Animal Facts

These beautiful mammels known as Harp seals are also sometimes called saddleback seals. This is due to the dark, saddlelike markings on their back and sides covering the light yellow or grey bodies.

Between the months of February and April they will gather together on the ice of the eastern Canadian coast around Newfoundland, the Greenland Sea, and the White Sea.

The male seals will fight eachother with sharp teeth and powerful flippers to win their mating partner.

When the newborn pups are born their coat has a yellowish tint, but turns completely white after a few days. Over the following two weeks they will completely shed this fluffy white fur and their new coat of grey will replace it.

If a predator like a polar bear is nearby, the white fluffy pup lies perfectly still, tucking its head into its chubby neck and slowing its heart rate down from between 80-90 to 20-30 beats.

The pup will grow 4 times it’s size within the first weeks, whilst feeding on it’ mother’s milk, which is very rich and this adds lots of blubber to the pup’s body.

By the time the pup is two weeks old it is strong enough to look after itself, and it will learn how to swim, find food and be ready for sea life.

Small groups of around 20 harp seals will travel around 8,000km each year. They spend their summers feeding in the northern Arctic waters before heading south to breed in February.

Harp seals are quite slow on land but they are very fast in water. They can stay submerged under water for up to 15 minutes whilst hunting for food. Plus they can dive down more than 240m, they actually dive 30m in 15 seconds.

Harp seals go through lots of changes during their lifespan and by the time it reaches 14 months old, the nicknames have changed too. For instance, from being call a ‘whitecoat’ at birth to a greycoat, ragged jacket, beater and finally a bedlamer.

By the time Harp seal is 4 years old it has a silvery grey coat with spots, so it becomes known as the spoted harp. Whereas some of the females remain like that, most males and some females develop a black harp shaped splodge on their back, hence their name.

Adult seals gather together underwater during the night and “chat”. They do this by whistling, grunting, using knocks, beeps and bird like chirping.

The way a mother seal will recognise her pup amongst the thousands of other harp seals is by way of smelling it’s breath. The mother seal will go underwater at night to socialise with other adult seals and when she comes back she will sniff the pup’s nose and know instinctively by way of smell which pup is hers.

There are around 9 million harp seals worldwide which is a definite increase. Unfortunately though, with the rising global temperatures, making the ice melt and the waters warmer, this could threaten the breeding season for the seals, also these seals are hunted for the meat and fur, so they are at rish continually.

Did you know that the grey squirrel was introduced to Great Britain in the late 19th to early 20th century from the United States of America.

Grey squirrels are considered to be pests, as not only do they strip the bark off trees, pinch bird food and seeds from the feeders in peoples gardens, they also transmit a squirrel-pox virus which kills the red squirrel.

The pox virus doesn’t seem to affect the grey squirrel, and due to the spread of the virus there are only a small number of red squirrels left. There seems to be pockets of reds still holding on in parts of Wales, in areas around mid-wales, Anglesey and the Clocaenog area in North Wales.

The baby grey squirrels leave their drey (a squirrel nest) around the month of May having been taken care of soley by the female.

Squirrels hoard their nuts and seeds in various places around the woodland, ready to be reclaimed when the harsh Winter months begin, as squirrels do not hibernate.

The grey squirrel sometimes features a warm brown colour on their back or flanks, with some even being completely white or black, depending on the genes of their parents.

Squirrels are very cunning and clever as they can decide whether a nut is worth opening or not just by holding it in their palm and judging it’s weight, then it can tell if its worth cracking open the shell and storing the nut.

Also, the only colour a squirrel can see clearly is in yellow, as all other colours equal a shade of grey through their eyes.

And finally, did you know that you can tell if a squirrel is angry or uncertain – if he is angry he will sound out a chuk-chuk-chuk noise and flick its tail up and down, the faster the flick, the angrier it feels. Whereas, if the squirrel swishes his tail from side to side it means it’s feeling uncertain or trying to prepare for a difficult leap.

Probably as there are so many of them around the world!!

There are more than 5,000 different species of cockroach, and they can be found anywhere apart from the Arctic and Antartic.

They have white blood and can run up to a speed of 5.5 km/h, which is roughly the average speed a human walking.

Cockroaches have been around for millions of years and are tough little critters. They scuttle around spreading diseasea and are very difficult to catch and kill, in fact they are so difficult to kill that they’ve become famous as being the sole survivors of a nuclear holocaust.

A cockroach can actually live for up to a week even without it’s head!

There is an old myth that states that you have to multiply a dogs age in years by seven to equal the age in human years. For example, your dog is 2 years old, which should make him 14 years old in our age – that I’m afraid is not correct.

In fact, the correct formula to use when working out a dogs human age is the 15-10-5 rule. That is to say, in the first year of your dogs life he will be the equivalent of 15 years old – a fully fledged teenager.

For his second year, you would add another ten onto it making him in his mid twenties by the time he’s two, finishing off with adding five years for every dog year after that – for example by the time your dog is four he would in fact be the same as a 35 year old human.

The average lifespan of a dog is somewhere in the region of 12 years old, which would make him around 75 years old in human years.

A lemming is a small rodent type animal, not dissimilar to the hamster, and they live in colder climates.

People used to believe that lemmings would commit suicide jumping off cliff sides in order to reduce their population.

The truth is because lemmings reproduce quickly they sometimes cannot live in one habitat as it cannot support them all, so the lemmings go in search for new surroundings to populate, and in doing so sometimes they fall over cliff sides or get run over by cars.