Because bats eat so many insects, which have exoskeletons made of a shiny material called chitin, some bat poop sparkles.

Scientists previously thought kangaroos used their tails for balance or support as they walked, but new research shows they use their tails like an extra leg to propel themselves. In fact, the tail provides more power to help them move than their front and hind legs combined.

Crocodiles are the closest living relatives of birds, sharing a common ancestor called the "archosaur" that lived around 240 million years ago and also gave rise to the dinosaurs.

A chameleon's tongues can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in a hundredth of a second, about 200 times faster than the fastest car. The fastest chameleon tongue belongs to the Rosette-nosed Pygmy Chameleon, which can shoot its tongue more than twice the length of its body at about 8,500 feet per second (5,795 mph).

The Basenji, an African hunting dog, is the only dog that cannot bark. This trait is probably due to the shallow laryngeal ventricle in its larynx. However, the Basenji is certainly not silent and can make a wide variety of other dog noises as well as a unique yodelling sound. One of the most ancient breeds of dogs, Basenjis were once feared extinct until they were rediscovered living among the Azande and Mangbetu tribes from the northeastern Congo region of Africa in 1895.

Polar bears live most of their life on the sea ice surrounded by saltwater, which is no good for drinking. They get around this in a number of interesting ways. 1) Eating snow, though usually not in great quantities. 2) Drinking from freshwater melt ponds that form on the sea ice during warmer months. 3) Metabolizing seal blubber, which provides water through a chemical reaction as it break down in their bodies.

Turtles may not be known as fast movers, but Bertie the tortoise is the Usain Bolt of the turtle world. At Adventure Valley, a family adventure park in Brasside, Durham, UK, Bertie sprinted over a 5.48 meter course to claim the title of fastest tortoise in the world. During his record-breaking run, he reached a top speed of 0.28 m/s (0.62 mph), absolutely smashing the previous record of 0.125 m/s (0.27 mph) which had gone unchallenged since 1977.

The Burmese sneezing monkey (Rhinopithecus strykeri), also called the Burmese snub-nosed monkey, is known in local dialects of Lisu people as mey nwoah and Law Waw people as myuk na tok te, both of which mean "monkey with an upturned face". Rain allegedly causes it to sneeze due to the short upturned nasal flesh around its nostrils. People from the area report that it sits with its head directed downwards, hiding its face between its knees when it rains.

Unlike other turtles, sea turtles cannot retract their flippers and head into their shells. But their streamlined shells and large paddle-shaped flippers make them very agile and graceful swimmers.

Geckos can stick to surfaces because their bulbous toes are covered in hundreds of tiny microscopic hairs called setae. Each seta splits off into hundreds of even smaller bristles called spatulae, which get so close to the contours in walls and ceilings that the van der Waals force kicks in. This type of physical bond happens when electrons from the gecko hair molecules and electrons from the wall molecules interact with each other and create an electromagnetic attraction.