The world’s total population has experienced an increase of over 30% in the last two decades and the numbers just keep rising. The sheer quantity of people who inhibit the earth in this day and age require monumental amounts of resources to sustain the population and more often than not it would come at the expense of the environment.
Here are pictures of adorable baby animals along with a few animal facts to get your mind of the stresses of daily living and also to remind you of what we would lose, should we continue to exploit mother nature’s resources and disrupt natural habitats.
Fact: A giraffe’s neck is surprisingly too short to reach the ground and because of this it has to awkwardly bend it’s front legs to get a drink of water
Fact: Chameleons do not actually have any ear openings but they are not deaf either
Fact: Elephants have the longest pregnancy of all the animals. It takes a female 22 months from conception to giving birth and they usually only have 4 offspring on average in their entire lifetime
Fact: Crocodiles have been roaming the earth for 240 million years which means they appeared around the same time the dinosaurs did
Fact: A duck’s feathers have a waxy coating and they interlock with one another which makes them highly waterproof
Fact: When most deer are born, they have white spots which disappear as they mature. These spots help fawns to blend into their background, acting as camouflage
Fact: Hedgehogs were first domesticated in 4 BC
Fact: Cats and humans have been associated for nearly 10000 years
Fact: Dolphins are part of the family of whales that includes orcas and pilot whales. Killer whales are actually the largest species of dolphins
Fact: Anteaters are actually toothless creatures
Fact: Female pandas are only fertile for 24 to 36 hours in a year
Fact: When seals dive, they decrease their heart rate by 50-80%. Elephant seals decrease their number of heart beats from 112 to 20-50 per minute during diving
Fact: Puffer fish are like chameleons because they can change the color of their skin to blend in and camouflage with their surroundings 
Fact: A baby rabbit is called a kit, a female is called a doe, and a male is a buck
Fact: In 1928, Walt Disney’s Micky Mouse was the first mouse character to be used in children cartoons and animation
Fact: Skunks have poor eyesight but excellent senses of smell and hearing
Fact: The name Hippopotamus comes from the Ancient Greek ‘river horse’
Fact: Octopuses have three hearts
Fact: Instead of relying on blubber to stay warm while diving in frigid waters, penguins feathers trap a layer of warm air next to the skin that serves as insulation
