Facts About Nature

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The largest multituberculate ever was Taeniolabis. It lived in North America during the Paleocene. It was as large as a giant beaver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeniolabis

Sometimes, I hate how all cartoon frogs fit the same "green bullfrog" archetype. The anura clade is far more diverse than that. Observe.

Tailed Frogs: Males have an enlarged cloaca, which forms a "tail".
Suriname Toad: It's like a living pancake!
Ecnomiohyla: They can use their webbed feet to glide!
Bornean Flat-Headed Frog: It has no lungs or gills. Instead, it breathes entirely through its skin.
Purple Frog: It clucks like a chicken!

There was once a giant baboon in South Africa called Dinopithecus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinopithecus

One of my favorite prehistoric amphibians is Eocaecilia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocaecilia

I love caecilians because they are highly mysterious. Most scientists believe that caecilians are descendants of temnospondyls. However, another possibility is that caecilians are descendants of lepospondyls. If caecilians are, in fact, descendants of lepospondyls, this would mean that they are more closely related to amniotes than they are to other modern amphibians.

Evolution is still full of juicy mysteries. Does this mean that evolution is wrong? Of course not. We just need to keep digging all over our beautiful planet.

It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with a few missing pieces. Don't tell me that the missing pieces never existed just because I am unable to locate them at the moment.

There was a prehistoric crocodile called Crocodylus anthropophagus, which means "human-eating crocodile". It got this name because there is definite evidence that it preyed upon hominids.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodylus_anthropophagus

Parrotfish eat coral with their sharp beaks and then poop sand. ^-^

The jacana is a bird with really big feet that it uses to walk across lily pads. ^-^

This video contains many great facts regarding the Eastern Box Turtle. ^-^

The okapi is a basal member of the Giraffidae family. Giraffes likely evolved from okapi-like ancestors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okapi

Also, several prehistoric intermediates have been discovered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honanotherium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitilanotherium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeotragus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samotherium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shansitherium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivatherium

The largest rodent ever - Josephoartigasia monesi - was 10 feet long and weighed a ton. It lived in South America between 4 and 2 million years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephoartigasia_monesi

Its closest modern relative is the Pacarana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacarana

Overall, South America is famous for its unusual rodents.

Some prehistoric kangaroos were pretty freaking weird.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protemnodon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sthenurus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procoptodon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simosthenurus

Birds of the charadriiformes order have special glands which allow them to safely drink salt water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charadriiformes

Every beehive can only have one queen. If there are ever two, they must fight to the death!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlqenP2YG10

It is "common knowledge" that mammals and birds are endothermic ("warm blooded") whereas all other animals are ectothermic ("cold blooded") ... but this is not always the case actually.

Some animals are mesothermic. Mesothermic animals have a body temperature which is partway between "warm blooded" and "cold blooded" levels. Some examples of mesotherms include, opahs, tuna, great white sharks, opossums and sloths. Non-avian dinosaurs and non-mammalian synapsids were likely mesotherms as well. Pterosaurs may have even been mesothermic.

Also, naked mole rats have a body temperature comparable to that of reptiles, despite the fact that they are mammals.

Also, some animals develop a body temperature as they grow older. For example, kittens are born without the ability to regulate their body temperature.

Some of the earliest synapsids (I.E. mammal-like Reptiles) resembled komodo dragons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiacodon

One of my favorite weird animals is the springhare. I like it because it is so full of contradictions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedetes

Despite its name, the springhare is not a lagomorph. It is, in fact, a rodent. It also is not a wallaby, despite its wallaby-like posture.

The closest living relatives of springhares are the anomalures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalure

Most anomalures are called "scaly-tailed squirrels" ... even though they aren't squirrels. There is another anomalure called the "long-eared flying mouse" ... and it's not a true mouse.