30 Awesome Facts About The World To Spark A Child's Bedtime Curiosity

"Arctic" means "Bear" "Antarctic" means "No Bear". Not because polar bears live in the arctic and no bears live in the antarctic, but because to get to the arctic you follow the bear constellations, the Big and Little Dipper, and to get to the antarctic you go away from them.

In Switzerland, it's illegal to own just one guinea pig; if you have any, you have to have at least two. They get lonely!

A flock of sheep in North Wales had to be quarantined because they'd learnt to lay down and roll over cattle grids. If they'd made contact with other sheep they might have passed the behaviour on, and all the cattle grids in Britain would become ineffective.

Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of a blue whale!

The rarest precious jewels in the universe are not diamonds or rubies, they're pearls and amber.. Most precious stones just need minerals and pressure, and that's found everywhere. Amber needs trees, and pearls need oysters, and those are only on earth.

Did you know that there are colors that humans can't see? Animals like the mantis shrimp can see a lot more colors than we can, which means that there are "secret colors" that we will never get to know about. Non 4-year-old explanation: the vast majority of humans see things in "channels" of red, green and blue. Some humans are lucky and are born with four "channels", called [tetrachromats]. Mantis shrimp see things in TWELVE different "channels", and can even see ultraviolet and polarized light.

Its funny how all of these end up being animal facts. While sea otters sleep, they hold paws so they don't float away from each other. Also, sugar is pretty much tasteless to cats. They don't have taste buds for sweetness.

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t. Might be kind of “big thinking” for a 4y but that has always stuck with me.

Butterflies taste with their feet. When they land on a flower, they can tell if it's good to eat just by standing on it.

Birds are dinosaurs. Whales and dolphins are more closely related to hippos than fish. A cartoonist named the spikes on the stegosaurus tail.

There are more plastic flamingo lawn ornaments in the US than there are wild flamingos in the entire world.

Horses can't throw up and will get sick from tummy aches to potentially need surgery.

1. Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and still perfectly edible! 2. Penguins waddle because their legs are short and their bodies are chubby. It helps them balance on the ice. 3. The sound a giraffe makes is called a "bleat." It's sort of like a sheep's sound but much quieter. 4. A group of flamingos is called a "flamboyance." Isn't that a fun word? 5. Octopuses have three hearts! Two pump blood to the gills, and one pumps blood to the rest of the body. 6. Lightning is like a giant spark of electricity. It happens when tiny ice crystals bump into each other in a cloud. 7. Bees dance to tell other bees where to find yummy flowers. It's like a bee dance party! 8. Cats have a special "meow" just for humans. They learned that we pay attention when they make that sound. 9. Your fingerprints are unique. No one else in the world has the same fingerprints as you!

The fruit orange was named before we had named a color orange

Did you know that cats aren't technically domesticated? They're still technically wild.

Tell them "Right now, as you are going to bed at night in the middle of winter, there is another little child somewhere else walking up in the morning where it is summer".

* William I of England was too fat to fit in his coffin. * Platypus lay eggs and make milk.  * Cows have 4 stomachs.  * Lots of fish can feel electricity  * Cheetahs mew like cats. They can't roar.  * Red seaweed lives deeper in the sea than green seaweed. 

The Flemish giant rabbit can grow to be the size of a dog

We are all made from star dust.

The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.