› added 12 years ago

233

TIL Australia fought a war against their own Emus, and lost.

Read more greenfieldsbeyond.wordpress.com

via reddit.com

b94e9 TIL Cuckoo wasps, like their namesake the cuckoo bird, are kleptoparasitic, having evolved to lay their eggs in the nests of other species of wasps. Their brilliant metallic colors are produced by light refracting through open spaces between six layers of cuticle in the wasps’ exoskeletons.
m1PaP TIL Latin and Irish have no words for "yes" or "no"
QJ81E TIL that the entomologist Justin O. Schmidt created the ''Schmidt sting pain index''. This scale rates the pain from stings of ants, wasps and bees. While getting stung by a warrior wasp, he told to himself: ''Torture. You are chained in the flow of an active volcano. Why did I start this list?''.
M7Vy0 TIL As Germany was about to lose the First World War Erich Ludendorff was forced to resign and escaped the country on a false passport while wearing a fake beard. While in Sweden he wrote his memoirs which were considered a showcase of his "caesar-mania".
mxl1Y TIL that a Japanese chemical company once polluted a bay so thoroughly that some sediment contained up to 2 kg of mercury per ton. This concentration made mining economically viable, and eventually the company set up a subsidiary to do just that.