› added 1 year ago

37

TIL that the largest vampire bat in history attacked animals as large as deer. The wingspan of 'Desmodus draculae' was 20 inches. It may have inspired a Mayan bat-god, and legends of a vulture-sized blood-eating bat. Believed extinct, but stories continue of "large bats attacking cattle and horses".

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

KY8lw TIL that Douglas Spedden, the subject of a famous photo taken on the Titanic’s deck, survived the sinking, but went on to die at the age of nine during a car crash.
X6jP TIL German writer Ernst Jünger ran away at the age of 18, served both WW1 and WW2, earned the iron cross, hung out with Picasso and Cocteau, hated the nazis and did lots of drugs until he died 102 years old.
Oonbg TIL the Netherlands and the british Isles of Scilly were technically at war with each other for 335 years with neither side realizing it. When peace was signed in 1986, the Dutch ambassador joked that it must have been harrowing to the Scillonians "to know we could have attacked at any moment."
VMl4Q TIL A neutron star is so dense that a matchbox sized portion of one would weigh 3 billion tons.
d8Rg8 TIL babies were not anesthetized during surgery until the early eighties