Facts in category: Animals
| Ants can lift 20 times their own body weight. |
| Ants know when they are going to die. |
| Ostriches live about 75 years and can reproduce for 50 years. |
| The largest bird in the world today is the Ostrich Struthio camelus. The North African Ostrich subspecies is the tallest of all the Ostriches. Males can be 2.74 m tall. The head and neck can be 1.4 m long. The average height is around 2 m. |
| The smallest bird in the world is either the Bee Hummingbird Mellisuga helenae from Cuba and the Isle of Pines or the Little Woodstar Acestrura bombus of Ecuador and northern Peru. The male hummingbird is 57 mm and weighs 1.6 g. Half of its length is taken up by the bill and the tail. Some experts think the Woodstar is even smaller. |
| The bird with the largest wingspan is the Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans which lives in the southern oceans. Its wings average 2.54 - 3.51 m. The largest recorded wingspan was of a very old male whose wings measured 3.63 m. |
| The Australian Pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus has the longest bill of any bill measuring 34 - 47 cm. |
| The bird with the longest bill to body size is the Sword-billed Hummingbird Ensifera ensifera that lives in the high Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia. Its bill is 10.2 cm long, four times longer than the bird's body, not counting the tail. |
| Ostriches Struthio camelus have the longest legs. Their legs can be up to 1.3 m long. |
| A number of swifts have the shortest legs. Their family name Apodidae means 'lacking legs'. |
| Jacanas (Jacanidae family) have the longest toes relative to body length. Some of the larger Jacanas can have 'toespans' of at least 15 cm. |
| The Phoenix Fowl has the longest feathers. The upper tail can grow for six years and one measured 10.6 m. The Phoenix Fowl has been bred as an ornamental bird in Japan since the mid 17th century and is a breed of the Red Jungle Fowl Gallus gallus. |
| The longest feathers of a wild bird relative to body size, are the central tail feathers of the male Ribbon-tailed Bird of Paradise Asptrapia mayeri. It lives in the mountain rainforest of New Guinea. |
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