Animal Facts

This category contains all sorts of amazing facts and figures about Animals from around the world.

What is a lyrebird?

The lyrebird can usually be found in areas of the rainforest in Victoria, New South Wales, and south-east Queensland, Australia, and it was also introduced to Tasmania in the 19th century.

The lyrebird’s name derives from the fact that the male bird has an extraordinary tail and has 16 highly varying size feathers.

These consist of two long slender lyrates in the middle of the plume, surrounded by two broader medians on the edges and finished off with twelve filamentaries positioned between them.

It is thought to resemble the shape of the lyre, a Greek musical string instrument.

A lyrebird is most known for its superb ability to imitate natural and artificial sounds from around their environment.

The lyrebirds sings mostly during the winter when it’s breeding season.

Like most songbirds, male lyrebirds learn their songs and even mimic other sounds, from older males rather than directly from their mimicked models.

The lyrebird can accurately mimic the sounds of the surrounding forests. With most lyrebird mimicry of other bird species such as songs, wing beats etc.

It is also known that the Lyrebird can mimic other items, like camera clicks, chain saws and even car horns, to name but a few.

The extremely striking beauty of the male bird’s large tail feathers is spectacularly fanned out during a courtship display.

Lyrebirds have unique plumes of natural coloured feathers and are one of Australia’s best-known native birds.

The female’s tails reaches 75-85 centimetres in length, compared to the impressive males tail which reaches 80-98cm in length.

Also, unlike the Emu, the lyrebird can fly, but it rarely does. Choosing instead to run quickly to avoid most dangerous encounters.

Lyrebirds like living in forests as they feed mainly on ground-dwelling insects, like spiders, frogs, and other small invertebrates.

This is the reason they have powerful legs with long claws, making it perfect for raking through the large amounts of foliage, leaves and soil.

Although Lyrebirds live on the ground they actually spend their nights sleeping high up in trees.

You can also find the Lyrebird’s picture on the side of Australia’s ten cent coin.

Interesting Bat Facts

Here are some really interesting facts about those nocturnal creatures that you see flitting back and forth at dusk and at night time.

There are over 1,300 species of bats worldwide and 17 of them breed in the United Kingdom.

One of these creatures are called the pipistrelle, which weighs about 4-7g (about the same weight as a 2p piece).

There are three species of pipistrelle and they are known as the common pipistrelle, the soprano pipistrelle and the rarer Nathusius’ pipistrelle. If you folded the wings of a pipistrelle, it would fit into a matchbox.

Another common species in Britain is the noctule and is one of Britain’s larger bats and weighs up to 40g (which is about the weight of a £1 coin).

The noctule emerges early in the evening and can be seen flying in a straight line high overhead, before suddenly swooping down to catch an insect. The noctule is around the same size as a starling and has long narrow wings.

The brown long eared bat is very difficult to spot and usually comes out after dark and flies close to trees and in between branches. It’s flight is slow and hovering, a bit like a butterfly.

All British bats eat insects and they eat a large amount of insects as flying uses up a lot of their energy.

For example a pipistrelle will eat up to 500 tiny insects in an hour and some species even eat spiders.

Bats are not actually blind, as we are led to believe. They can see, but at night their ears are their most important asset as they fly around and look for food using a system known as echolocation. Which is a system that uses sound waves or reflected sound to “see” things.

Bats don’t make nests, but they do hang upside down in caves or creep into crevices in trees to roost.

Some bats shelter in buildings, behind hanging tiles and boardings and in roof spaces.

During April-June the female bats gather in maternity groups, by deciding on where to give birth and look after their young safely, until the babies can fly and feed themselves.

Female bats usually give birth during the months of June and July, and tend to have just one single pup, suckling them frequently until the young start to fly at 3 weeks old.

Mating occurs during the months of September to November. Bats feed as much as they can to prepare them for hibernation.

British bats hibernate during the winter as their are not enough insects around for them to eat.

They usually hibernate in a disused tunnel or cave which is cool and humid and safe for them. They control their heartbeat and breathing and their body temperature drops so that it reserves their energy.

You might see some bats flying around during the winter time, if they need to find a new shelter or need to look for food and water to boost their energy.

For tiny mammals, bats live surprisingly long lives. If they survive their first winter, then a pipistrelle can usually live for 5-6 years with some species living up to 30 years.

A Daubenton bat is also known as a “water bat”. It’s because they use their feet or tail to fish insects from a water’s surface.

Interesting facts about the Harp Seal

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.

Facts about Grey Squirrels

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.

Why do people hate Cockroaches?

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!