QI: The Book of General Ignorance - the Noticeably Stouter Edition by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson Page A
Authors: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
Ads: Link
them into deep water and drowning them, crocodiles by biting them in half, and sharks by dragging them out of the water and trampling them to death. However, they are strict vegetarians, so their aggression is mostly to do with self-defence. Hippos mainly eat grass.
The skin of a hippopotamus weighs a ton. It is 4 cm (1.5 inches) thick – bullet-proof as far as most guns are concerned – and accounts for 25 per cent of the animal’s weight. It exudes an oily red fluid which keeps it from drying out, which used to make people think that hippos sweat blood. Don’t be fooled by their bulk. A fully grown hippo can easily outrun a man.
Hippos are the only mammal other than whales and dolphins to mate and give birth under water. They can closetheir nostrils, flatten their ears and stay completely submerged for up to five minutes at a time.
Hippos have appalling breath. When they appear to be yawning, they are in fact blasting everything around them with halitosis as a warning to stay clear. This is good advice: a hippo’s tusks are sharp and a snap of the jaws can easily sever a limb. Hippos have only four teeth, which are made of ivory. Part of George Washington’s set of false teeth was made from hippopotamus ivory.
According to the Oxford Companion to Food , the best part of a hippopotamus to eat is their breasts, pot roasted with herbs and spices. Failing that, the back muscles, cooked in the same manner, are acceptable.
STEPHEN Their skin weighs a ton. It’s an inch and a half thick; bulletproof, as far as most guns are concerned; accounts for 25 per cent of the animal’s weight. In other words, it weighs four tons.
LINDA So, if you were to say to it, ‘Ooh, you’ve put on a bit of weight,’ it wouldn’t care. It’s just … really thick-skinned .
Where do most tigers live?
The USA.
A century ago, there were about 40,000 tigers in India. Now there are between 3,000 and 4,700. Some scientists estimate that there are only between 5,100 and 7,500 wild tigers left on the planet.
On the other hand, there are thought to be 4,000 tigers living in captivity in Texas alone. The American Zoo andAquarium Association estimate that up to 12,000 tigers are being kept as private pets in the USA. Mike Tyson personally owns four of them.
Part of the reason for America’s enormous tiger population relates to legislation. Only nineteen states have banned private ownership of tigers, fifteen require only a licence, and sixteen states have no regulations at all.
They’re not particularly expensive either. A tiger cub will set you back a mere $1,000 while $3,500 will buy you a pair of Bengal tigers; $15,000 is enough for a fashionable blue-eyed white tiger.
Ironically, it is the success of breeding programmes at American zoos and circuses that has driven this. An overabundance of cubs in the 1980s and 90s brought the prices right down. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimate that there are now 500 lions, tigers and other big cats in private ownership just in the Houston area.
Wild tiger populations were crippled during the twentieth century. Tigers were extinct around the Caspian Sea by the 1950s, and the tigers on the islands of Bali and Java disappeared between 1937 and 1972. The South China tiger is nearly extinct in the wild, with only thirty animals remaining.
Despite the efforts of conservationists, all species of tiger are expected to be extinct in the wild by the end of the current century.
A domestic cat is about 1 per cent the size of a tiger.
Tigers cannot abide the smell of alcohol. They will savage anyone who has been drinking.
Tigers fade as they get older, and who can blame them.
ALAN Do you know, I had to do a photoshoot once with a tiger and these two blokes turned up with an big, enormous chain and a tiger on the end of it.
STEPHEN Yeah.
ALAN And they said, er, ‘Shouldn’t really handle them, er, after the age of ten months,’ so I said, ‘How
The skin of a hippopotamus weighs a ton. It is 4 cm (1.5 inches) thick – bullet-proof as far as most guns are concerned – and accounts for 25 per cent of the animal’s weight. It exudes an oily red fluid which keeps it from drying out, which used to make people think that hippos sweat blood. Don’t be fooled by their bulk. A fully grown hippo can easily outrun a man.
Hippos are the only mammal other than whales and dolphins to mate and give birth under water. They can closetheir nostrils, flatten their ears and stay completely submerged for up to five minutes at a time.
Hippos have appalling breath. When they appear to be yawning, they are in fact blasting everything around them with halitosis as a warning to stay clear. This is good advice: a hippo’s tusks are sharp and a snap of the jaws can easily sever a limb. Hippos have only four teeth, which are made of ivory. Part of George Washington’s set of false teeth was made from hippopotamus ivory.
According to the Oxford Companion to Food , the best part of a hippopotamus to eat is their breasts, pot roasted with herbs and spices. Failing that, the back muscles, cooked in the same manner, are acceptable.
STEPHEN Their skin weighs a ton. It’s an inch and a half thick; bulletproof, as far as most guns are concerned; accounts for 25 per cent of the animal’s weight. In other words, it weighs four tons.
LINDA So, if you were to say to it, ‘Ooh, you’ve put on a bit of weight,’ it wouldn’t care. It’s just … really thick-skinned .
Where do most tigers live?
The USA.
A century ago, there were about 40,000 tigers in India. Now there are between 3,000 and 4,700. Some scientists estimate that there are only between 5,100 and 7,500 wild tigers left on the planet.
On the other hand, there are thought to be 4,000 tigers living in captivity in Texas alone. The American Zoo andAquarium Association estimate that up to 12,000 tigers are being kept as private pets in the USA. Mike Tyson personally owns four of them.
Part of the reason for America’s enormous tiger population relates to legislation. Only nineteen states have banned private ownership of tigers, fifteen require only a licence, and sixteen states have no regulations at all.
They’re not particularly expensive either. A tiger cub will set you back a mere $1,000 while $3,500 will buy you a pair of Bengal tigers; $15,000 is enough for a fashionable blue-eyed white tiger.
Ironically, it is the success of breeding programmes at American zoos and circuses that has driven this. An overabundance of cubs in the 1980s and 90s brought the prices right down. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimate that there are now 500 lions, tigers and other big cats in private ownership just in the Houston area.
Wild tiger populations were crippled during the twentieth century. Tigers were extinct around the Caspian Sea by the 1950s, and the tigers on the islands of Bali and Java disappeared between 1937 and 1972. The South China tiger is nearly extinct in the wild, with only thirty animals remaining.
Despite the efforts of conservationists, all species of tiger are expected to be extinct in the wild by the end of the current century.
A domestic cat is about 1 per cent the size of a tiger.
Tigers cannot abide the smell of alcohol. They will savage anyone who has been drinking.
Tigers fade as they get older, and who can blame them.
ALAN Do you know, I had to do a photoshoot once with a tiger and these two blokes turned up with an big, enormous chain and a tiger on the end of it.
STEPHEN Yeah.
ALAN And they said, er, ‘Shouldn’t really handle them, er, after the age of ten months,’ so I said, ‘How
Similar Books
