Facts About Mount Roraima - strangefacts

• Mount Roraima (mountain, South America) giant flat-topped mountain, or mesa, in the Pakaraima Mountains of the Guiana Highlands , at the point where the boundaries of Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana meet

• About 9 miles (14 km) long and 9,094 feet (2,772 metres) high, it is the source of many rivers of Guyana, and of the Amazon and Orinoco

• Mount Roraima is a pretty remarkable place. It is a tabletop mountain with sheer 400-metre high cliffs on all sides

• There is only one ‘easy’ way up, on a natural staircase-like ramp on the Venezuelan side – to get up any other way takes and experienced rock climber

• On the top of the mountain it rains almost every day, washing away most of the nutrients for plants to grow and creating a unique landscape on the bare sandstone surface

• This also creates some of the highest waterfalls in the world over the sides (Angel falls is located on a similar tabletop mountain some 130 miles away)

• Though there are only a few marshes on the mountain where vegetation can grow properly, these contain many species unique to the mountain, including a species of carnivorous pitcher plant

• The mountain marks the border between Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, although more than three quarters of the mountain is in Venezuelan territory 

• It is the highest mountain in Guyana, but Venezuela and Brazil have higher mountains. The triple border point on the summit is at 5°12'08N, 60°44'07W

• Roraima lies on the Guiana Shield in the southeastern corner of Venezuela's 30,000 km² Canaima National Park, which is roughly located in the Gran Sabana region 

Facts About Butterflies - strangefacts

• Having a wingspan of only ½", the smallest butterfly is in the world is found in South Africa. It is know as the Dwarf Blue Butterfly

• Did you know that butterflies need the warmth of the sun to enable them to fly? Butterflies are cold-blooded and will not fly if the temperature is below 50 degrees

• Fiction, you will not hurt a butterfly if you touch it, although you might rub off some of the color of its wings which are actually miniature scales

• Butterfly wings are actually clear. Their colors and patterns are made by the reflection of the scales that cover them

• In Pacific Grove, California, it is a misdemeanor to kill a butterfly

• Caterpillars do NOT have bones, they have over 1,000 muscles in which they use to move from place to place and they can move at a very quick pace

• If you find a caterpillar and place him in a designated place, before you know it , he will have crawled out of sight

• Nicole Kidman has a morbid fear of butterflies

• Butterflies taste with their feet

• Butterflies can see color in the ultraviolet range, revealing patterns on flowers to them that humans can’t see

Dolphins Intelligence facts - strangefacts

• Dolphins locate objects by using sound. They bounce high pitched sounds off of objects to sense where they are. This is called "echolocation" and it is the way that bats 'see' as well

• Dolphins have sophisticated hearing and navigate and hunt by using sound

• Like whales a Dolphin has a blow hole at the top of its head and must come up to breathe. So a Dolphin normally stays about 10-15 feet from the surface so it can come up to breathe often. However, a Dolphin can dive to over 500 feet if they want to

• Dolphins have a complicated system of communication using clicks and sound. They coordinate their hunting and social group using sound

• A dolphin sleeps with half of its brain shut down and one eye closed

• They have been playing and communicating with people from ancient times and still do

• Dolphins use sonar, because their eyes are on the sides of their bodies. They can't see ahead

Facts About Water - strangefacts

• The odds are 1 out of 230,000,000 (.000000435%) that you're allergic to water

• Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head

• An average human drinks about 16,000 gallons of water in a lifetime

• The average human body contains enough enough water to fill a ten-gallon tank

• The human body is comprised of 80% water

• The daily heat output of the human body is enough to boil eight gallons of freezing water

• A British woman gave birth to her daughter less than two minutes after her water broke

• The amount of heat generated by an average adult each day could boil eight gallons of water

• The average person can live 11 days without water

• About 30% of Canadians rely on getting their water from the ground for their domestic use

• In 1978, the World Water Speed record was made by Ken Warby from Australia. His average speed was 317.6 mph, on a jet-powered hydroplane

• In Australia, the average person uses 876 gallons of water daily

• In Switzerland the average person uses only 77 gallons of water per person daily

• Most of the world's people must walk at least 3 hours to fetch water

• People drank gold powder mixed in with water in medieval Europe to relieve pain from sore limbs

• Carbonated beverages became popular in 1832 after John Mathews invented an apparatus for charging water with carbon dioxide gas

• In 1832 the Scottish surgeon Neil Arnott devised water beds as a way of improving patients' comfort

• Craven Walker invented the lava lamp, and its contents are colored wax and water

• Every year, the average Briton uses 10,000 gallons of water, 500 percent more than the average Indian

• Approximately two-thirds of a person’s body weight is water. Blood is 92% water. The brain is 75% water and muscles are 75% water

Facts About Water - strangefacts

• The human brain is 80% water

• The odds are 1 out of 230,000,000 (.000000435%) that you're allergic to water

• An average human drinks about 16,000 gallons of water in a lifetime

• The human body is comprised of 80% water

• The daily heat output of the human body is enough to boil eight gallons of freezing water

• About 30% of Canadians rely on getting their water from the ground for their domestic use  

• During the Gold Rush in 1849, some people paid as much as $100 for a simple glass of water   

• In Australia, the average person uses 876 gallons of water daily

• In Switzerland the average person uses only 77 gallons of water per person daily

•  Most of the world's people must walk at least 3 hours to fetch water

•  Senegalese women spend an average of 17.5 hours a week just collecting water

• In 1832 the Scottish surgeon Neil Arnott devised water beds as a way of improving patients' comfort

Facts About Sun - strangefacts

• Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star

• The Sun is made out of 92% hydrogen, 7% helium and the rest is other low number gasses

• The Sun rotates once every 27 days and the Sun formed over four and a half billion years ago

• The temperature at the core, or very middle, of the Sun, is about 27 million° Fahrenheit and the Sun’s diameter is about 870,000 miles wide

• The Sun is 109 times wider than Earth, and is 333,000 times heavier and over one million Earths could fit inside the Sun

• Astronomers once believed a planet named Vulcan existed between Mercury and the Sun

• If you were standing on Mercury, the Sun would appear 2.5 times larger than it appears from Earth 

• Some people start to sneeze if they are exposed to sunlight or have a light shined into their eye

• 90% of people with visual impairments can see the sun, which makes them able to see 93 million miles away

• A Chinese Scientist discovered that the Earth is round during the Han Dynasty by measuring the sun and moon's path in the sky

• Human skin produces Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, specifically ultraviolet B radiation  

• Every day the Sun rises in the east, moves through the southern part of the sky and sets in the west

• The largest known star is the monster VY Canis Majoris. This star is thought to be 1,800 times the size of the Sun; it would engulf the orbit of Saturn

Facts About Blue Whale - strangefacts

• The blue whale's heart only beats nine times a minute

• A baby blue whale drinks approximately 130 gallons of milk each day

• The blue whale can whistle up to 188 decibels; they are the loudest animals on Earth 

• A blue whale's tongue weighs more than a whole elephant, and is large enough for fifty people to stand on it

• The blue whale, the largest animal on our planet ever (exceeding the size of the greatest dinosaurs) still lives in the ocean; it's heart is the size of a Volkswagen  

• The Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales (called Mysticeti).  
• At over 33 metres (108 ft) in length and 180 metric tons (200 short tons) or more in weight, it is the largest animal ever known to have existed.
•  For over 40 years, they were hunted almost to extinction by whalers until protected by the international community in 1966.
• A 2002 report estimated there were 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide, located in at least five groups.

Indus Blind Dolphins - strangefacts

• Blind Dolphins are found only in the Indus region and the Ganges, in south Asia. Unlike other dolphins, blind dolphins are found in rivers and not the sea.

• These river dolphins are the only species in the world to have eyes without lenses! Instead, they have sound imaging skills called echolocation, which is a very sophisticated sonar system that helps them swim through the muddy rivers.

• They swim on one side underwater, and keep close to the bottom of the riverbed, which helps them navigate and find food.

• There are fewer than 4,000 to 6,000 blind river dolphins left and the number is fast decreasing.

• The Indus Dolphins have a long beak, a small low hump, and wide flippers. An adult can weigh 150-200 pounds (70- 90 kilograms).

• The Indus and the Ganges dolphins can also survive in waters only three feet deep! Although they are slow swimmers, they can move in rapid spurts when they need to.

• They breathe through their blowholes with a loud sound that sounds like a sneeze, and can be heard from quite far away.

• The blind dolphins are an endangered species. That means, they will all die out unless we protect them. The dolphins are threatened by chemical and other pollution, dam building, accidental entanglement in fishing nets, and by humans hunting them for their meat as well as their oil, which people think has medicinal value.

Facts About Grasslands - strangefacts

• The animals that live in temperate grasslands have adapted to the dry, windy conditions

• The majority of grasslands are found around the tropics and the Grasslands cover one-fifth of the land on Earth

• Grassland areas have two seasons: a growing season and a dormant season. During the dormant season, no grass can grow because it is too cold

• Natural grasslands are; the savannahs of Africa, the North American prairies, and in southern USSR-the dry steppes

• Semi-natural grasslands are where the forest has been cleared and grazing, cutting or burning maintains the grass cover. Tending to be more productive most South and South-East Asian grasslands are semi-natural grasslands.

• The temperate grassland soil contains a lot of organic material (more than the tropical).

• Grasses in tropical grasslands tend to grow taller and faster than grasses in cooler regions

• Tropical grasslands are regions in the tropics where there is not enough rain half the year for trees to grow

• When rainy season arrives, many grasslands become coated with flowers, some of which can survive well into winter with the help of underground storage organs and thick stem bases

• Most tropical grasslands are scattered with bushes, shrubs and trees. In Africa, hardy broad-leaved trees such as curatella and byrsonima are typical

• Temperate grasslands, which average between 10 and 30 inches (25 and 75 centimeters) of rain per year, have shorter grasses, sometimes just a few millimeters

• No other habitat is as agriculturally useful to humans as grasslands. Soils tend to be deep and fertile, perfect for cropland or pastures