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The amazing animal facts in this episode of The List Show will make you appreciate animals even more.

A weekly show where knowledge junkies get their fix of trivia-tastic information. This week, John looks at awesome, astounding, and amazing animals!


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Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube! And yes, I do know that I need a haircut, but did YOU know that bats account for one quarter of the mammal population in the world? There are 1100 different bat species. Well that's the first of many astounding facts about animals I'm gonna share with you today.

Archaeologists have discovered a man's grave in Jordan who was buried with his fox 16,500 years ago, meaning the Middle East had pet foxes before pet dogs.

Weasels eat about one third of their body weight every day.

A jellyfish can sting you even if it's dead.

And reindeer's eyes change color through the seasons. They're gold during the summer and blue in the winter. Also, bonus fact, on Christmas, their noses are red!

In 2013, scientists created a prosthetic tail for an alligator who had lost his probably due to another alligator biting it off.

Lemur communities are usually matriarchal.

And the antlers of a male red deer grow up to an inch per day, but they also shed and regrow them every year, so they don't get, you know, like, thirty feet long.

Moose have very sensitive antlers. In fact, they can feel a fly landing on them. And one study suggests that those who have antlers actually have better hearing than those who don't.

Jules Grévy, the president of France in the 1880s, received a zebra as a gift from the Abyssinian government, and then the species Grévy's zebra was named after him. Which is good to know, because previously I'd just believed that those zebras hated dry turkey.

There are 40 English words for the cougar, including mountain lion, catamount, puma, panther, also Demi Moore.

Speaking of which, there's actually no such thing as a panther. It's a word we use to describe cats like black jaguars or black leopards.

Jaguar, by the way, comes from an American Indian word that means "any large predator." Like, it's sometimes even applied to dogs.

In 2011, 2 artists from Winnipeg started going out to sea and playing music for Beluga whales with an underwater sound system, and the whales actually gathered and enjoyed the music in large groups. They went to a concert.

Ahhh, the simple life of being Canadian. Mark, did you ever, ah, play music for Beluga whales?

One of the most critical components of building the 250 million dollar national accelerator laboratory was a $35 ferret named Felicia, who saved the government thousands of dollars by cleaning the pipes, until she was eventually retired for a robot. Bye Felicia. That's my Ice Cube impression.

By the time she died in 2007, Washoe the chimpanzee had learned around 350 words of American sign language. 

The spotted hyena laughs to communicate fear or excitement. Other hyenas can hear the laugh from up to 3 miles away.

An animal you might never have heard of, the Australian quokka, has a permanent smile.

And another animal that looks so amazing that a picture of it is enough - the pom-pom crab.

Geckos sometimes shed their tails, and then they often eat them, so that they can regain some of the nutrients. That's how my son feels about boogers.

One of the Australian Aboriginal groups, the Yuwaaloraay, had a creation myth that the sun was created when an emu egg was thrown into the sky.

And speaking of Australia, around 80% of koalas are infected with chlamydia. In fact, in 2012, there was concern that a koala might have infected 2 members of One Direction, Liam and Harry, during a photo shoot. But I wanna be clear, that concern came not from doctors, but from Directioners. It's worth noting that Liam and Harry were also concerned saying that they never would have held the koalas if they'd known about the chlamydia rates. Although, really, Liam and Harry, is that your greatest chlamydia risk? Really?

In 2004, a black bear raided the cooler of some campers in Washington, and he drank 36 cans of Rainier beer, specifically avoiding the cans of Busch. Basically, bears have better taste in beer than humans.

Sea otters have a lot of fur, up to one million hairs per square inch. 

Also, vultures urinate and defecate on their legs to kill bacteria that are living on the legs.

The kiwi is the only bird with nostrils at the end of its bill.

Seals use their whiskers to sense what's going on around them in the water. They can feel a small submarine from 130 feet away, for instance. We got a seal. We named him Seal, after the singer.

In the late 2000s, reports came from Japan of Macaques learning how to use vending machines.

Ostriches are faster than most horses.

And pregnant giraffes will sometimes try to give birth where they themselves were born. You guys better not get pregnant, or you're gonna have to go back to that plastic giraffe factory.

Now let's move on to kangaroo uteri. So female kangaroos have 2 uteruses, and 1 pouch, and 3 vaginas, which allows them to be perpetually pregnant. 

You know that thing when a rabbit jumps around and twists in the air? It's known as a binky.

Also, flamingos have 19 vertebrae in their necks.

Opossums don't usually get rabies. Only about 1 in 800 have it, and they're also at least partially immune to rattlesnake and cottonmouth venom.

A group of rattlesnakes, by the way, is known as a rumba.

Raccoons are very dexterous. They can even unlace shoes, although they can't tie them. So we've still got that on you, raccoons.

Scientists have found evidence that walruses lived off the coast of San Francisco around 5 million years ago.

Iguana have a 3rd eye on top of their heads. It has a retina and a lens, but it only detects light, dark, and movement. Which really, those are the main things if you're an iguana. You don't need to be watching football in HD if you're an iguana. You need to be like, "Is that thing going to kill me? Can I eat that thing?" and "Would that thing be appropriate to mate with?" Those are the basic questions.

One of the biggest threats to lions are porcupines. If a lion gets too close, it can get quills stuck in its mouth and nose.

According to a study done in 2012, goats have accents. Goat bleats sound different depending on which group that goat belongs to. Goat accents are of course also related to whether that goat is listening to Taylor Swift.

The word peacock only refers to males. Freakin' patriarchy. The bird's real name is peafowl, and females are called peahens.

In 2007, the Iranian army arrested 14 squirrels. They believe the squirrels were concealing spy equipment and had been sent across the border intentionally.

An anteater is capable of eating around 30,000 insects per day. Whatever, so am I. I choose not to, but I could.

When manatees rise above the water to breath, they replace 90% of the air in their lungs. To compare, humans doing the same thing replace about 10%.

Baboons have been known to find stray dogs and keep them around as playmates.

It's illegal to import most mongoose species into the U.S., because they can ruin the populations of birds and rodents and many other small animals.

In Kenya, there is a Camel Mobile Library. Camels transport books from the capital to villages that are up to 400 km away. 

Every year in the southern United States, there's around $100,000,000 in property damage caused by beavers.

The closest living mammal relative to the elephant is the 8 pound rock hyrax. They're small and fury, and yes, share an ancestor with the elephant. I mean, I guess we all share ancestors if we go back to single celled organisms. But they share a recenter ancestor.

Eels typically live between 15 and 20 years, but one eel in a Swedish aquarium lived to be 85. 

And finally, I return to my salon to tell you that female wallabies can produce 2 different types of milk at once. They have different compositions, one more suitable for the developing joey in their pouch, and one for the joey that has left the pouch. I know what you're wondering - But do wallabies have 3 vaginas? They do not.

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As we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome.