People Are Sharing Animal Facts That Not A Lot Of People Know, And I'm Honestly Blown Away

The more you know!

Recently, Reddit user u/colonoscopescount asked, "What is your number-one obscure animal fact?" And I can honestly say, I didn't know any of them.

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Please be advised that some submissions have been edited due to length and/or clarity.

1. "Army ants will create 'balls' during high water floods. The ball will roll, allowing every ant to get a breath." —H010CR0N

Gagul'a Chrelashvili / Getty Images/EyeEm

According to Insider, Georgia Tech researchers discovered that fire ants can self-assemble into various shapes. "During a flood they can form a raft or form a ball to combat forces. Their powerful grip turns them into a semi-solid structure."

2. "The duck-billed platypus has no nipples to feed their offspring. Instead, milk oozes from the skin." —ChimpyChompies

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According to BBC, "Platypus are monotremes — a tiny group of mammals able to both lay eggs and produce milk. They don't have teats, instead they concentrate milk to their belly and feed their young by sweating it out."

3. "Vultures urinate on their legs and feet to cool off on hot days, a process called urohidrosis." —Iron_Chic

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According to Center of the West, "It helps to cool the vultures off during hot weather. When the fluids in the waste evaporate, it cools the blood vessels in the feet, therefore lowering the overall temperature of the bird. It is also believed that because of the high acidity of their urine, the bacteria on their legs is destroyed."

4. "Penguins have a gland above their eye that converts saltwater into freshwater." —Yeeteth_thy_baby

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According to Smithsonian magazine, "Eating so much seafood means drinking a lot of saltwater, but penguins have a way to remove it. The supraorbital gland, located just above their eye, filters salt from their bloodstream, which is then excreted through the bill—or by sneezing! But this doesn’t mean they chug seawater to quench their thirst: penguins drink meltwater from pools and streams and eat snow for their hydration fix."

5. "The vast majority of Greenland sharks are blind thanks to a special parasite that eats their eyes and replaces them." —Fabled_Webs

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According to Oceana, "The Greenland’s bumbling reputation is compounded by the fact that almost all of them are blind, or close to it. Though they’re born with small but functional eyes, up to 100 percent of the adults in a local population will have small, parasitic crustaceans (Ommatokoita elongata) hitching a ride on the sharks’ corneas. Each eye usually hosts one adult female along with several larvae. They nibble away at the shark’s cornea tissue, destroying its vision in the process."

6. "Sloths are literally too lazy to go looking for a mate, so a female sloth will often sit in a tree and scream until a male hears her and decides to mate with her." —amishsheepherder

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According to Sloth Conservation, "The three-fingered sloth will emit high-pitched vocalizations to attract the attention of nearby males. These vocalizations, or 'screams,' sound like bird calls or shrill whistles. She will do this for eight to ten days every single month, with the vocalizations increasing in frequency until she is screaming every 10 to 15 minutes. The male three-fingered sloths get very excited when they hear this call and will go in search of the female making it."

7. "There is a genus of frog called Mini. There are only three frogs in the genus, and their scientific names are all puns: Mini mum, Mini ature, and Mini scule." —SwimmingOnMars

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According to National Geographic’s Michelle Z. Donahue, "The world’s smallest known frog (and vertebrate) is Paedophryne amauensis, a Papua New Guinean native measuring an average of 7.7 millimeters long, or around the size of a housefly. Comparatively, Mini mum, the tiniest of the three newly discovered species, is around 8 to 10 millimeters long. Mini ature, measuring 14.9 millimeters, is roughly the length of a microSD card."

8. "There are no male mourning geckos. The entire species is female." —Moctor_Drignall

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According to the Georgia Aquarium, "It's an all-female species. The mourning gecko is parthenogenetic, meaning it can reproduce without males."

9. "Snakes don't have eyelids. If you see a snake blink, that's a legless lizard." —CirothUngol

Shikhei Goh / Getty Images/500px Prime

According to the Catalina Conservancy, "Snakes don’t have what we think of as eyelids. Instead they have something called a brille attached to each eye. The brille is also known as  ocular scale, eye cap or spectacle. It’s a layer of transparent, immovable, disc-shaped skin or scale covering each eye. Brille is German and Norwegian for glasses."

10. "A common garden snail can have 14,000 teeth. Some snails grow 25,000 teeth in their lifetime. And the teeth grow on their tongue." —doublestitch

Andres Ruffo / Getty Images/EyeEm

According to New Castle University research, "Most snail species have a tongue that’s similar to ours, except theirs is covered in rows and rows of tiny little teeth,” explained Dr. Gordon Port, senior lecturer at Newcastle University. "A snail will use its toothy tongue ­– called the radula – almost like a file, scraping off the softer parts of their food when eating. Their teeth normally get worn down by this action, so they’re replaced regularly.”

11. "When caterpillars enter the chrysalis phase, they don’t just sprout wings; their entire body first turns into a liquid, soupy substance, which then reforms into the butterfly." —Unlucky-Pomegranate3

Darrell Gulin / Getty Images

According to Business Insider, "First, it releases enzymes called caspases. These rip apart and dissolve cells in its muscles, digestive system, and other organs. But the enzymes don't quite liquefy all of the caterpillar. They leave key structures intact, like breathing tubes. At the same time, specialized cells called imaginal discs start waking up. Once the transformation begins, those hormone levels take a nosedive, giving these discs the opportunity to do what they do best: build a butterfly. You see, each disc contains the genetic recipe to form a different adult body part, starting from the inside out.

Research suggests that butterflies and moths can remember their caterpillar days."

12. "Some species of bats practice oral sex. Apparently certain species of male bats found out that if they satisfy the female enough, that she will not go mate with another male, thus securing their place as a father of the offspring." —Novel_Jelly8482

[e-mail] / Getty Images/iStockphoto

According to National Geographic, "In fact, we know of only one animal apart from humans to regularly engage in fellatio – the short-nosed fruit bat (Cynopterus sphinx). The bat’s sexual antics have only just been recorded by Min Tan of China’s Guangdong Entomological Institute (who are either branching out, or are confused about entomology). Tan captured 60 wild bats from a nearby park, housed them in pairs of the opposite sex, and voyeuristically filmed their liaisons using a nighttime camera. Twenty of the bats got busy, and their exploits were all caught on video."

13. "Tarantulas have pet frogs. The frogs eat bugs and parasites that would damage the spider’s eggs, and in turn the spider protects the frog. Even after the eggs hatch, they continue to protect the frog." —Hazmatix_art

Vovashevchuk / Getty Images/iStockphoto

According to the National Wildlife Federation, "The toads benefit because tarantula burrows are typically humid—a good hangout for toads, and because tarantulas can kill most toad predators, offering safety. The tarantulas benefit because narrow-mouthed toads feed on ants and other pests that eat spider eggs. So while the tarantula could certainly make a meal of the toad, it benefits more from partnering up with the potential prey, offering security in exchange for pest control."

Are you holding on to an interesting animal fact? Tell me all about it in the comments below!