Nature Notebook – Trivia

This week we present animal trivia that you can use to amaze your summer visitors.

Sloths move so slowly (in a tree it only moves nine feet in one minute) that it needs a good defensive camouflage. It has green fur that allows it to blend with the tree leaves. The hairs are not actually green. The algae that live in the grooves on the hairs give the sloth his green color.

The mirror orchid attracts pollinating wasps by displaying flowers that look, smell and feel like females of their species. When the male wasps land and try to mate they move the orchid’s pollen.

To prevent caterpillar destruction of its leaves, the passion flower vine produces growths that resemble butterfly eggs on the leaves. Butterflies looking to lay eggs will bypass these leaves.

The spine-tailed swift of eastern Asia can fly up to 100 miles per hour.

A bumblebee bat is one inch big and weighs less than a dime.

A lichen from Antarctica is thought to be older than 10,000 years.

Twenty-five of the world’s tiniest plant, the Wolffia arrhizal (a tiny floating duckweed), would fit across your fingernail.

The horn of a rhinoceros is not bone. It is made of tightly packed hair-like fibers.