Beasts

Likely, though not necessarily confirmed, facts about the animal kingdom as relayed by a children’s fiction writer, a.k.a., a professional teller of stories to kids. Caveat emptor.

DID YOU KNOW....

...there are currently more tigers in captivity than in the wild?

...grasshopper mice howl?

...owls cannot roll their eyes?

...murres (cliff-dwelling shore birds) lay oblong eggs that roll in circles? This keeps the eggs from rolling off the rocky cliffs on which they are laid and into the sea.

...pied-billed grebes eat their own feathers? No one knows why, not even Tiger. They also rise up and sink out of the water, sometimes keeping only their necks and heads above the surface, like periscopes.

...kangaroo rats don’t urinate?

...javelina dads babysit their young while the moms hunt for food?

...originally, a butterfly was called a “flutterby”?

...rattlesnakes begin digesting their prey before they swallow it? Rattlesnake venom begins digesting an animal from the inside out before the poor critter even kicks the bucket.

...goats have rectangular pupils, like big minus signs?

...the mosquito is the state bird of Minnesota?

DID YOU FURTHER KNOW....

...the shrimp’s heart is in its head, the philanthropist’s head in its heart?

...the leech has thirty-two brains, at least thirty-one more than most human beings?

...orcas are in the dolphin family, not the whale family? They are the largest dolphin, naturally enough.

...a running wolf's hind paws fall in exactly the same spots in which their front paws fell?

...you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than a venomous spider?

...if you were to literally “play ’possum,” you would faint. That’s what opossums do when when scared out of their wits. They don't fake it.

...the tiger’s skin is striped identical to its fur; the polar bear’s skin is black, its fur not white but transparent?

...roadrunners eat mice; great horned owls eat skunks, (some) people eat squirrel brains; and ribbon worms—if they cannot find anything else to eat—may eat themselves?

...owls could care less if a skunk sprays them? They have no sense of smell.

...a group of fireflies (or lightning bugs, depending on where you grew up) is called a conflagration?

...king snakes are so named because they eat other snakes?

AND, LASTLY, DID YOU KNOW....

...human beings are the only species in the world who manufacture whoopee cushions?