Think about this one...When the fly is heading for the ceiling, it's flying right side up. When it lands on the ceiling it is upside down. At some point along the way it has to flip over. But when? And Where? And How?

Scientists dispelled the prevalent theory, that the fly performed a fighter pilot-like barrel roll just prior to landing, by capturing this momentous event on film. Freeze frames, from the high-speed cameras scientists used, proved that flies do not flip, but flop, as they land upon the ceiling. Prior to impact, the fly extends its forward legs over its head, makes contact, and uses the momentum it has gathered in flight to hoist the remainder of its body to the ceiling. Thus, the fly proves to be more of an acrobat, than of a fighter pilot practicing his maneuvers.

Once the fly reunites all six feet on the ceiling, it keeps things dizzingly exciting, by gracefully tiptoing across the ceiling, securing itself by using sticky pads found under the two claws attached to each of its feet. It is because of these sticky pads and the hairs on the legs that the fly is such a carrier of disease germs.

Grizzly black bears, hummingbirds and squirrels hibernate in the winter because a long, chilly season of little food and warmth is no picnic for these animals. Unlike the warm seasons of spring and summer that provide an unlimited amount of food for these critters, the winter season only provides a cold, frozen ground where food is extremely scarce.

In addition, the wintery days are frigid and short while the hours in the dark night seem to drag on for a chilly eternity. Searching for grub often leaves the stomachs of these animals empty because by the end of their search their bodies end up burning more calories than the animals get back from the food when and if any is found. So instead of starving or freezing to death, these animals decide to pack in all in for the long haul and hibernate during the winter months. Hibernation helps these animals survive in the roughest and toughest conditions. By hibernating, an animal decreases its body.s energy needs to a bare minimum. Hibernation is a process of lowering an animals body temperature and slowing down its heartbeat into order to conserve energy during times of scarcity and stress.

Every animal hibernates in different ways. While squirrels can wake up every four days to grab a bite to eat and take a trip to the bathroom, black bears can stay dormant, or inactive, for up to seven months with no food, water, or visits to the bathroom.

Honey is a sweet, thick sugary solution made by bees. The composition of honey consists of varying proportions of fructose, glucose, water, oil and special enzymes produced by bees. (Glucose and fructose are types of suger)

The first step in making honey begins when field bees fly from flower to flower collecting the sweet juices or nectar that a flower provides. With their tongues, the field bees suck out the nectar and store it in sacs within their bodies. After filling their sacs with these sweet juices, the field bees fly back to their bee hive and regurgitate the stored nectar into the mouths of house bees.

These house bees are assigned the job of adding enzymes from their bodies to the nectar. The enzymes cause the water in the nectar to evaporate-thereby turning the nectar into honey. Lastly, the nectar is stored in a cell of a honeycomb. Overtime, the nectar ripens and becomes honey.

No!

The humps on a camel's back are actually huge heaps of fat and flesh that can weigh as much as 80 pounds in a healthy camel. These humps help camels survive for weeks without food and water.

When water and food become scarce on the deserts where camels roam, the fatty humps serve as stored food and are used for nourishment. As the camel's body metabolizes or uses up the humps' stored fat, the hump becomes smaller and flabbier. So the longer the camel goes without eating, the smaller its hump gets. The size of a camel's hump helps determine a camel's health, food sources, and overall well-being. These humps, or reserves of fat, are the reason why camels can go for days without water and food. While humans are supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day, camels can go without water for up to 2 weeks!

No!

Man's best friend is colorblind, but, fortunately, his survival does not depend upon the ability to see colors. His keen sense of smell compensates for his inability to see colors, and enables him to differentiate between things.

Extensive scientific testing on dogs supports the conclusion that they live in a colorless world. The testing done primarily focussed on the dogs' responses to colors for food. Dogs could not tell the difference between one color, a signal for food, and other colors, that were not for food. Similar tests conducted on cats produced similar results, which led scientists to conclude that they, too, are colorblind and live in a gray world.

The inability of most animals to see colors, from an evolutionary standpoint, is quite simple to understand. Many colorblind animals have dull-colored coats, hunt for food in the dark of night, or graze in the dim twilight hours. Their other senses have developed to the point where the lack of color vision in no way impairs them. For them, life in a colorless world is neither a handicap, nor a threat to their survival. The only animals, other than man, scientists can conclusively say have color vision are monkeys and apes. Both can be trained to open a colored door, behind which is food, and man can be trained to open a refrigerator door of any color!

Yes!

Fish, like people, need oxygen to live.

A fish out of water, is a fish out of its element. A fish comes fully equipped with a pair of gills, which it uses to breathe under water. The gills extract life-sustaining oxygen from the hydrogen in the water molecules, in order to regulate the amount of oxygen intake. This maintains the necessary balance of the two components of water for the fish to survive.

When a fish is taken out of water, and exposed only to air, not to oxygen and hydrogen containing water, its gills are unable to control the oxygen intake, the delicate balance cannot be maintained, and the gills inhale a lethal overdose of oxygen. The fish essentially experiences death by "drowning."

Scientists, whether intentionally, or unintentionally, tripped us up when they named the centipede, one of the oldest creatures in existence. Yes, centipede really does mean "100-footed," and yes, some centipedes actually do have 100 feet, but no, not all do. In fact, some centipedes have more than 100 feet, and some have as few as 30. Perhaps, mathematicians , not scientists, should have done the calculations, and should have named this member of the species "Myriapoda," Latin for many footed. Yes, the millepede also belongs to this ancient species, but does it really have 1,000 feet, as it's name implies? Doubtful.

The centipede emerges from eggs, laid in the open, with either a full set of legs, or with a starter set of seven pairs, and plays add-a-pair each time it sheds its skin, until maturity. These paired legs grow out of a segment of the centipede's flat, many jointed body, making them much easier to keep track of, and the centipede less likely to stumble as he forrages for food by night. The sheer number of legs, however, may present a problem for the centipede by day, as it must safely tuck them in, when taking cover under rocks or rotting wood.

The 8-10" tropical variety of the centipede has little to fear in this regard, because this flavor of centipede bears enough poison in its two claws to kill a small bird. The claws containing the poison, as with all other centipedes, are located, along with its two feelers, on the section next to its head.

Do not let the fluid motion of the slithering snake deceive you into believing that its body is boneless. Nothing could be further from the truth. Snakes are full of bones, from their sectioned backbones, to which are attached from one to 145 pairs or ribs, to the ball and joint sockets, which attach the many sections of backbone together, and allow them to contort themselves like pretzels.

The tips of the one to 145 pairs of ribs in the snakes deceiving body are conveniently attached by muscles to each of the scales, which cover the entire belly, or abdomen, of this charmer. This attachment allows the snake foot-like movement each time he moves one of these scales, and, thus, precludes the need for feet. The snake may be a descendent of the footed lizard, and, if this is the case, its legs gradually disappeared through the evolutionary process, because they became unnecessary to its movement.

Lizards in the suborder Iguania communicate by doing push-ups and other athletic displays. They convey territoriality, courtship displays, and other messages with various combinations of push-ups, body postures, head movements, and displays of colorful belly patches or throat dewlaps.

The Iguania includes the common sagebrush lizards of the American west, as well as iguanas and tropical anoles. Different species have different languages, and within each species there may be regional "dialects."

A recent study showed that, like the languages of humans and some kinds of birds, lizard body language is an open grammatical system. This means that they can express many different messages using a fixed set of symbols combined in various orders.

The eyes of the giant squid (Architeuthis dux) can be up to 25 centimeters (ten inches) across, about the size of a volleyball.

Those large, sensitive eyes are useful in the dark waters where the giant squid lives, 200-700 meters (660-2,300 feet) below the surface of the ocean.

How big does it get?

Up to 18 m (59 ft)

Up to 900 kg (1,980 lb, nearly 1 ton)

Giant squids are among the world's most mysterious megafauna (large animals). So far, no live specimen has been captured. They live in deep oceans all around the world, along with at least ten other species of very large squid.

Like other cephalopods such as octopi, giant squids have complex, well-developed brains. They are ferocious predators, but they are also pursued and eaten by large cetaceans such as sperm whales, some of which show the obvious scars of giant squid sucker disks.

Snakes don't sting or use their forked tongues as weapons. The tongues are perfectly harmless.

A snake sticks out its tongue to collect data for its Jacobson's Organ, an organ strategically located in front of the roof of the snake's mouth that functions as a chemical receptor. Each and every time the snake flicks out its forked tongue, it snares chemical particles in the air, which latch onto, or dissolve in, the moisture of the snake's tongue. Once the snake reels in its tongue, it inserts the tips of the forked tongue into the two awaiting openings of the Jacobson's organ where the particles, especially those of animal body odors, are identified, analyzed, and acted upon.

For the male snake, the tongue is both a sensory organ, and a sensual organ. The tongue plays a vital role in snake courtship and reproduction, as the male snake's jerking body motions and rapidly flicking tongue either charm the female snake, or render her unresponsive. In either instance, by sticking out their tongues, snakes ensure the survival of the species.

Bulls do NOT charge because a Matador's cape is red. They charge because of the movement of the cape.

In Spain, a Matador will don his "Montera" (small black hat), bow to the Presidents Box, and then dedicate the bull to a spectator in the stands.

The Matador will start the fight with a series of passes, first from side to side to bring the bull close to his body, then high with the cape travelling directly over the bull's horns. After the bull is trained to charge the cape and it has reduced its area of protection to just a few feet, a Matador will show you his individual personality by the combination and variations on these passes. Some of the better Matadors in Spain will fight the bull from their knees or even kneel with their backs exposed to the bull.