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Costs of Pet
Owenership
On average what it costs to be a cat owner.
Source: Humane Society of the United States, 1991
Source: Humane Society of the United States, 1991 |
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Fun Tidbits
Both humans and chimpanzees have equal amounts of hair
per given surface area. A chimp's is just heavier. You have a 1 in 3.000.000 chance of getting killed by a
snake. In Massachusetts, it is illegal to feed ducks on Sunday
between the hours of 5am and 12pm while humming. In the town of Blythe, Ca., It is illegal to wear
cowboy boots on Main Street if you do not own at least 5 head of
cattle. In the coastal provinces of Canada it is illegal to shoot
whales from a moving automobile. If an average man had a metabolism comparable to that
of a hummingbird he would have to eat 285 pounds of hamburger
every day to maintain his weight. Turtles can recognize faces. They are one of the few
reptiles that can be trained to do "tricks". The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30
times its own weight. In Minnesota it is illegal to cross state lines with a
duck on your head. The smallest fish in the world is the Trimattum Nanus
the Chagos Archipelago. It measures 0.33 inches. It broke the
record of the so- called "sinarapan" of Buhi, Camarines Sur,
Philippines. The only marsupial with a pouch on its back is the
bandicoot. Ferrets sleep for about 20 hours a day. The opening to the cave in which a bear hibernates is
always on the north slope. Bowerbirds of Australia and New Guinea decorate their
courting grounds with everything from beetle wings to car keys.
Since 1600, 109 species and subspecies of birds have
become extinct. Jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or
wolves. Cockroaches & Lobsters are kissing cousins. A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
Mongooses were brought to Hawaii to kill rats. This
plan failed because rats are nocturnal and while the mongoose
hunts during the day. A tiger's paw prints are called pug marks. All elephants walk on tip-toe, because the back portion
of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone. A Cornish game hen is really a young chicken, usually 5
to 6 weeks of age, that weighs no more than 2 pounds. A quarter of the horses in the US died of a vast virus
epidemic in 1872. According to ancient Greek literature, when Odysseus
arrived home after an absence of 20 years, disguised as a
beggar, the only one to recognize him was his aged dog Argos,
who wagged his tail at his master, and then died. All pet hamsters are descended from a single female
wild golden hamster found with a litter of 12 young in Syria in
1930. Aphids are born pregnant without the benefit of sex.
Aphids can give birth 10 days after being born themselves. At 188 decibels, the whistle of the blue whale is the
loudest sound produced by any animal. George Washington's favorite horse was named Lexington.
Napoleon's favorite was Marengo. U.S. Grant had three favorite
horses: Egypt, Cincinnati, and Jeff Davis. In 1888, an estimated 300,000 mummified cats were found
at Beni Hassan, Egypt. They were sold at $18.43 per ton, and
shipped to England to be ground up and used for fertilizer. The English Romantic poet Lord Byron was so devastated
upon the death of his beloved Newfoundland, whose name was
Boatswain, that he had inscribed upon the dog's gravestone the
following: "Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence,
courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his
vices." Although sharks are believed to be animals that never
get sick and that they are immune to every known disease
including cancer. This is simply not true. Sharks do get cancer.
Cancer is far less common in sharks than in other ocean
creatures, but they do still get it. The catgut formerly used as strings in tennis rackets
and musical instruments does not come from cats. Catgut actually
comes from sheep, hogs, and horses. The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be
its country of origin. There is no such fish as a "sardine." Canned sardines
are generally young herring. You're more likely to be a target for mosquitoes if you
consume bananas. The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about
2,200 people. Snails produce a colorless, sticky discharge that forms
a protective carpet under them as they travel along. The
discharge is so effective that they can crawl along the edge of
a razor without cutting themselves. Goldfish lose their color if they are kept in dim light
or are placed in a body of running water, such as a stream. Australian termites have been known to build mounds
twenty feet high and at least 100 feet wide. Jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or
wolves. Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.
Mr. Snuffleupagas' first name was Alyoisus. The sea wasp is half an inch long at best and more
poisonous than any other jellyfish known to man. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. The name of the dog from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
is Max. Goat's and octopus' eyes have rectangular pupils. A robin's (the bird) egg is blue, but if you put it in
vinegar for thirty days it turns yellow. Don't try this at home
please! On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the
upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a
spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner. Armadillos get an average of 18.5 hours of sleep per
day. Armadillos can walk underwater. Starfish don't have brains. Shrimps' hearts are in their heads. When a giraffe's baby is born it falls from a height of
six feet, normally without being hurt. Most armadillos seen dead on the road did not get hit
by the wheels. When an armadillo is frightened it jumps straight
into the air. The anteater, aardvark, spiny anteater (echidna), and
scaly anteater (pangolin) are completely unrelated - in fact,
the closest relatives to anteaters are sloths and armadillos,
the closest relative to the spiny anteater is the platypus, and
the aardvark is in an order all by itself. The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more
cows." Ants cannot chew their food, they move their jaws
sidewards, like scissors, to extract the juices from the food.
The first word spoken by an ape in the movie Planet of
the Apes was "Smile". Most spiders belong to the orb weaver spider family,
Family Aranidae. This is pronounced "A Rainy Day." The dalmatian dog originate from Dalmatian coast of
Croatia. Felix the Cat is the first cartoon character to ever
have been made into a balloon for a parade. The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't
retract it's claws. A cat has four rows of whiskers. The pH of cow's milk is 6. The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of
Thailand, weighing less than a penny. A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
The common goldfish is the only animal that can see
both infra-red and ultra-violet light. The pet ferret (Mustela putorias furo) was domesticated
more than 500 years before the house cat. The Pug dog is thought to have gotten it's name from
looking like the pug monkey. On Sesame Street, Bert's goldfish were named Lyle and
Talbot, presumably after the actor Lyle Talbot. The Beatles song "Martha My Dear" was written by Paul
McCartney about his sheepdog Martha. The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box is Bingo.
The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles
in its head. The gene for the Siamese coloration in animals such as
cats, rats or rabbits is heat sensitive. Warmth produces a
lighter color than does cold. Putting tape temporarily on
Siamese rabbit's ear will make the fur on that ear lighter than
on the other one. Don't try this at home folks! EMU have double-plumed feathers, and they lay
emerald/forest green eggs. The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually
indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they
could be confused at a crime scene. There were no squirrels on Nantucket Island,
Massachusetts until 1989. Other than humans, black lemurs are the only primates
that may have blue eyes. The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables
it to see all four feet at all times. Kermit the Frog is left handed. It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not
downstairs, because a cows' knees can't bend properly to walk
back down. The names of the three wise monkeys are: Miser: See no
evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil. Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from
blowing sand. It takes forty minutes to hard boil an ostrich egg. Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney,
whose mother he dated for some time. Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40320 ways to
arrange the other eight reindeer. The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The
frog peels off several times a year with new growth. The shortest French word with all five vowels is "oiseau"
meaning bird. The United States has never lost a war in which mules
were used. According to tests made at the Institute for the Study
of Animal Problems in Washington, D.C., dogs and cats, like
people, are either right-handed or left-handed --- that is, they
favor either their right or left paws. Americans spend more annually on cat food than on baby
food. At birth a panda is smaller than a mouse and weighs
about four ounces. Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can
get leprosy. Armadillos can be house broken. Anteaters prefer termites to ants. Ants stretch when they wake up. They also appear to
yawn in a very human manner before taking up the tasks of the
day. An elephant can smell water three miles away. An elephant may consume 500 pounds of hay and 60
gallons of water in a single day. About 70% of all living organisms in the world are
bacteria. An estimated 80% of animals on Earth have six legs,
i.e., are insects. The more than 10 quintillion bugs fall into
some 800,000 species. According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before
the egg. A whale's heart beats only nine times a minute. A woodchuck breathes only 10 times during hibernation.
A zebra is white with black stripes. According to Genesis 7:2, God told Noah to take 14 of
each kind of 'clean' animal into the ark. A species of earthworm in Australia grows up to 10 feet
in length. A starfish can turn its stomach inside out. A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong
as a steel wire of the same size. A snail can have about 25,000 teeth. A snake has no ears. But its tongue is extremely
sensitive to sound vibrations. By flicking his tongue, a snake
can pick up sound waves - so a snake 'hears' with his tongue...
sort of. A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million
parts of water. A shark can grow a new set of teeth in a week. A rat can last longer without water than a camel. A rhinoceros' horn is made of compacted hair. A rodents teeth never stop growing. They are worn down
by the animal's constant gnawing on bark, leaves, and other
vegetables. A millipede has 4 legs on each segment of it's body.
A mole can dig over 250 feet of tunnel in a single
night. A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a
cigarette in South Bend, Indiana. A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away. A large swarm of locusts can eat 80,000 tons of corn in
a day. A kangaroo can hop thirty feet at once. A kangaroo can't jump unless its tail is touching the
ground. A horse has 35 square feet of skin. A house fly only lives for two weeks. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny. A jellyfish is 95 percent water. A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot
tall child inside. A hippo can run faster than a man. A hippopotamus is the heaviest of all land mammals,
except for an elephant - around 8,000 pounds. A horse can sleep standing up. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.
A dragonfly has a lifespan of twenty-four hours. A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why. A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old
teeth. A crocodile can't move his tongue. A crocodile does not chew his food, just swallows it
whole. A crocodile will eat other crocodiles sometimes. A crocodiles tongue is attached to the roof of its
mouth. A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.
A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of it's body.
A cat uses his whiskers to determine if a space is too
small to squeeze through. A blind chameleon still changes colors to match his
environment A blue whale's heart beats only nine times per minute.
A 2 year old horse has 6 incisors. 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan are the only two Disney
cartoon features with both parents that are present and don't
die throughout the movie. Worker bees are female. In Egyptian times, the penalty for killing a greyhound was equivalent to that of killing a man. More than 40% of pet owners talk to their pets on the
phone or through an answering machine. Twenty-five percent of pet owners blow-dry their pet's
hair after a bath. More than 50 percent of dog and cat owners give their
pets a human name, such as Molly, Sam or Max. Nearly 60% of owners bury their pets on family property
when they die; 25 percent have them cremated. Domesticated cats are never mentioned in the Bible. Dogs are mentioned 14 times, lions 55 times. An old custom in Holland explains why we have piggy banks. At the beginning of the year, children were given pig shaped earthenware containers (known as "feast pigs") to save their pennies in. The following Christmas, they got to open them up. Average number of nonnative insect species entering Hawaii each year : 17.5 Portion of New England's feral honey-bee population lost to Asian mites since 1995 : 9/10 Portion of Yellowstone's bison herd killed after straying beyond park boundaries this year (1997) : 1/3 Number of buffalo-meat hot dogs sold per baseball game at Atlanta's Turner Field last summer : 2,350 Rank of chicken feet among Chinese moviegoers' favorite snacks : 1 The gestation period for pigs ranges from 110 to 120 days, with an average of 115 days. Litters average a dozen, but the world record is 34, born to a sow in Denmark in 1961. Cat scratch disease, a benign but sometimes painful disease of short duration, is caused by a bacillus. Despite its name, the disease can be transmitted by many kinds of scratches besides those of cats. According to researchers, over a 60-plus-year period the Groundhog Day animal has accurately predicted the coming of spring only 28% of the time. In the United States, documented cases of showers of frogs have been recorded since 1794, usually during heavy summer rainstorms. Whirlwinds, waterspouts, and tornadoes are given as the conventional explanation. Falls of fish, birds, and other animals have also been reported. In mythology, the cat is believed to have great influence on the weather. Witches that rode on storms were said to take the form of cats. The dog is a signal of wind, and a dog was an attendant of Odin, the storm king. So cats symbolize down-pouring rain, and dogs symbolize strong gusts of wind. Gelatin is one of the commoner proteins, but it cannot be prepared from animal horns, hoofs, lungs, muscle tissue, or blood. It is derived from collagen, which is the prime constituent of a white, fibrous connective tissue occurring in the animal body (in the form of cartilage, sinews, skin, and bone protein). Upon hydrolysis, collagen yields a series of products, including gelatin. The common belief that dogs are color blind is false. Dogs can see color but it is not as vivid a color scheme as we see. It is much like our vision at twilight. A group of youngsters [kittens] is called a kindle; those old-timers [adult cats] form a clowder. There are 701 types of pure breed dogs. When a giraffe's baby is born it falls from a height of six feet, normally without being hurt. Black cat superstitions are as American as apple pie. In Asia and England, black cats are considered lucky. A cat's tongue consists of small "hooks," which come in handy when tearing up food. When a domestic cat goes after mice, about one pounce in three results in a catch. In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated. The cat lover is an ailurophile, while a cat hater is an ailurophobe. The color of the points in Siamese cats is heat related. Cool areas are darker. In fact, Siamese kittens are born white because of the heat inside the mother's uterus before birth. This heat keeps the kittens hair from darkening on the points. Giraffes have no vocal cords. The anteater, aardvark, spiny anteater (echidna), and scaly anteater (pangolin) are completely unrelated - in fact, the closest relatives to anteaters are sloths and armadillos, the closest relative to the spiny anteater is the platypus, and the aardvark is in an order all by itself. The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light. A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a spat. The Ganges River in India boasts the only genuine fresh-water sharks in the entire world. An animal epidemic is called an epizootic. In World War II, the ninety million dollars worth of National Biscuit Company products furnished to the U.S. Armed Services included thousands of cases of MILK-BONE BRAND Dog Biscuits, earmarked (no pun intended) for the dogs of the Army and Marine Corps. A cockroach can live for nine days without its head. Dragonflies can fly at speeds up to 30 miles per hour. All the swans in England are property of the Queen. Messing with them is a serious offense. 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy ) are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don't die throughout the movie. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds. The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that is like a human jumping the length of a football field. The color a head louse will be as an adult can depend on the color of the person's hair in which it lives. The cochineal insect, which lives on the prickly pear cactus in the southwestern United States, is an excellent source of natural red dye. The insects are dried and ground into a powder that is cooked to release the maximum amount of color. The powder is then used as a dye for fiber, fabric, and basketry materials. It has also been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in food and cosmetics. Most brands of lipstick and some kinds of fruit drinks are tinted with cochineal extract. In the 1960s, animal behavior researchers studied the effects of various substances on spiders. When spiders were fed flies that had been injected with caffeine, they spun very "nervous" webs. When spiders ate flies injected with LSD, they spun webs with wild, abstract patterns. Spiders that were given sedatives fell asleep before completing their webs. The bombardier beetle defends itself by firing a boiling hot spray from the rear of its abdomen. The spray is formed at the moment of firing by mixing chemicals from two glands in the beetle's abdomen. The spray changes instantly into a gas and is directed away from the beetle. The gas irritates the eyes of the enemy and forms a smoke screen which helps the beetle to escape while the enemy is confused. Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. Unlike lions, adult Tigers live alone with the exception of a mother Tiger and her cubs. This is because a lone tiger can sneak up better on prey, rather than in a group. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy. Tigers can see in the dark six times better than humans can. They can also see in color! The heaviest tiger recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records is a 1,025-pound male Siberian tiger! More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes. Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike. It only takes a male horse 14 seconds to copulate. An ostrich's eye is two-times bigger than its brain A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink." A group of frogs is called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of geese is called a gaggle. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess.A group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament. Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself. Smartest dogs: 1) border collie; 2)poodle; 3)golden retriever Percentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90 Percentage of mammal species that are monogamous: 3 Dumbest dog: afghan The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny. On a large sea otter, there are approximately 650,000 hairs per square inch. The common little brown bat of North America is the world's longest-lived mammal for its size, with life spans sometimes exceeding 32 years. Cows clean their noses with their tongues. The Pilgrims refused to eat lobsters because they believed they were really big insects. Fleas have changed history. More human deaths have been attributed to fleas than all the wars ever fought. As carriers of the bubonic plague, fleas were responsible for killing one-third of the population of Europe in the 14th century. Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed, and continue living. There are no SNAKES in Alaska! It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs. There are three species of bear in Alaska: grizzly, black, and polar. A cow's spots are like a fingerprint or snowflake. No two cows have exactly the same pattern of spots. A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime. A tiger's paw prints are called pug marks. Only bird that can fly backwards: Hummingbird Ostriches stick their heads in the sand to look for water. An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it. In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees. Polar bears are left-handed. A group of gnats is called a cloud. A group of chickens is called a peep. In cats, the calico and tortoiseshell coats are sex-linked traits. All cats displaying these coats are female... or occasionally sterile males. The average person swallows three spiders annually. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots. A skunk will not bite and throw its scent at the same time. The woolly mammoth, extinct since the Ice Age, had tusks almost 16 feet long. Armadillos can be housebroken. The giraffe has a black tongue that is 14 inches long and about no vocal cords. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. A Poland China hog named "Big Bill" weighing 2,552 pounds and measuring 9 feet long with a belly that dragged the ground, owned by Burford Butler of Jackson, Tennessee in 1933. The giraffe has a black tongue that is 14 inches long and about no vocal cords. Starfish have eight eyes--one at the end of each leg. Giraffes have no vocal cords. Camel's milk does not curdle. Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time. It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound. Cat's urine glows under a black light. An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes. The heaviest cat ever recorded was 46 lbs. A baby rabbit is called a Kit. Llamas hum. Llamas have a communal dung pile with very little odor, unlike other animals that go all over the pasture and smell terrible. Llamas have a soft pad on the bottom of their foot, not a hoof, so they were gentle on the ground. Greyhounds can run up to 45 miles an hour for very short periods. When a wolf howls it is either marking it's territory, telling other wolves to stay away, trying to find a lost wolf from the pack, or looking for a mate. If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die; they need gravity to swallow. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. Ben and Jerry's send the waste from making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor: Mint Oreo. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up it's stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of it's mouth.Then the frog uses it's forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again. Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself. Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex. Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs-- it will let you go instantly. A cow chews its cud 42,000 times a day. Reindeer like to eat bananas. Dogs have 42 teeth, cats about 30. Electric light or light from your TV set will make your cat shed her fur. Cats purr at about 26 cycles per second, the same frequency as an idling diesel engine. Cats have a third eyelid called a haw and you will probably only see it when kitty isn't feeling well. A cat sees about six times better than a human at night because of the tapetum lucidum , a layer of extra reflecting cells which absorb light. In 1987 cats overtook dogs as the number one pet in America. Adult cats with no health problems are in deep sleep 15 percent of their lives. They are in light sleep 50 percent of the time. Flea larvae (those little black squiggly things that hatch from those teeny white eggs) live on the undigested blood in "flea dirt" and dead skin. Cats are the only animal that walk on their claws, not the pads of their feet. Female fleas consume fifteen times their weight daily. Cats step with both left legs, then both right legs when they walk or run. The only other animals to do this are the giraffe and the camel. In ancient Egypt, entire families would shave their eyebrows as a sign of mourning when the family cat died. |