All Fun and Games

A northeastern spotted dolphin.

Aristotle noticed that dolphins give birth to live young who were attached to their mothers by umbilical cords, so he classified dolphins as mammals in Generation of Animals. Not until the nineteenth century did modern science confirm his statement. (source)

There is only one recorded battle in which both sides used elephants. In the Fourth Syrian War, in 217 B.C., Antiochus III of Syria used Asian elephants when attacking Ptolemy IV's Egyptian army with its smaller North African elephants (now extinct). While the Asian elephants were victorious, the Egyptian army would go on to win a smashing victory at Raphia on the Egyptian border. (source)

According to Roman historian Suetonius, it was rumoured that one consul and coregent of Rome was a horse - Emperor Caligula's favourite, Incitatus, who was accorded honour at every turn. Caligula's successor, Claudius, did not invite Incitatus in to dine, as had Caligula, but the horse was still decently treated, in his ivory manger, with a golden drinking goblet for partaking of wine. (source)

During the hundred days of the opening games at the Colosseum in Rome, in 80 A.D., over 5,000 animals were killed, including elephants, tigers, lions, elks, hyenas, hippopotamuses, and giraffes. (source)

The lions used by the Romans in the Colosseum were Barbary lions, whose manes covered nearly half of their bodies. While the export of lions to Rome threatened their population, greater damage was done after Roman times, when they were killed by Arabs, encouraged by governments that exempted tribes that killed lions from taxation. The creature's last stronghold was in the Atlas Mountains, where the last true Barbary lion was killed in 1922.

The Canary Islands got their name not from canaries but from the wild dogs that the Romans found when they landed there. They called the island Insulae Canariae, which means "Island of the Dogs." (source)

The ancient Vikings navigated by depending on the instincts of birds. They took on board several ravens, releasing them one at a time as they sailed westward. If the raven flew back along the course from which it had come, the Viking ships continued due west. But when a raven flew a different way, the ships would change course, following its flight path in search of new lands.

Horses were not commonly used for farm work until the twelfth century, because the chest harness in use since Roman times was inefficient. The invention of the shoulder harness, the "horse collar," enabled them to pull much greater weights, such as farm implements. (source)

The fourth Moghul Emperor, Jahangir, who ruled from 1605 to 1627, had a harem of 300 royal wives, 5,000 more women, and 1,000 young men for alternate pleasures. His stables contained 12,000 elephants, 10,000 oxen, 2,000 camels, 3,000 deer, 4,000 dogs, 100 tame lions, 500 buffalo, and 10,000 carrier pigeons. (source)

Lord Byron kept a pet bear at Cambridge University because dogs were not allowed.

A well-intentioned philanthropist, Eugene Scheifflin, instituted a project in the 1890s to bring to America each type of bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. As Hotspur talks about the starling in Henry IV, Part I, starlings were let loose in New York's Central Park. There are now millions of starlings throughout all of North America. (source)

The Dingo is the only wild, meat-eating animal native to Australia.

Until recently, the only purple animal known was the blesbok, a small South African antelope. However, in 2003 a small purple frog was discovered in Western India. It spends most of the year up to 12 feet underground, which is why it was not discovered earlier. (source)

The Wake Island rail was only discovered in 1903 and was extinct by 1946. It was wiped out when the island was occupied during World War II by Japanese soldiers, who found it a tasty delicacy.

The only wild horses in the world are Przewalski's horses, from Mongolia. Although they became extinct in the wild in 1968, they have since been re-introduced to their native Mongolia. All other horse breeds are descended from horses that were once domesticated.

A group of magpies is called a tiding, one of ravens an unkindness, one of turtledoves a pitying, one of starlings a murmuration, one of swans a lamentation, one of ponies a string, one of rattlesnakes a rhumba, one of crows a murder, one of cobras a quiver, one of foxes a skulk, one of emus a mob, one of elks a gang, one of cats a clowder, one of flamingoes a pat, and one of bears a sleuth. Groups of geese are named in a peculiar manner; when they are on the ground they are called a "gaggle", but in the air they are called a "skein". (source)

The eye of an ostrich is larger than its brain.

Some crabs near Danno-ura in Japan have patterns on their shells bearing an uncanny resemblance to a face of a samurai. When caught, these crabs are thrown back in commemoration of the Heike samurai clan, who lost a naval battle there in 1185. The patterns on the crabs' shells are inherited, and it is believed that the patterns evolved because fishermen tended to throw back crabs with patterns resembling faces. So, crabs with patterns that most resembled a face had a better chance of survival. Eventually, the pattern of the face of a fierce, scowling samurai evolved. (source)

The passenger pigeon, which became extinct on September 1^st, 1914, when the Cincinnati zoo's specimen, Martha, died, was the most abundant bird in the world in the nineteenth century and the most abundant ever in North America. Scottish-American ornithologist Alexander Wilson once watched a 250-mile-long flock pass over his Kentucky home for two whole days. In 1813, naturalist John James Audubon saw a flock that flew past at an estimated 300 million birds per hour for three days, blotting out the sun. However, due to vigourous hunting and destruction of their habitat, by the 1860s the birds had disappeared from the American east coast and were quickly disappearing everywhere else. The last big pigeon hunt took place in 1878 near Petoskey, Michigan, killing one thousand million birds. The last wild passenger pigeon was shot in St. Vincent, Quebec, on September 23^rd, 1907. In 1909, a reward of $1,500 was offered for information on a nesting pair, but none were found. (source)

King Alexandros I of Greece (1917-1920) died from blood poisoning after being bitten by his pet monkey. (source)

Ostriches never stick their heads in sand. (source)

The Falkland Islands have a human population of around 2,000 but a sheep population of 700,000, making 350 sheep for each person. (source)

Ninety-nine percent of all forms of life that have existed on Earth are now extinct.

In 2002, a new species of centipede, Nannarrup hoffmani, was found in Central Park, in the middle of New York City, New York.

A frozen woolly mammoth was found on the banks of the Beresovka River, in Siberia, that was almost in a complete state of preservation. Investigating scientists were able to eat its meat, and buttercups were found in the creature's mouth. (source)

Winnie-the-Pooh is based on a real bear. On August 24th, 1914, a Canadian soldier and veterinarian named Harry Colebourn, en route to a training camp in Valcartier, Quebec, purchased an orphaned black bear cub for $20 in White River, Ontario, which he named Winnipeg, or Winnie for short. When his unit was sent over to France during World War I, Colebourn loaned her to the London Zoo, intending to take her back to Canada after the war. However, Winnie's gentle disposition made her the zoo's top attraction, and on December 1, 1919, he donated her to the zoo. In the mid 1920's, writer A. A. Milne often took his young son, Christopher Robin, to the zoo, and Christopher named his teddy bear "Winnie-the-Pooh" after Winnie. A. A. Milne went on to write several best-selling children's books about Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Apart from humans, the Asian elephant is the only mammal that can stand on its head.

A cockroach can live without its head for over a week, until it dies due to lack of food or water.

The coelacanth, a member of a group of fishes that existed 350 million years ago, is still alive. It lives off the shores of southern Africa. It was thought to be extinct until 1938, when fishermen off the coast of South Africa caught one.