Nature
10 verified facts in this category.
- The mantis shrimp can punch with the acceleration of a .22 caliber bullet, creating cavitation bubbles that reach 4,700°C—nearly as hot as the sun's surface.
- The wood frog can survive being frozen solid during winter, with up to 70% of its body water turning to ice, then thaw and resume normal activity.
- The Greenland shark has the longest known lifespan of any vertebrate, living up to 400 years, with sexual maturity not reached until around 150 years of age.
- Tardigrades can survive in the vacuum of space, withstand pressures six times greater than the deepest ocean trenches, and endure radiation doses 1,000 times what would kill a human.
- Ovis longipes palaeoaegyptiacus had unique, loosely spiraling horns that came out of the sides of the skull.
- A single bolt of lightning contains enough energy to toast 100,000 slices of bread, reaching temperatures of approximately 30,000 Kelvin—five times hotter than the sun's surface.
- Honey never spoils; archaeologists have found 3,000-year-old honey in Egyptian tombs that was still perfectly edible.
- Wombat feces are cube-shaped, with researchers confirming this results from the unique elasticity of their intestines, not diet—helping mark territory without rolling away.
- Octopuses have three hearts and blue blood; two hearts pump blood to the gills while the third pumps it to the rest of the body.
- A related ancient Egyptian sheep form called Ovis platyura aegyptiaca had horns that developed downward and curled forward.