The Green List
November 2006

1. If 10,000 people use only recycled copy paper over the next year, we'd save 12,000 trees.

Peregrine falcon; iStock photo

2. If 10,000 people wrap a gift in 100% recycled paper, we'd save about 64 trees.

3. It may no longer be an insult to call someone a bird brain! Recent tests have shown that pigeons have remarkably good long-term memories for picture recall. Over five years, two Silver King pigeons memorised between 800 and 1,200 different pictures.

4. The peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on earth. It can reach speeds of more than 300 kilometres an hour.

5. The lion's mane jellyfish has stinging tentacles that can reach nine metres.

6. Jellyfish are made almost entirely of water – about 95%!

7. Some believe that the human brain is made up of the same percentage of water – 95.

8. The sea otter has one of the finest coats in the animal kingdom, sporting almost 100,000 hairs per square centimetre.

Sea otter feeding; iStock photo

9. Sea otters are also ravenous eaters. Some will burn through 30% of their body weight in seafood in a single day.

10. Another coat of note: chinchillas have 20,000 hairs per square centimeter.

11. Fast food makes for fat bears. As bears and humans live increasingly close to each other, bears have taken to giving up hunting and foraging in favour of eating trash at dumps. A recent study shows these dumpster divers are 30 pounds heavier on average than their actively foraging relatives.

12. The heaviest flying birds are the Mute Swan, the Wild Turkey and the Great Bustard. Each can weigh up to 13 kg (30 pounds).

13. Birds have excellent vision and hearing, but it's unclear how well they can taste -- many bird species have fewer than 100 taste buds, while humans have about 10,000.

14. The Amur falcon of eastern Asia migrates more than 10,000 kilometres from its nesting areas in Russia and China to wintering areas in southern Africa.

Giraffe; iStock photo

15. Hope for the world's trees: a recent UN study shows the density of mature trees has risen over the past 15 years in 22 of the world's 50 most forested countries.

16. Most mothers are probably quite happy their children can’t do this: giraffes can clean their own ears with their tongues!

17. The world's entire orangutan population exists on two Indonesian islands -- Borneo and Sumatra.

18. Orangutans spend 95% of their time in the trees, where they eat fruit. In roughly the last 15 years, an estimated 80% of the forest where the orangutans are found have been destroyed to allow illegal logging and palm oil plantations.

19. Of the world’s most recent 175 bird extinctions, 93% of those occurred on oceanic islands.

20. All but one of the 175 extinctions was caused by humans. The other one: a hurricane.

21. One of the smallest members of the deer family, the musk deer does not have antlers, but elongated upper canine teeth that resemble fangs. Found primarily in the Himalayas, eastern Asia, and Siberia, musk deer are hunted for their musk pods – a 15-25 gram gland found only in males. The contents are used in pharmaceuticals and traditional medicines, and previously in perfumes.

Rookery of King Penguins on South Georgia Island; iStock photo

22. Katydid hearing organs are found on their front legs.

23. Unlike most birds, penguins can’t fly. Most birds have hollow bones and this makes it easier for them to take flight. Penguins have solid heavy bones that make it easier for them to dive and swim.

24. A group of penguins is called a colony, or a rookery.

25. Why so blue, lobster? Thanks to a genetic defect, approximately one in a million lobsters is blue. The bright blue shell make them more attractive to predators, thus the life span of a blue lobster is typically much shorter than that of a common brown lobster.

26. There must be an easier way! To tell a lady lobster from a gentleman lobster, you must examine the first set of appendages behind a lobster’s walkers. The males’ appendages are bony, while the females’ are feathery.

Be sure to dispose of old paint properly. Photo; iStock photo

27. When a gallon of conventional paint is thrown away, it can seep into the earth and pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water.

28. Look! Up in the sky – it’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a …contrail?! A contrail, or condensation trail, is the official name for the long white streaks of ice crystals in the sky caused by the exhaust of aircraft.

29. The Indri is the largest lemur in the lemur family. Madagascans know the Indri as the babakoto, which means man of the forest or little father. The loud territorial call they produce in the morning can travel for over 1km.

30. For those of us in the northern hemisphere the Winter solstice is quickly approaching. Usually on or near December 22, this is the day when the sun is farthest south, also marking the first day of winter.