Fun Facts

Here are some fun facts about some of our residents here at Tiger Mountain!

• Toucans are found only in tropical areas of Central and South America. Some Toucan species have bills more than half the length of their bodies.


• A lion's eyesight is five times better than a human's, and it can hear prey that is more then a mile away.


• There are 8,240 species of reptiles in the world, inhabiting every continent except Antarctica.


• Bengal tigers are the most water loving of the big cats. They will even chase prey into the water & have even taken people from boats.


• A male Angler fish attaches itself to a female and never let’s go. Their vascular systems unite and the male becomes entirely dependent on the female's blood for nutrition.


• The Term "King of the Beast" is misleading because a lion will “smartly” run away from elephants and rhinoceros.


• Camels have three eyelids & alligators two.


• Reptiles and amphibians are cold-blooded animals, which mean that they depend on external sources, such as the sun, to maintain their body temperatures. Since they don't burn energy to heat internal "furnaces," reptiles eat about 50 times less food than do birds and other mammals of similar sizes.


• There are only three animals with blue tongues: the black bear, the Chow Chow dog & the blue-tongued skink Lizard.


• Some turtles and tortoises, including the Eastern box turtle found here in West Virginia, can live for more than one hundred years.


• A goldfish has a memory span of only three seconds.


• Only a few hundred of the world's 3,000 snakes are venomous. In the United States & only rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths and      coral snakes are poisonous. More Americans die each year from bee and wasp stings than from snake bites.


• Female lions will often stay with the pride their entire life, while young males are driven out.


• No two tigers or zebras have the same striped pattern.


• One way to tell a frog and a toad apart: frogs have smooth, clammy skin, while toads have drier, bumpy skin. Both frogs and toads lay their eggs in water, but toads spend more of their time on land than do frogs.


• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.


• A male lion's roar can be heard up to 5 miles away.


• Averaging 10 to 12 feet in length, the king cobra is the largest venomous snake in the world. It is also the only known snake that builds a nest for incubation of its eggs.


• Flying squirrels don’t really fly, they glide from branch to branch. A blanket-like furry skin stretches their front and hind legs, and acts as a parachute, enabling the squirrel to soar like a kite.


• Lions are the most social of all the cats, living in groups called "prides." There can be up to 40 members in a pride with over half of them being cubs and young adults.


• Frogs can breathe not only with their lungs, but also through their skin. A frog's skin is thin and contains many mucous glands that keep it moist. Oxygen can be absorbed through this thin, damp skin.


• Depending upon the size of the meal, pythons can go several months between meals.


• A beaver can hold its breath for nearly one hour.


• The largest lion on record was almost 11 feet long and weighed nearly 700 pounds.


• More than 75 percent of all toad and frog species in the world live in tropical rainforests.


• The emerald tree boa can strike a bird or small mammal in total darkness. The pits along the lips of many boas and pythons and the nostril-like cavities of pit vipers, are infrared heat receptors. Snakes use these pits to sense the location of anything that differs in temperature from its surroundings by as little as 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit.


• Lions were once thought to magical creatures and were worshipped as gods.


• Roadrunners are large (about two feet long) crested birds that prefer to run rather than fly. They eat rattlesnake’s whole, and they can sprint 15 miles per hour.