Majestic Choice

National animals are usually something regal or dignified, like the bald eagle. Today's fun fact highlights what is perhaps the best choice for a national animal.

Scotland: you're doing it right.

Splish Splash

Since one of the boy's favorite animals is an elephant, I've drawn my fair share of them over the years. The little fella I drew for today's doodle is my go to. He's cute and simple and can be customized to fit almost any theme. I've drawn him holding balloons, with a heart above his trunk for Valentine's Day, and today he gets to make a splash.

I guess if I drank fifty gallons of water a day (about what a bathtub holds) I'd be good at hunting water down too.

Very Hairy

I had to scrap two facts this morning because a bit of googling proved they were both wrong! The second fact wasn't completely wrong, it just needed some tweaking to correct it.

The original fact said bumblebees have hair on their eyeballs. While searching, all of the hairy eyeball facts I found pertained to honey bees, not bumbles. It looks like scientists aren't certain what the hairs are for, but navigation seems to be the popular consensus.

A short hair grows in the intersections of the compound lenses of the eye. These hairs are believed to detect wind direction and may be used by the bees to stay on course in windy conditions.


I couldn't find anything to confirm that bumblebees also have these small hairs on their compound lenses, so I altered the fact to say honey bees.

Just a Handful of Tons

We all know giant squids are big. We've seen the artist renditions of them wrapping tentacles around a ship and dragging it into the depths. Today's fun fact will help put their size into perspective.

An African elephant can weigh from 5,000 to 14,000 pounds. That means these fellas are bigger than some elephants. And they're out there, swimming in the ocean, ready to hug you to death. Thalassophobia anyone?

Bats and Fireflies

I have two fun facts for you today, since I apparently forgot to post yesterday.

Here's yesterday's doodle:

A chemistry website explained the firefly's light thusly: 

The light from such reactions is called cool light, because it is created without heat. Reactions that produce light without heat are called chemiluminescent reactions. Perhaps the most familiar chemiluminescent reactions are those that occur in living organisms. Fireflies produce light without heat by a chemiluminescent reaction. Chemiluminescent reactions that occur in living organisms are called bioluminescent reactions.

Makes me wonder if bioluminescent algae and angler fish lights would fall into this category though. This fun fact may be only partially true.


Today's fun fact is about bats.

While most bats can take down 600 to 1000 mosquito-sized insects in an hour, a nursing mother bat can eat up to 4000 insects in a single night. I think I need more bat friends to hang around my back porch this summer.

At Least They'll Never Go Hungry

Today's fun fact blows my mind. I assumed ever animal needed to eat to sustain itself. Apparently, I was misguided in that notion.

To add on to this tidbit, some adult moths don't even have a mouth. Luna moths, for example, have an adult lifespan of about a week. Their sole purpose is to mate before they die, so they don't waste time searching for food. Not having a mouth or stomach makes it an easy choice for them.

So Big

Since most of us have only seen them in pictures or videos, it's easy to forget just how massive blue whales are. Today's fun fact helps put things into perspective.

A whale's tongue isn't the only part of it that is huge. It's heart is as big as a car. It's kind of amazing that something so large can move so gracefully through the ocean.