› added 3 years ago

106

TIL gorillas usually weigh between 300-500 pounds (136-227 kg), with the heaviest gorilla ever recorded massing 589 pounds (267 kg), and the most overweight captive gorilla only ever reached 683 pounds (310 kg). There is no such thing as an "800 pound gorilla," it never existed.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

Br7RK TIL sperm whales seek out habitats with large communities of bioluminescent plankton, which are not part of the whale's diet. As the plankton's predators (fish) approach the plankton, their glowing alerts the whale. The whale eats the fish. The plankton then turn out their lights.
e0kAg TIL that all astronauts going to the International Space Station are required to learn Russian, which can take up to 1100 class hours for English language speakers
rRWgx TIL of William Kamkwamba, who taught himself to build windmills from library books. He built his first windmill, at age 15, out of junk from the scrap yard and brought power to his Malawian village. Later on he built another windmill to power water pumps to irrigate fields.
ldor TIL that the Mercedes Unimog has won the truck class of the prestigious Dakar Rally several times, often by accident as a support for cars and motorbikes
p5Z TIL before “Billie Jean”, MTV did not air videos by black artists because they were not perceived as “rock” enough.