Page 209 - Animal Facts
An octopus can change the color and texture of its skin.
The color-changing ability can be used either for camouflage or to communicate with other octopuses. Altering the position of muscles beneath the skin can also change the texture of an octopus's skin. This skill can be used to achieve the appearance of such common underwater objects as seaweed or rocks! (Wikipedia: Octopus).
And, yeah, we said "octopuses" not "octopi". Turns out, "octopuses" is completely acceptable, and if we wanted to be really picky about it we could have also said "octopodes". Here's why.
Cockroaches can live for WEEKS after being decapitated.
This is because the body of a cockroach functions much differently than that of a human being (who would obviously die soon after losing his or her head!). Unlike humans, roaches have an open circulatory system with a much lower blood pressure. Therefore, when you cut its head off, it is quite unlikely that a cockroach will bleed to death. Instead, their necks will simply clot and the roach can go on its way!
Roaches also do not breath through their mouths like humans. Instead they respire through a series of holes throughout their bodies called spiracles. Conveniently, this breathing is not controlled by the roach's brain and the oxygen is carried directly to target tissues without the use of blood vessels!
And finally, because they are cold-blooded creatures, cockroaches function on much less food than your average human. They can survive for several weeks on a single meal! Scientists have noted that a roach's head can even survive the decapitation for several hours!
For the full article explaining life as a headless cockroach check out the Scientific American.
|
Some awesome lists!
|
|
Adolf Hitler's Mercedes limousine was found in a garage in Bielefeld, Germany.
The vehicle had been locked away for so long that people had almost lost track of it! After WWII, the car went on a lengthy journey - it was sold in Austria, traveled to the Imperial Palace car museum in Las Vegas, and then ended up in the collection of a brewery mogul in Munich. It was purchased by an anonymous Russian billionaire in 2009 for a sum estimated between 4 and 10 million Euro.
(source)
Penguins were once five feet tall.
The "water king" lived 36 million years ago and stood nearly as tall as a human! In relation, the tallest species of modern penguin, the emperor penguin, is just under four feet tall. The water king also had gray and reddish plumage, unlike its colorless contemporary cousins. The shift to monochrome plumes may have been the result of an adaptation to better hide from predators.
The whole article in National Geographic about the giant penguin can be found here.
