What's the deal with the penguins and the bears?
Welcome to the Bears VS Penguins Fun Fact page! Here we'll keep a circulating list of our top 10 favorite penguin and bear fun facts, as well as links to more facts and games! As we find better and better facts, we'll update the list. Know a great bear or penguin fact? Click the
email at the bottom of the page and send it to us, it might end up here!
Penguins:
- Penguins were described by their first discoverers as "Strange Geese"
- Penguins have an organ that allows them to desalinate and drink salt-water. The excess salt is removed via sneezing!
- Groups of penguins can produce enough poop to be seen from space!
- Some penguins can leap up to 9 feet in the air
- The bird that was originally called "penguin", the Great Auk, lived in Canada, but is now extinct
- The word penguin may have come from the Welsh phrase "Pen Gwyn" which means "White Head"
- Some penguins can swim at speeds up to 22 MPH!
- Penguins have no land based predators
- Some penguins can dive thousands of feet deep, and stay underwater for 20 minutes at a time!
- Penguins are the national bird of Antarctica!
Bears:
- A swimming Polar Bear can jump 8 feet out of the water to surprise a seal
- Bears don't poop during hibernation, body waste is recycled into protein. Scientists still don't understand this
- Baloo, from The Jungle Book, is a sloth bear
- Nearly 60% of all the world's bears live in Canada
- Most bears have 42 teeth
- Polar Bears and Grizzly Bears sometimes produce offspring together, these are known as "Prizzly" or "Grolar" Bears
- Grizzly Bears like to eat Moths
- Polar Bears aren't the only white bear, a rare type of American Black Bear, often called the "Spirit Bear" is also white, but not albino. They were believed to have magical powers.
- In parts of Canada, it's common to leave cars unlocked, in case someone needs to jump in to make a quick escape from a bear
- A bear served in the Polish Army in WW2, he was even taught to salute!
Bonus bear myths corrected:
- Polar Bear fur does not have fiber optic properties. However, their fur is clear and their skin is black. They look white because light scatters through their fur
- Bears can run just as fast downhill as they can uphill (~35 MPH!)
- Koala bears aren't bears at all, they're marsupials. (They don't have the koala-fications)
Links:
In no particular order, here are some cool/fun bear or penguin links! These aren't my links, so I can't speak for the privacy or security of these sites other than having checked them out briefly. Take care on the internet
Yeti Sports! (Who remembers this?)
80 Bear Facts!
30 Penguin Facts!
25 Penguin Facts!
The phenomenon that makes Polar Bears look white explained by Steve Mould
30 Bear Facts!
Think we missed something? Email us at: BVP@BEARSVSPENGUINS.com
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