Fun Facts – 12 February 2014

Fun Fact #1

Africa's two most dangerous creatures are the hippopotamus and mosquito.

Hippos cause more human fatalities than any other larger animal as they actively defend their territories that consist of river and lake banks. Females become supremely aggressive if anything comes between them and their babies while they feed on shore.

Mosquitoes are the most dangerous creature in Africa, killing over a million Africans every year. Their ability to spread deadly diseases without regard makes them dangerous to everyone without medical attention, especially to children under five. There are 3,500 species of mosquito with a life-span of about two weeks.

Fun Fact #2

Based on archeological research, it seems that the modern spider may be the biggest species of arachnid that have ever lived.

The biggest known fossil of a spider was found near Inner Mongolia, China, in 2005. It was dated to around 165 million years old and is only about an inch in length. Compared to other fossils that have been discovered, this one is particularly large.

That fossil has been linked to a species of modern spider that grows to easily double the size of its ancestor, and as you know, many spiders in the modern world grow to be much, much bigger than this!