing facility and is now home to hundreds of cute bunnies.
17. In 1926, President Coolidge and his wife were gifted a raccoon as a Thanksgiving dinner gift. They did not want to eat her, so they named her Rebecca and kept her as a pet. She had a free range of The White House and would go on trips with the couple.
18. Squirrels plant thousands of new trees each year simply by forgetting where they put their acorns.
19. Sea otters have pockets and many adults carry their favorite rock at all times to break open clams and other shellfish.
20. Penguins are not heavy enough to set off landmines. Because of this, there is a huge nature preserve on the Falkland Islands, with 1 million penguins of 5 distinct species.
21Cheetahs
Cheetahs can’t roar, they can only meow, because of the absence of the hyoid bone in its neck.
22. Rats laugh when tickled.
23. In 2008, the King of Norway knighted a penguin called Nils Olav III that lives at Edinburgh Zoo. The King described him as a penguin "in every way qualified to receive the honor and dignity of knighthood". He is a Brigadier and Colonel-in-Chief in the Norwegian army.
24. Male penguins give female penguins a pebble as a sign of love.
25. Alnwick Garden is a garden in Northern England dedicated entirely to poisonous plants. It's the most dangerous garden in the world. It holds over 100 killer plants such as hemlock, strychnine, and nightshade.
