Amazing facts of Nature

 
                      Amazing facts of Nature

• Birds devote much time to their hygiene, preening their feathers continually and bathing regularly. Many birds spread their wings in the Sun ( to get rid of the germs and insects sticking to their feathers and also in this process, they get the boost of vitamin D by exposure to Sunlight ). Others prefer a good dust bath, smear themselves with an ant ointment ( by rolling on ant-hill or on a group of ants) or enjoy a beer massage. Birds need not look long or far to find the beauty oil they need for their hygiene. It is just a bill's length away, secreted by a gland on their rump. Birds dip their bills in this oily substance rich in fatty acids and water up to 10 or 12 times a day and spread it on their feathers.
• All spiders can make silk. They use it to make webs, traps, burrows and cocoons. Some spider silk is three times stronger than a steel wire of the same thickness. Spider silk can be thinner than a human hair and can stretch to twice its length. spiders make up to seven kinds of silk with their their glands in their abdomen. each kind of silk is used in a particular way, such as making traps, wrapping up prey, or providing shelter. Female spiders make a kind of silk to encase and protect their eggs. 5000 kinds of spiders build orb-shaped or circular webs. a common garden spider uses from 50 to 200 feet of silk to build an orb-shaped web about a foot across in less than an hour. An orb-web spider spins about 100 webs during its life time.Scientists today are using nanotechnology to try and make synthetic spider silk, because spider silk is super strong and stretchy.
• Indian female elephants do not have tusks.
• Animals like rats and squirrels keep gnawing at things because gnawing helps wear down their teeth. If they do not gnaw at things their teeth would keep on growing.
• Dogs eat grass when they feel something is wrong with them. After eating grass, whatever is eaten and has remained in the abdomen is thrown out. They feel better after this.
• Antarctica has more coal and iron ore are deposited beneath its ice than all the other continents combined.
• Newts ( aquatic animals ) sometimes migrate long distances to breed. They often travel back to the pond where they grew up, finding their way by sight and smell.
• Crocodiles shed tears. They secrete the excess salt in the body. They have to get rid of this by means of a gland near the corner of the eye.
• Certain plants use the sea to spread their seeds. The coconut is a famous example of this. This nut itself ripens inside an even larger husk of stringy fibres( the coir) encased in a brownish leathery skin.This makes it float and when a coastal coconut palm drops a husk almost straight into the ocean, it is carried away by the currents and deposited on a distant shore, where it may grow. In this way coconut palms have spread to fringe tropical shores around the world.
• If there is a population explosion of the microscopic pond plants algae, it can cause great harm to the other pond inhabitants by exhausting the available oxygen supplies. Without enough oxygen, the pond's plants and animals will soon die.