History Main / StockAnimalFacts

* The Florida Everglades is the only place where crocodiles and alligators coexist in the wild (untrue if you count caimans as alligators).

* Dinosaurs are reptiles with an erect stance and "couldn't swim or fly". (The latter is clearly false [[ScienceMarchesOn now that we know]] birds are dinosaurs, and even some traditionally non-bird dinosaurs are now known to have been capable of flying or swimming. The swimming thing is particularly ridiculous considering that most land animals can still swim, even if they aren't specialized for it or dislike getting wet.) "Dinosaur" means "terrible lizard" (though the intended meaning was actually "fearfully great lizard"). They can be divided into two major groups on the basis of their hip structure: saurischians ("lizard hips", including theropods and sauropodomorphs) and ornithischians ("bird hips", including ornithopods, pachycephalosaurs, ceratopsians, stegosaurs and ankylosaurs). [[NonIndicativeName Birds are saurischians, not ornithischians]].

* Cassowaries can kill you with a kick. Which ''is'' possible but there has been exactly ''one'' (recorded) death from a Cassowary kick although non-fatal attacks are relatively common and certainly not pleasant experiences.

* The emu is the SECOND largest bird in the world (questionable).

* Opossums play dead. (Technically untrue if it's implied to be a deliberate action, as it's more of a reflex.) More specifically, it's the Virginia opossum that does this, but many works don't specify that. They are the only marsupials that live in America.

* Male penguins court females by offering them pebbles (actually typical only for some kinds, expecially Adelia's penguins).

* Male penguins court females by offering them pebbles.

* The young hoatzin can use its wing claws to climb trees. The fact it retains wing claws is also often said to be unusual for modern birds, but this is [[http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/06/30/clubs-spurs-spikes-and-claws/ erroneous]].

* The extinction of (non-bird) dinosaurs paved the way for mammals to "dominate".

Whenever certain animals are mentioned, works (especially educational ones) will feel the urge to say a certain fact about them. Oftentimes it's intended to sound like something surprising or fascinating, which in general it would be if you didn't hear it ''every time'' that animal was mentioned in ''every work''. With many SeldomSeenSpecies, their stock facts may be the ''only'' thing anyone (barring specialists) can ever say about them. See SomewhereThisIndexIsCrying if the stock "fact" about an animal is false. Can overlap with YouFailBiologyForever if it is ''clearly'' false. A victim of ScienceMarchesOn to the point that all of these facts should be taken with a grain of salt rather than believed outright.

* The sailfish is one of the fastest animals in the world.

* The candiru may swim up the urethra of a human urinating in the Amazon River, mistaking it for the gills of the fish whose blood it usually feeds on. ([[http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160104-does-the-candiru-fish-really-eat-human-penises Probably not true.]])

* Bats are the only flying mammals. And they aren't blind, but most species do rely mostly on echolocation to find their way in the dark. Only a few species drink blood. They also don't fly into your hair. (In actuality, almost NO megabats aka fruit bats rely on echolocation, mostly because they are active during the day or mornings and evenings and use their well-developed eyesight instead of relying on sound.)

* No one knows what the oddly shaped head of hammerhead sharks is used for (which is actually not true).

* Cockroaches have been around "longer than dinosaurs". If you cut a cockroach's head off it can still survive for a few days. Cockroaches are the only animal capable of surviving all-out nuclear war.

* If a bit of sand or a stone gets inside an oyster's shell, it'll produce nacre around it and produce a pearl. [[note]]Oft-quoted, but false. It's a way of encapsulating a parasite; it's basically the prettiest sarcophagus in the world.[[/note]]

* Ant, bee, and wasp colonies have a [[HiveMind collective mind]].

* Spiders are not insects, they're arachnids because they have EIGHT LEGS (well, there's more to it than that, but very simplistic differences are often pointed out).

* ''Cladoselache'' was the first shark.

* Spiders die shortly after laying their eggs.

* Earthworms can regenerate (many other invertebrates can, but earthworms are perhaps most well known for it). However, the common idea that cutting an earthworm in half will result in two earthworms is basically false; it's next to impossible for the half without a brain to grow a new one.

* There are more insects (and arthropods in general) than any other type of animal on Earth.

* ''Spinosaurus'', whose holotype was lost in WorldWarII, had a huge sail on its back.

* Frogs have slimy skin and leap. Toads have bumpy skin and hop. (Not always true, and even if it were this is more or less like saying "round things are round." We call a species a frog or a toad based mainly on what whether it "looks like" a frog or a toad. Frogs and toads together are a clade; neither frogs nor toads by themselves are a clade.)

* Non-venomous milk snakes and king snakes mimic venomous coral snakes. Red on yellow kills a fellow, red on black won't hurt Jack.

* Frogs have slimy skin and leap. Toads have bumpy skin and hop. (Not always true, and technically it's more a matter of toads vs. ''other'' frogs, as toads are just a specialized clade of frogs.)

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* Rhinos have bad eyesight.