Curious Facts

Page 25

Fireflies are beetles not flies.
Sea bass are hermaphrodites. Each individual is capable of performing both the male and female reproductive functions by shedding either eggs or sperm. They form monogamous pairs and, within the pair, take turns to play the male and female roles.¹
The loss of a male praying mantis’s head does not prevent its body from completing sexual intercourse.¹
A female greenfly can give birth to a daughter and a granddaughter simultaneously. This is because a female greenfly embryo may be born with another even smaller embryo inside her.¹
Peanuts are not nuts. They are legumes.
In 2012 the richest 0.1% of US families had the same net wealth as the bottom 90%.²
The average human body contains tem times more bacterial cells than human cells.³

1. The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins, OUP Oxford, 1976.

2. "Wealth inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from capitalized income tax data", by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, National Bureau of Economics Research Working Paper, October 2014.
The above study was reported in the The Economist, 8 November 2014.

3. "Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones", Melinda Wenner, Scientific American, Nov 30, 2007

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