Ranger Rick's Can You Believe It? - nature facts

Ranger Rick, April, 1999

Wild facts to amaze your brain.

HOW MANY CANDLES?

An adult mayfly lives only a few hours. But one kind of clam can live to be more than a hundred years old.

WEIGHING IN

At 350 pounds (160 kg), the ostrich is the biggest bird in the world. The smallest bird is the bee hummingbird. It would take three of these little birds to weigh as much as one ostrich tail feather.

TOOTH TRUTH

The tooth fairy would have a hard time hauling away a sperm whale's tooth: It's the size of a big peanut butter jar. But the fairy could easily carry a shrew's tooth. It's smaller than a grain of rice.

WONDER WEBS

A dwarf spider makes a web about the size of a postage stamp. But the tropical banana spider spins a web that's 30 feet (9 m) across. Imagine walking into that whopper of a web!

WAITING FOR THE SNAIL

If a cheetah and a snail raced the 100-meter dash, the super-fast cat would win in about four seconds. The slowpoke snail would cross the finish line more than two hours later.