Page 7 - Animal Facts

You can clone your dog in South Korea!

Since Dolly the Sheep was cloned in 1996, there has been a big ethical debate over what the limits of genetic cloning should be. A company in South Korea is challenging the proverbial line in the sand by offering a $100,000 dog cloning service.

The technology is still in it's infancy and the reason there is a high ethical barrier to doing this is that the success rate for cloning is still not high enough for it to be considered safe or humane. Many of the clones don’t survive because of abnormalities. Some also get put down because the client only wanted one dog and more than one was born.

Another issue is that when you hear clone, you think that the new puppy will be exactly like the old one. However, clones, just like genetic twins, can have different personalities.

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In Switzerland, it is illegal to own just ONE Guinea Pig!

According to the Swiss government, Guinea Pigs are incredibly social creatures - and it would be cruel to keep such a social butterfly in absolute isolation, with no other Guinea Pigs around to socialize with. But, what happens if you have two Guinea Pigs and one dies?

Well, that's where Priska Küng, who runs her own 'rent-a-guinea pig' service. Priska has an incredible passion for the little rodent, and has over 80 guinea pigs running around her house!

Priska Küng says she rents out her pets because she feels bad for people who are suddenly outside the law whenever they lose one of their two Guinea Pigs. More importantly to Priska Küng, she doesn't want any Guinea Pig to suffer alone after losing a close friend, and spending the last part of it's life alone.

Priska says that if the owner just purchases a new, younger Guinea Pig, the owners will get stuck in a never ending loop of purchasing a new guinea pig every time the old one dies, and they will forever have to own guinea pigs.

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A Leopard seal once tried to teach a photographer how to hunt!

Leopard seals are second only to killer whales in the power rankings of Antarctica’s top predators. Their mouth is wider than a grizzly bears’ and it’s canine teeth can measure up to 1 inch in length.

They are mostly solitary creatures and come together in groups only during mating season. They’ve also been described as bold, powerful and curious. They’ve been known to play with penguins that they do not intend to eat.

A photographer for National Geographic once went on a photography expedition and had a very curious encounter with a leopard seal. It started bringing live penguins to him; then injured ones and finally dead penguins. The seal was trying to teach him how to hunt!

Check out the video below to hear his account in more detail.

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All polar bears are Irish!

Scientists have discovered that all polar bears can trace their genetic lineage to a single brown bear who lived in Ireland about 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. Back then, climate change in the North Atlantic ice sheets meant that ancient polar bears and Irish brown bears overlapped in their territory.

It appears that ancient polar bears and Irish brown bears interbred in Ireland, which led to a single lineage of polar bears from this hybridization. Irish brown bears died over 9,000 years ago, but their polar offspring remained.

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If a bear is bleeding, it can slow down its heart to slow blood loss!

Bears are quite possibly the most vicious, and terrifing mammals that roam the world. The sheer strength of a bear could make anyone tremble in absolut terror. It is a little known fact that bears are not only fierce predators, but they have amazing defense tactics to help them survive.

One of these tactics, is that bears have developed the ability to slow their heart rate down to slow down how much blood they are losing through a wound. As a result, it takes many gunshot wounds to take down a bear, and to even stop it from attacking a hunter.

Although some deem it unwise, hunting bears is still a popular sport, even though there are only 8 different species of bears. 6 of those species are considered vulnerable or endangered in certain countries around the world.

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