·         Diesel engine exhaust fumes that can cause cancer and it belongs to same potentially deadly category as asbestos, arsenic and mustard gas.

·         The skies over north india are seasonally filled with a thick soup of aerosol particles all along the southern edge of Himalayas, Bangladesh and bay of Bengal.   

·         Bear hibernation is different than most hibernating animals. In true hibernation body temperature drops drastically but the hibernating animal wake up occasionally to eat but in case of bear it follows deep sleep without waking up.

·         Dolphins, porpoises and whale are called cetaceans. A cetacean is a creature belonging to a group of water living mammals that don’t have hind limbs and a blowhole for breathing. They are not fish.

·         All snakes smell with their tongue. When a snake sticks out its tongue, it smells the surrounding. The moist tongue collects scents of small organisms from whatever it touches and from the air around it. When the tongue goes backs into the mouth the forks touch a special sensory spot called Jacobson’s organ on the roof of the mouth and  tells the snake what it smells. Snakes have a small notch in their lips that they can stick their tongues through so they don’t need to open their mouths. Some snakes can smell with their noses.

·         Spiders can’t chew or swallow inject their prey with poison using their fangs. The poison turns the insides of insect to a watery goop and the spider just sucks it up.

·        Pythons are constrictors, which mean that the will squeeze the life of their pray. They coil themselves around their prey and with each breath the creatures take the snake will squeeze a little tighter until they stop breathing completely. Once the heart stops the prey is swallowed whole. The entire animal is digested in the snake’s stomach except the fur and feathers.

·         Fur-picking, the universal habbit of apes and monkeys is not a hunt for lice or fleas. They are naturally remarkably free from these vermin. On the contrary it is a means of social communication between members of the troops(a group of monkeys)  and to develop strong social bond.

·         Dart frogs got their names because hunters would tip their arrows in the frog’s poison. Sadly, because people are cutting down rainforests for farming and ranching, poison dart frogs are at risk. The blue dart is the most endangered due to the pet-shop market.

·         Penguins are warm blooded, just like whales, penguins have a layer of fat under their skin calles blubber. Overtop of this they are covered with fluffy down feathers and overtop of those they have their outer feathers which overlap to seal in warmth. Penguins rub oil from a gland onto their feathers to help make them waterproof and wind proof.

·         Frog’s tongues are attached to the front of their mouth rather than at the back like humans. When a frog catches an insect it throws its sticky tongue out of its mouth and wrap it around its prey. The frog’s tongue then snap back and throws the food down the stomach.

·         Elephant’s ears act as a cooling device. They can measure up to 2 square meters and they are equipped with an intricate web of blood vessels. When the elephant flap its ears, the blood temperature lowers by as much as 5 degree Celsius.

·         All birds have feathers and feathers do many jobs for bird. It keeps them warm, wing feathers allow flight and tail feathers are used for steering. The color of the feathers can be used to hide bird or to help the bird find a mate.

·         Reptiles are cold blooded animals that raise their body temperature by lying in the sun or lower it by crawling into the shades. Their body temperatures changes to the temperature of its surroundings.

·         The elephant’s trunk combines both nose and upper lip and transforms them into single powerful organ that is able to touch, grasp and smell. It is strong enough to uproot a tree, sensitive enough to pick up a pea-sized fruit from the ground, and long enough to reach foliage high in the trees. The trunk is also used to drink by sucking up water and squirting it into the mouth.

·         Sri Venkateshwara Zoological park located in tirupati city in Andhra Pradesh is the largest zoo in the country. Its area is 2212 hectares.

·         Polar bears are very well adapted to swimming, with a water-repellent coal and partially webbed feet.

·         According to Global Forest Resources Assessment Report (FAO), India ranks among top ten countries in terms of forest area. India has 1.8% of the global forest area with per capita forests of 0.08ha.

·         Spider silk is possibly the strongest material in the world. Scientist believe that if they gathered the same weight of spider web as a piece of steel, the web would be much stronger than the steel.

·         Bats are social animal. They hang upside down when they sleep. They feed at night and spend the day sleeping in the caves or in trees. They are second largest group of mammals after rodents.

·         The world’s tallest tree is a coast redwood in California, measuring more than 360 feet.

·         Elephants live in a social hierarchy dominated by older females. Females travel in long lasting social units of about half a dozen adult females and their offspring, with the unit being led by a single older female, the matriarch.

·         Kannimara teak is one of the largest living teak trees in the world. It has an amazing girth og 6.48m and a crown height of 48.75m. it is believed to be around 400 years old. According to local tribal belief here when this tree was tried to cut down, the blood spurted out from the place of cut. This tree was being since then worshipped by the local tribes in Parambikulam as ‘Virgin tree’. This tree has been awarded ‘Mahavriksha Puraskar’ by government of India.

·         Snakes generally lay eggs, some snakes, such as, boas, rattlesnakes and garter snakes, give birth to live young.

·         The word amphibian means two-lives. Amphibians spend their lives in water and on land. All amphibians began their life in water with gills and tails. As they grow, they develop lungs and legs for their life on land. Members of this animal class are frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians or blindworms. Amphibians shed their skin as they grow. Usually the shed skin is eaten.

·         The king cobra is not only excellent climber but a super swimmer as well. The live in forests near streams.

·         All spiders produce silk but not all spiders spin webs. Silk is used for climbing, to create webs, to built smooth walls in burrows, build egg sacs, and wrap prey.

·         Male snakes will try to attract a female by doing a type of ‘play fighting’ with other males to gain female attention. They do not try to kill each other, just win the fight.

·         Different part of tree grow at different times of the year. A typical pattern is for most of the foliage growth to occur in the spring, followed by trunk growth in the summer and root growth in the fall of winter. Not all tree follows the same pattern.

·         Arsenic contamination is a serious problem in the Ganges Delta, West Bengal causing serious arsenic poising to large number of people.

·         The sex of crocodiles is determined by the incubation conditions, particularly the temperature. Incubation at 30 degree Celsius or less gives exclusively females, incubation at around 31 degree Celsius gives both sexes, where as incubation between 32 degree Celsius and 33 degree Celsius gives mostly males.

·         The jaws of the snakes are not fused together. That means that unlike our jaw, snakes jaws are not hooked up at the back of their mouths. This makes it possible for them to eat very big meals, bigger than their own heads.

·         Rattlesnakes are easily recognized by their rattle. The rattlesnakes babies are born with what is called pre-button. The baby snake looses this piece when it sheds its skin for the first time. With the shedding a new button appears. With every shedding after that another button or rattle will be added. These buttons are made up of Keratin. The rattles are empty. The noise comes from each segment knocking together.

·         India has worst air pollution in the entire world, according to study released by World Economic Forum. Of 132 countries, India ranks last.

·         Sea snakes are very poisonous. The most poisonous one is the Beaded Sea Snake. Just three drops of venom can kill about eight people.

·         The most dangerous sharks are the Great White shark, the Tiger shark, the Hammerhead shark, the Mako shark and the bull shark. Shark skins are used to make leather products. Until the 1950’s shark’s liver was used as vitamin A supplement.

·         Not all snakes have fangs. Only the poisonous one do. Fangs are sharp, long hollow teeth that are hooked up to small sacs in the snake’s head behind their eyes. These sacs produce a poisonous liquid called venom.

·         In Pit Viper snake, pit is a special organ between the eyes and the nostrils. The pit senses body heat from animals and give the snake a picture of that animal. The snake can then attack.

·         The spider’s body has an oil on it to keep the spider free from sticking to its own web.

·         Wrinkles help elephants keep their body temperature down. Wrinkles increases the surface area so that more skin becomes wet when the animal baths. All cracks and crevices trap moisture, which then takes much longer to evaporate.

·         Eels are sometimes mistaken for sea snakes. Eels are part of fish family and have gills for breathing. Sea snakes do not have gills but lungs instead and need to go to the surface for air.

·         The name ‘white rhinoceros’ is taken from the Afrikaans word describing its mouth: ‘weit’, meaning wide. Early English settlers in south Africa misinterpreted the ‘weit’ for white.

·         Polar bears have the ability to slow down their metabolism, after 7-10 days of not being able to feed, for whatever reason and at any time of year, until food becomes available again.

·         Two species of bear which have special feet are polar bear and the giant panda. The polar bear has partly webbed toes for swimming and walking on snow as well as furry bottoms to keep its feet warm on the ice. Giant pandas do not have a heel pad so they walk more on their toes.

·         India is the third largest producer of fish in the world and the second largest producer of inland fish (as on data available till 2014). The western ghats has 192 endemic species of fishes.

·         The spitting cobra spits venom which can spray more than 1.8m. it has near perfect aim and can target the eyes of prey.

·         Penguins don’t live near fresh water. They drink salt water. They have special gland in their bodies that takes the salt out of the water they drink and pushes it out of grooves in their bill.

·         Cobras are cannibals, which means that they will eat other snakes along birds, small mammals etc.

·         Sharks have most powerful jaws on planet. Both the upper and lower jaws move. It tosses its head back and forth to tear loose a piece of meat which it swallows whole.

·         Not all sharks are fierce carnivores. Some are quite harmless. Oddly enough, the most harmless sharks tend to be the largest. The basking shark, the whale shark and the mega mouth sharks all fit this description. These huge sharks eat plankton.

·         Some trees can talk to each other. When willows are attacked by webworms and caterpillars, they emit a chemical that alerts nearby willow of the danger. The neighboring trees then respond by pumping more tanning into their leaves making it difficult for the insects to digest the leaves.

·         Roots store more starch than trunk, they do not have central pith while the trunk has.

·         Bats are only mammals that can fly.

·         Elephants have remarkable memories. In the wild, they appear to remember for years the relationships with hundreds of other elephants. They also have an impressive memory for places to drink and to find food.

·         Tiger delineates its own territory by urinating on the trees and rocks along the boundaries and live within that. Trespass by another male would result in bloody conflict. However tigress may share male territories.

·         Black rhinos are not black at all. The species probably drives its name as a distinction from white rhino(which are not white at all) or from the dark colored local soil that often covers its skin after wallowing in mud.

·         Leopard and panther are one and the same and its zoological name is Panthera pardus.

·         Sea cow, Dugong dugon occurs in near shore waters of Gulf of Mannar, Gulf of Kutchchh and Andaman and Nikobar islands.

·         The world’s oldest trees are 4600 years old Bristlecone pines in USA.

·         Trees are the largest and oldest living organism on earth.

·         It can take 10 minutes to walk around the crown of giant banyan tree in Calcutta.

·         Trees do not restore and repair wood that is injured and infected rather they compartmentalize off the damage tissue.

·         Sea Kraits are one of the few sea snakes that go to land to lay their eggs while most others give birth in water.

·         Sharks have a sensory organ called ‘ampullae of Lorenzini’ which they use to feel the electrical field coming from its pray.

·         Silverfish is an insect that can be found in old unused books.

·         Aloe vera is also called as fountain of youth.

·         Frogs are found all over the world and in every climate except Antarctica.

·         Frogs cannot live in sea or salty water.

·         Dead and decaying trees on the ground replenish soil by returning important nutrients.

·         All snakes and lizards have two penises.

·         Spider’s legs are covered with many hairs. The hairs pick up vibrations and smell from the air.

·         Snakes don’t have any teeth for chewing purpose.

·         Heat Islands, created by trees lost, exponentially increases pollution.

·         No two tigers have same pattern of strips.

·         Tigers live alone (except mother and their young), even after matting they go to their separate places.

·         Paraceratherium , the largest mammal that ever lived, which resembles a very big muscular giraffe.

·         Frog bones form a ring when the frog is hibernating, just like trees. It is used to predict their age by scientists.

·         CNG is not without environment drawbacks, burning CNG has the highest rate of potentially hazardous carbonyl emissions.

·         Hippopotamuses are found in Africa. The name means river horse.

·         No tree dies of old age. They are generally killed by insects , disease or by people.

·         Trees grow from the top and not from the bottom.

·         Polar bears are the largest four legged living carnivores.

·         Spies and condiments are not considered as foods due to their lower nutritive value.

·         Gharial crocodile counts among the largest crocodile species in the world.

·         The banana tree is not tree as it don’t have trunk. It is only a giant herb.

·         Hoolock Gibbon is the only ape found in india. Rest of the monkeys are all masaques and langurs.

·         Barking deer is the mammal with lowest recorded chromosome number.

·         Indian flying fox are the fruit eating bats.

·         Mugger crocodile is a fresh water specied which is primarily found in india.