Yes! The tardigrade is a microscopic animal that can survive in extreme conditions by curling into a ball and getting rid of all the water in its body. In this dehydrated state, tardigrades have survived being fired out of a gun and spending 10 days in outer space (not at the same time).

Pollinating bees actually use static electricity to determine which flowers have nectar! As bees flap their wings, they build up an electric charge on their bodies, just like when you rub your socks on the carpet every night before bed (everyone does this, right?). Nectar has a small electric charge, so when a bee flies near a flower full of nectar, its tiny bee hairs actually pull towards the flower!

Cats purr in a lot of different situations - when they’re happy, when they’re hungry, or when they’ve just given birth (the last one is the easiest to spot). So communication seems to be a main use, but scientists think they might also purr for another reason: to heal their bones! Cats are known for quickly healing broken bones (part of what allows them to survive falls), and scientists have determined that vibrations in the range of purrs help bones heal. So next time your cat purrs in your lap, don’t get too flattered - they might just be beefing up their bones.

Yes, humans are animals! An animal is a living thing that moves, eats other living things, and are made of more than one cell. You’re an animal!

Most animals with fur or hair are mammals. That includes dogs, cows, rabbits, and humans! The world’s smallest mammal by size is the bumblebee bat. It’s called that because it’s the size of a bumblebee!

The blue whale is the biggest mammal, the biggest animal alive today, and the biggest animal that ever lived! A blue whale is as long as 3 school buses, and weighs as much as 20 elephants put together. In fact, the amount of food a blue whale eats every day weighs as much as an elephant does!

The oldest living land animal on Earth is a giant tortoise named Jonathan, who is 190 years old. Jonathan was born in 1832, making him older than cars, the light bulb, and the Statue of Liberty. There are likely older animals than Jonathan living under the sea, though - the Greenland shark can likely live for 392 years, and the oldest animal ever discovered was clam (now deceased) that was 507 years old, making it the oldest animal ever discovered.

The cheetah is the fastest running animal at a top speed of 64 mph, as fast as a car on the highway. But the cheetah isn’t actually the fastest animal. That title belongs to the Peregrine Falcon, which has been recorded diving at over 200 mph - faster than a small airplane!

The loudest animal ever recorded is the sperm whale, which makes clicking sounds at 230 decibels - louder than a jet engine on an airplane. Because sound travels farther in water than it does in air, sperm whales can hear each other hundreds or possibly even thousands of miles away. They use these sounds to communicate and to visualize their surroundings using echolocation, helping them hunt in the pitch-black deep sea.

There is no universal definition of intelligence, but some animals have done some very intelligent-seeming things. Chimpanzees routinely use tools like sticks to get ants to eat, and have even outperformed humans in memory tests. Other animals have shown impressive problem-solving as well—crows were able to figure out how to raise a water level by adding pebbles to a glass, outperforming human children! Bottlenose dolphins and elephants have shown the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror. So what’s the smartest animal? It’s hard to say for sure, but a lot might be smarter than you think!