Animal Facts

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.

The first four legged animal known to humans was the Acanthostega, which had eight toes to each foot of it’s four feet!

It would use its toes to grip the plants in the water as it swam, although the Acanthostega spent the majority of its time in the water not on land.

The now extinct Acanthostega was among the first vertebrate animals to have recognizable limbs and was considered to not be suited to come onto land – which is why it spent most of its life underwater.

Yes, all British bats and the places they roost are protected by law.

Because trees and woodlands are cut down to aid the development of homes and roads, the bats food supply and shelters diminish, so there are fewer bats in existence.

The law protects them by ensuring that permission is given by the authorities’ before any alterations to the land can be made, thus safeguarding the bats homes and food chain.

A noctule is one of the largest British bats in existence.

These are the bats that you will see flying in straight lines during the early evening, just as it begins to darken.

The Noctule bat is approximately the same size as a starling and has distinctive narrow wings.