In at least nine ant species in Southeast Asia, there are ants that have greatly enlarged mandibular glands. These glands run the entire length of the ant’s body. The ants can release the acid from these glands in a suicidally way; the ant’s body will rupture and it sprays the toxic substance from the head. This is why these kamikaze ants are called the ‘exploding ants’.
Source: Wikipedia
Categories: Biology Tags: animal facts
After the 5 Interesting Thanksgiving facts, it now is time for 5 interesting turkey facts
91% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving.
About 280 million turkeys are sold each year for Thanksgiving. This is about 7 billion pounds of Turkey and $3 billion dollars worth of sales!
About 20% of all cranberries that are consumed in the US each year are eaten on Thanksgiving with Turkeys!
The name Turkey comes from the Ottomans who imported “turkey fowls”
In the 16th century, when North American turkeys were first introduced in-mass to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe and England -> the guinea fowl. This guinea fowl was imported from Madagascar via the Ottoman Empire. The merchants who did this were known as “turkey merchants”. The guinea fowl themselves eventually were popularly referred to as “turkey fowl”, similar to how other products imported by the Ottoman Empire acquired their names such as “turkey corn”, “turkey wheat”, etc. The North American turkey was thought by many to be a species of the type of guinea fowl and thus people called it also a “turkey fowl”, which was eventually being shortened to just “turkey”
Due to the white meat being the most popular part of a turkey, turkeys have been bred to have huge breasts. In fact so much, that most domesticated turkeys are no longer able to mate due to the breasts getting in the way of the male mounting the female. As such, most hatcheries use artificial insemination to fertilize the eggs of the domestic turkey.
Categories: History Tags:
The author of “Mary had a little lamb” was largely responsible for the establishment of the national Thanksgiving Holiday.
Sarah Joespha Hale, one of the great women in American history, campaigned for nearly 20 years to get Thanksgiving made a national holiday. During her campaign she continually lobbied various congressmen, wrote annual editorials on the subject, wrote annual letters to every governor in the United States and sent a steady stream of letter to the U.S. President as well.
Finally, she was able to convince Abraham Lincoln that it would be a good idea to help unify the country once the civil war was ended. Her final letter to Lincoln on the subject was mailed on September 28th, 1863. After reading it and thinking it over, Lincoln decided to declare the last Thursday of November to be the national Thanksgiving holiday.
The date of Thanksgiving was once changed to try and boost the economy. President Franklin Roosevelt decided to change the traditional date of Thanksgiving from the last Thursday of November to the second to last Thursday in November 1939, 1940 and 1941. He did this to extend the Christmas shopping season by a week. Only half of the states went along with this idea however, with Texas even celebrating Thanksgiving on both Thursdays. This became a mess that was settled in congress in 1941. In true congressional form, the date they set was a compromise; Thanksgiving would be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last and sometimes the second to last Thursday in November.
The things we eat traditionally at Thanksgiving is for a great part another contribution of Hale. She wrote numerous editorials that were widely circluated outlining various recipes to be used for the Thanksgiving dinner. These included many things that likely would not have been served at the original Thanksgiving, but today they have become traditional thanks to her. The things she put on the Thanksgiving menu were things as turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes.
The only things that are known to have been served on the first Thanksgiving diner were deer, various types of fowl, flint corn, cod, bass and other types of fish.
Thanksgiving was once commonly celebrated throughout the year by Europeans and Americans
Around the time the pilgrims came to America in 1620 it was common in England and many part of Europe to frequently set aside days for giving thanks to God. In the New World, where life was harsh in the beginning, there were numerous opportunities to hold such days of thanks. Any time good crops would come in, anytime drought would end, surviving harsh winter, it all were reasons to celebrate a day of thanking God.
Categories: History Tags:
Dolla Parton once told that she once lost a look-a-like contest, just like Charlie Chaplin, who once lost a charlie chaplin look-a-like contest as well. She showed up at a Halloween contest because she thought it would be funny to win the contest and then reveal her identity. Very much to her own surprise, she lost the contest however to another woman!
“I didn’t know if they knew it or not and if it was a joke because they used to have all these Dollys down on Santa Monica Boulevard.
They had the contest and I just got in the line and somebody else won. I don’t think they really did know it was me”, Dolly Parton revealed.
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The official definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit having seeds and pulp produced from a single ovary. This means that there are many ‘strange berries’ which we normally don’t call a berry. Tomatoes, bananas, grapes and watermelons are all berries!
To make it even weirder, the strawberry is not a real berry! By botanical definition a strawberry is a so called ‘accessory fruit’. These are fruits in which the edible part is not generated by the ovary.
Categories: Biology Tags:
