Wholesome animal facts just prove how awesome the animal kingdom is. Take dogs for example. They’re basically wolves that we let sleep in our beds sometimes.
Beyond our pets, there are a ton of wholesome animal facts you may not know, and people are sharing them in this viral AskReddit thread.
What is a wholesome animal fact you know?
#1
Orcas have incredibly complex social structures. They have different languages and regional dialects. They have names. They sing and dance. Pods that are close and speak the same language will mourn deaths and celebrate births together, even from other pods, and other families. Their young are largely taught by the matriarch(s) of the pod, and they’re able to teach verbally, rather than by showing.
This means they have culture. Traditions, not just instinct or patterns. One of the only animals in the world that has that.
#2
When they hear running water, beavers will automatically start to build a dam. We know this because people put a speaker playing sounds of running water next to beavers, and the first thing they did was start building a dam on the speaker.
#3
Vampire bats will share food with other vampire bats who haven’t fed in the last day or two (their metabolism means they die if they don’t eat roughly every three days). This helps support members of the colony, even though it puts the sharer at risk. It is considered one of the few forms of altruism observed in non-human animals.
#4
Zebras can’t sleep alone which leads to my theory Marty spent like 80% of the Madagascar movies as a raging insomniac hence explaining his erratic personality at times
#5
Mama cats can sense when their kitten(s) are having nightmares, so they tightly pull them into a hug and lick their faces to aid them
#6
Despite all the weirdness that is the Platypus, they are still discovering weird things about it.
Within the past two years, it was discovered that platypus fur glows blue-green when exposed to ultraviolet light.
#7
I saw a video not too long ago of some research ravens given small toys to play with. When the researchers came to collect the toys the ravens hid the toys and tried to trick the researchers into looking in fake hiding spots so they wouldn’t find and take the toys away.
#8
There are reports of elephants finding humans sleeping under trees and the elephants think they’re dead. People have woken up with elephants gently stroking them with their trunks and in some cases, they try to cover them with branches and sticks as a “burial”
Elephants are one of the few animals who mourn their dead and have rituals.
#9
Pigeons are not wild animals, they are feral. Every pigeon in your city is descended from escaped domesticated birds. You could catch and tame a pigeon just like any stray dog or cat.
#10
In a recent study, researchers put one rat in an uncomfortably small, confined space that can be opened by another rat on the outside.
The Outside Rat would figure out how to release the Trapped Rat when they made sounds of distress. Even when the researchers distracted the Outside Rat with treats, it would save a treat for the Trapped Rat when it let it out. Basically proving that rats have empathy.
Which I already knew, I love rats. They make amazing pets, clean & smart. It’s just a damn shame that they only live about 3-4 years on average. Plenty of time to break your heart, but definitely not long enough.
#11
In Switzerland, it is illegal to own only one Guinea Pig as they get lonely
#12
Sea urchins will put rocks and shells on their ‘heads’ as protection. If you put tiny hats near them, they’ll wear those too.
#13
Wild wolf packs and murders of crows form bonds over time. The crows help lead the wolves to live prey and in return and crows get the scraps after the wolf pack has eaten their fill. Crows have been seen playing with wolf pups and bringing them sticks and feathers as gifts. These same crows and wolf pups reunite as adults and do the deal time and time again. Sometimes the birds and carnivores just hang out together, supposedly just to enjoy each other’s time.
Like Hood Nature (Casual Geographic) once said, “There’s a Disney movie in here, I just know it.”
#14
English mastiffs sailed on the Mayflower:
Most people wouldn’t consider dogs that can weigh nearly 200 pounds an “essential,” but most people weren’t John Goodman.
The 25-year-old pilgrim brought his English mastiffs on the Mayflower with him, and they sailed to the New World. Though the master didn’t last long, the community adopted his dogs and cared for them.
#15
There’s an aquarium in Japan that has eels that are antisocial, but because of the constant exposure to people, they’ve learned to be comfortable with humans. But due to the pandemic, eels went back to being isolated creatures, until the aquarium decided to FaceTime the eels. Yes, FaceTiming eels.
They eventually went back to being comfortable with humans.
#16
Cows have best friends
#17
Dogs look at you when they’re pooping because they feel they’re in a vulnerable position and they trust you enough to protect them if something dangerous happens.
#18
Dogs evolved the ability to move their eyebrows to better communicate with humans.
#19
A lot of animals love Capybaras cause they’re just so chill and lay around. It’s basically the animal kingdom equivalent of that one pothead you hang around because they’re mellow 24/7.
#20
Humans aren’t the only species to be found to keep other animals as pets/livestock in a way that resembles us much more than you might think. Some spiders have pet frogs. Some types of ants will raise aphids like livestock.
In captivity, the list expands–Like how many cheetahs in captivity have emotional support service dogs to help them with anxiety and other issues, especially in breeding programs where a happy cheetah is MUCH more likely to be able to carry to term. Even species that don’t exhibit the behavior yet show that they could if presented with the right option of pet–See elephants getting excited about cute things, and being very gentle with anything they know is smaller/weaker than them.
#21
Sometimes dogs in movies have had to have their tails replaced with CGI because their real ones were wagging too much.
#22
if a cat blinks slowly at you it’s giving you a hug and if you blink slowly back you can give it a hug in its language
#23
My father-in-law worked for a commercial plumbing company. They got a job putting in all the water-related stuff for the primate enclosures at the local zoo. While working near orangutans, they had to not leave their tools unattended, and take inventory when they left. The orangutans would try to use the tools to take their enclosure apart.
Bonus Wholesome: Years later, my son got a book on animals at the book fair. Reading it together, when we got to the part about orangutans it said, “orangutans are so smart, plumbers working on their enclosures at the (Hometown) Zoo had to be careful not to get their tools taken when working on their enclosure.”
I said, “Holy crap, they are talking about your grandpa!!”