DID YOU KNOW?

Some Nature Facts

1) The Black Marlin Fish lays as many as 226 million eggs.

2) The Poor-Will bird of North America is the only known bird to hibernate (to Sleep through the winter).

3) David Lyall was a lighthouse keeper on Stephen's island, a tiny island off New Zealand. One day in 1894 his cat brought in a dead bird. Mr Lyall didn't recognise the species, so he sent it to England to the famous ornithologist Lord Walter Rothschild. He identified it as an entirely new species, probably the only flightless songbird in the world. He named it in honour of Lyall as Traversia Lyalli, or the Stephen's island wren. But within a matter of weeks, the discovery was followed by the total annihilation of the species. The cat slaughtered all the rest of the wrens, making this the shortest recorded interval between discovery and extinction.

4) The flowerpot blindsnake is the only snake of which there is only a female in existence.

5) The Japanese Cedar Tree can grow up to 7200 years old. That's about 66 times the age of the oldest person!!!

6) Honeybees visit up to 5 million flowers to make one kilogram of honey. They fly a total distance equal to flying 4 times around the Earth.

7) Forests are often destroyed to obtain timber or to cleer land so it can be used as pasture for animals, growing crops or otherr purposes. About 90,000sq km of forest is cut down every year worldwide. This is about the same area as a country the size of Portugal! Cutting forests increases the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, which can affect climate and destroy the homes of many animals and plants.

8) The African Elephant has the longest pregnancy of any mammal. She carries her baby for an average of 660 days. When the baby is born it weighs 90-120 kg.

9) A baby blue whale is even bigger. It weighs 2,000 kg and is 7metres long. It puts on weight at the astonishing rate of 90 kg a day!

10) Emperor penguins sometimes dive to depths of 265 metres.

11) In 1987 a leatherback turtle fitted with a depth gauge reached a depth of 1,200 metres.