13 Surprising (And Intriguing) Facts To Level Up On Interestingness

Turns out, iodine made America smarter.

Authors: By Andrea Meno
Published: July 26, 2021
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The Incredibly Rad 'Walled City' Arcade We Missed Out On

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15 Lies About Police Work Movies Like to Tell You

Hollywood’s finest, these are not.

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How A Flea Market Find Uncovered A Lost, Unknown Photographic Genius

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13 Facts That Prove American Wildlife Is Out-Of-This-World Bizarre

By:: Andrea Meno

July 16, 2021

13 Facts That Prove American Wildlife Is Out-Of-This-World Bizarre

The most destructive species of animal in the U.S. isn’t, say, some kind of rampaging bear or wolf or mountain lion or something -- nope. It’s hogs. Here’s the full story, plus 12 others:

13

Squirrels regularly cause more blackouts than all hacking attacks combined. There have actually been no hacks of power grids, despite all the fearmongering - but squirrels have caused over 600 power outages since 1987. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Bloomberg

12

Crocodiles aren't confined to swamps and low ground -- they 00 can climb trees. That's the finding of a study of five crocodilian species - they can climb up to six feet (or 30 feet, in the case of some young crocs). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: PBS

11

Newborn opossums are SO small, you could literally scoop up a fistful of them. They're about the size of honeybees, and they crawl into their mother's pouch right after birth, so they continue to grow and develop. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: National Geographic

10

The world's second fastest land mammal, the pronghorn, lives in North America. They're herbivores, so it's not clear why they're so fast -- scientists think it's because of false cheetahs that hunted them until 000 years ago. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: National Geographic

9

Coyotes and wolves can interbreed, producing what's known as coywolves. They have longer legs and a larger jaw than coyotes, among other changes -- and they're good at hunting both in the open and in forests. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Smithsonian Magazine

8

Bison almost went extinct a century ago, but the Bronx Zoo helped save them. In the early 1900s, there were only about 1,000 wild bison -- so the Bronx Zoo took 15 bison to a newly established preserve in South Dakota. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Welcome2TheBronx

7

The United States probably has more tigers than everywhere else combined. In 2016, the captive tiger population in the U.S. was estimated at 5,000, which was way more than the 3,200 tigers living in the wild. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: WWF

6

Horses might have been imported to North America, but they're actually American. The species evolved in North America, but got hunted to extinction by humans, except for a few horses that crossed into Asia and then Europe. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: LiveScience

5

Opossums are crucial for public health, because they eat huge quantities of ticks. Ticks carry illnesses like Lyme disease, but opossums kill 95% of the ticks they come across. One opossum can eat a total of up to 5,000 ticks per season. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Wildlife Medical Clinic at Illinois

4

In North America, the most dangerous wild animal species are probably deer. They're involved in lots of car crashes, which sometimes kill drivers - plus, they carry deer ticks, which are very harmful to humans. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: SentinelSource.com

3

Some of the most destructive animals in the entire United States are feral hogs. They eat pretty much anything, and their super-long snouts let them root up to three feet. They devour whole fields of rice, wheat, potatoes, and so on. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Smithsonian Magazine

2

Bears are one of the smartest land animals you can come across in North America. Bears aren't too far from higher primates -- they're phenomenal at avoiding hunters, and animal trainers think they're smarter than dogs. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: PBS

1

Don't touch armadillos, especially in the South -- they're 00 a reservoir for leprosy. In fact, armadillos are such good carriers for leprosy bacteria, researchers use them to grow the bacteria (which can't be cultured in a lab). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Reuters

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