OkcPets Magazine January 2021

8 OKC Pets • January/February 2021 ANIMAL FACTS Animals Are ASTOUNDING! WRITTEN BY: Anna Holton-Dean Winged Things “Bird brain” should be a compliment. Cockatoos have been nicknamed “animal master-burglars” because they can pick almost any lock. Not only that, in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists established that pigeons can learn to recognize around 50 words—and crucially, they can distinguish words from non- words. The average man would need to eat around 285 pounds of meat per day if he had the metabolism of a hummingbird! Of course, everything is fast with this avi- an. The hummingbird also flaps its wings 40 to 90 times per second. Honeybees can count, categorize similar objects and differentiate between shapes that are symmetrical and asymmetrical. Chickens and ostriches are the closest modern relatives to the Tyrannosaurus rex. Although a link between dinosaurs and modern birds had long been suspected, in 2008, research was published in the jour- nal Science that found molecular evidence, according to “Smithsonian Magazine.” B irds of the air, fish of the sea, wild animals of land and even the domestic type in your own home all share something in common— they’re a wonder of nature in one way or another. From picking locks like a master burglar to disappear- ing organs, they are born with abili- ties one can only dream of. Read on to learn more fascinating fun facts that will blow your mind, courtesy of Animal Planet, Insider.com and OneKindPlanet.com. On Land A panda weighs 3 to 5 ounces at birth and is roughly the size of a stick of butter. The slowest mammal on earth is the tree sloth. It moves at 6 feet per minute. A newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch long and weighs less than a gram. The fastest land animal in the world, the cheetah can reach speeds of 70 miles per hour—accelerating from 0 to 68 miles per hour in just three seconds! If they need to change direction quickly, they have that covered too. They are the only big cat that can spin in mid-air while sprint- ing. Cheetahs’ long muscular tails have a flat shape that is used for balance and steering. The tail works like a rudder on a boat.