Animal Facts

Learn more about these fierce and powerful cats with these Lion Facts.

• African lions are the most social of big cats and only ones live together in groups or “prides.” A pride consists of about 15 lions.
• Male lions defend the pride’s territory while females do most of the hunting. Despite this, the males eat first.
• These majestic cats are threatened by habitat loss, human to animal conflict, as well as prey depletion. The lion is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The IUCN currently lists that there are between 23,000-39,000 mature individuals left.
• The lion was once found throughout Africa, Asia and Europe but now exists only in Africa with one exception. The last remaining Asiatic lions are found in Sasan-Gir National Park in India, which was primarily created to protect the species. Currently, there are approximately 350-400 lions in the park.
• A lion’s roar can be heard from as far as 5 miles away.
• A lion can run for short bursts at 50 mph and leap as far as 36 feet.
• Even though the lion is sometimes referred to as the “king of the jungle,” lions actually only live in grasslands and plains. The expression may have come from an incorrect association between Africa and jungles or may refer to a less literal meaning of the word jungle.
• A good gauge of a male lion’s age is the darkness of his mane. The darker the mane, the older the lion.
• A lion’s heels don’t touch the ground when it walks.
• Lions enjoy relaxing and lazing around. They spend up to 21 hours each day resting and sleeping. They have few sweat glands, so they wisely tend to conserve their energy by resting during the day and become more active at night when it is cooler.
• Lions have terrific night vision. They are 6 times more sensitive to light than humans. This gives them a distinct advantage over some prey species when hunting at night.
• Lionesses are caring mothers who will even take care of a neglected cub, allowing them to suckle and giving them a chance to survive. Two or more lionesses in a group tend to give birth around the same time, and the cubs are raised together. Cubs can be extremely playful.
• Lions communicate through a range of behaviors and their expressive movements are very highly developed. They will perform peaceful tactile actions such as licking each other and rubbing heads. Head rubbing, or nuzzling, is a common greeting behaviour for lions. They also communicate through a variety of vocalizations including purrs, snarls, miaws and hissing. Their vocalisations also vary in intensity and pitch.

Facts courtesy of World Wild Life & One Kind

Here are some quick facts about parrots: 

•  Parrots are “zygodactylous”, which means that they have 2 toes pointing to the front and 2 pointing to the back.
• There are over 360 different species. Almost 100 of these are threatened with extinction, mainly due to loss of habitat and capture to be pets.
• It might seem like a parrot’s beak is solid, but it’s not. In fact, like many of the bird’s bones it is hollow, with fine bony struts inside to make it strong. The outside is covered in keratin (which is what our fingernails are made of). A parrot’s beak grows continuously and is worn down by eating, chewing wood, and by grinding the top and bottom parts against each other
• The smallest parrots (called Parrotlets) can fit into the palm of your hand. The largest (Hyacinth Macaws) can be over 90 cm from head to tail, have a wingspan of 125 cm and weigh as much as 1,700 grams.
• Most parrots like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and a few insect larvae. But, some parrots are specialists – for example, wild Lorikeets eat fruit and nectar. Wild Hyacinth Macaws eat mainly palm nuts.
• Parrots are loud, messy, highly energetic and live a very long time. They need special food and vet care, huge cages, lots of attention and tons of toys. But, they can be great companions IF you can meet all their needs and give them a home for life.
• Parrots have very loud voices. Different sounds mean different things (like “watch out for the hawk”, or “there’s food over here”). Parrots learn to make these calls by listening to their parents and flock mates. As pets, some can learn to talk by listening to us. Parrots also use body language (like fluffing their feathers) to communicate.
• Are all feathers the same? Definitely not! There are three basic kinds of feathers: Down feathers are the small, soft, fluffy feathers located closest to the bird’s skin. They help the bird regulate its temperature. Contour feathers cover the head and body. They make the bird very smooth so it can travel easily through the air. Flight and tail feathers are much stiffer and longer than contour feathers. They move the air so that the bird can fly. 
• Where are wild parrots found? Most live in tropical and semi-tropical areas like Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, India, New Zealand and Australia.
• How long can parrots live? On average, small pet parrots like budgies live about 10 years. Very large pet parrots can live 80 years or even more!

Facts courtesy of Encyclopedia | World Parrot Trust (parrots.org) and Slide 1 (parrots.org)

Here are some quick facts about giraffes: 

• There are four distinct species of giraffe: Northern giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis, Southern giraffe giraffa, Reticulated giraffe G. reticulata and Masai giraffe G. tippelskirchi.
• Giraffe are already extinct in at least seven countries in Africa.
• Just like human fingerprints, no two giraffe have the same coat pattern.
• Giraffe feet are the size of a dinner plate with a diameter of 30 cm (12 inches).
• Giraffe tongues are bluish-purple and between 45 and 50 cm (17 and 20 inches) long.
• Both male and female giraffe have horns already at birth. These ossicones lie flat and are not attached to the skull to avoid injury at birth. They only fuse with the skull later in life.
• The giraffe is the tallest mammal in the world. Even newborn giraffe are taller than most humans.
• Female giraffe give birth standing up. Their young fall about 2 m (6 feet) to the ground and can stand up within an hour of birth.
• In some populations, over 50% of all giraffe calves do not survive their first year.
• A giraffe’s neck is too short to reach the ground. To drink, giraffe first have to splay their forelegs and/or bend their knees, and only then can they lower their necks to reach the surface of the water.
• Giraffe only drink once every few days. Even when water is readily available, evidence shows that many giraffe do not drink regularly – sometimes not at all.
• To protect the giraffe’s brain from sudden changes in blood pressure when it drinks, the jugular veins have incredibly elastic walls and large one-way valves that allow the veins to expand significantly and prevent the blood from flowing back to the brain when the giraffe’s head is lowered.
• Alternatively, to help fight gravity when blood returns to the heart from a giraffe’s feet, their blood vessels are thickly walled and muscled, and the skin on the legs is so tight it acts like giant compression socks. These unique adaptations have been studied by scientists at NASA to get inspiration for human space suits.
• A giraffe heart weighs approximately 11 kilograms (almost 25 pounds) with an average resting heart rate of 40-90 beats per minute. While people thought that the giraffe had a larger heart compared to other mammals to pump blood around its body, this is not true. Rather the giraffe’s heart has a thicker muscle on the left side (ventricle) of the heart so it can generate enough force to fight gravity.

Facts courtesy of 14 fascinating giraffe facts – Giraffe Conservation Foundation