Let's Play Trivia...!

[Me No Nemo]

Let's give this board some fun. Include some trivia facts that you find interesting, entertaining or enlightening. Here goes:

When Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835, Halley's Comet was visible in the sky over Florida, Missouri. It did not pass very near to the earth that year, but its presence was enough to create a legend. Aware throughout his life that he was born when Halley's Comet was visible, Mark Twain predicted in 1909 that he would die when it returned: "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it.... The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'" He was right. When Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910, Halley's Comet was once again visible in the sky.

[Me No Nemo]

• No part of the state of Florida is more than 75 miles from Atlantic or Gulf waters.

• At least 60 species of mosquitoes live in Florida.

• Sawgrass, endless stretches of which fill the Florida Everglades, is not a grass at all but a member of the sedge family.

• Florida's Sanibel and Captiva islands are home to more than 400 species of seashells.

[Me No Nemo]

• Florida is the only state to designate two fish as state symbols--the largemouth bass and the sailfish (1975).

• Every person is heavier at low tide. Due to the saltwater content of our bodies, we lose a fraction of a pound with each rise of the tide, and gain it back when the tide recedes. (Geez, I want to live my live in high tide!!!)

[Me No Nemo]

• The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History houses the world's largest shell collection, some 15 million specimens. A smaller museum in Sanibel, Florida owns a mere 2 million shells and claims to be the worlds only museum devoted solely to mollusks.

• Flamingos get their pink color from the shrimp they eat. The more shrimp they eat the deeper pink they become.

• The United States city with the highest rate of lightning strikes per capita is Clearwater.

• Gatorade was named for the University of Florida Gators where the drink was first developed.

[waterfaller1]

No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven times.

If you get the recomended 8 hours of sleep each night you will sleep over 2,900 hours each year.


There are, on average, 259 raisins in a box of Raisin Bran and 388 in a box of Premium Raisin Bran.


Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

Sunsets can be green in Antarctica.

There are 1000 different chemicals in a cup of coffee.


The oldest tree on earth is a 4,500 year old bristlecone pine named Methuselah.

[waterfaller1]

A sheep trained to turn the lights on and off will leave them them on 82% of the time.

The stomach of a hippo can be up to 10 feet long and hold up to 400 pounds of food.

Lobsters and jellyfish never stop growing

A snail can sleep for three years.


You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

Lobsters like to eat lobster

A study has concluded that if a woodchuck could chuck wood it could chuck about 700 pounds.

Camel hair brushes are made from squirrel hair.


The last animal in the dictionary is the zyzzyva, a tropical American weevil.

[waterfaller1]

It takes a week to make a jelly bean.

NASA scientists are still receiving data from Voyager even though the signal it is emitting has less energy than that emitted by a blowdrier.

You can't tickle yourself.

While drug-sniffing dogs are trained to bark like crazy, go "aggressive" at the first whiff of the right powder... Bomb-sniffing dogs are trained to go "passive" lest they set off a motion sensor or a noise sensor or any number of other things that might go kablooie.

1961 was the most recent year that could be written both upside-down and rightside-up and appear the same. The next year that this will be possible will be 6009!


Harvard uses "Yale" brand locks on their buildings. Yale uses "Best" brand.

The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.

It takes eighteen minutes to cool hot chocolate into a Hershey's Kiss.

Mickey Mouse's ears are always turned to the front, no matter which direction his head is pointing.

In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value.

Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

[Me No Nemo]

• The majority of bioluminescent marine creatures are planktonic organisms found in huge groups that will glow in the wake of swimming fish or passing ships.

• Phosphorescent Bay in Puerto Rico has an extremely heavy concentration of these bioluminescent organisms.

• Bioluminescence was once confused with phosphorescence because it was believed the light was caused by the element phosphorus.

• The total number of species of ocean fish ranges from 15,000 to 40,000 with the figure of 25,000 most often cited. There are several reasons for the discrepancy. Some fish species have not yet been named while others are often named more than once because of inadequate descriptions and variations in geographical distribution.

• The blue whale is the largest known animal to live on sea or land. Individuals can reach more that 110 feet in length and weigh nearly 200 tons which is equivalent to 50 adult elephants.

• The blue whale's blood vessels are so wide that a full-grown trout could swim through them. These vessels serve a heart the size of a small car.

• The bluefin tuna are the largest bony fish. An adult may weigh up to 1,500 pounds. Prized for sushi in Japan, bluefins can bring as much as $20,000 each at U.S. docks. (Geez, can these be tank-raised?)

• Hydrothermal vents, fractures in the sea floor that spew sulfur compounds, support the only complex ecosystem known to live on chemicals rather than energy from the sun. Gigantic tubeworms and mussels thrive in ocean pressures of up to 65 pounds per square inch around these vents.

• The electric eel (which isn't a "true eel") discharges 350 volts on average and up to 650 volts total. However, brief discharges of 500 volts at 2 amperes have been measured, which produced 100 watts of energy. Voltage continues to increase in eels up to 3 feet in length, after which as their length increases only the amperage increases. Electric eels in South America can reach lengths of up to 10 feet. In addition, there are at least 500 kinds of fish that produce noticeable amounts of electricity.

[Me No Nemo]

• The Pacific Ocean has the greatest average depth of about 4282 meters.

• The Great Barrier Reef, along the continental shelf of northeastern Australia, is the longest coral reef measuring about 1,243 miles long.

• The largest tsunami recorded measured 210 feet, about 18 stories above sea level, when it reached Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula in 1737.

• In February 1967, Robert Croft carried a 29-pound weight to reach a depth of 212.7 feet. This feat was attributed to the fact that he had rickets as a child. The disease gave him a flexible rib cage which allowed his lung capacity to double.

• The Greek philospher Plato first described Atlantis as a place inhabited by a people far ahead of their time. They built temples, ships, and canals and had an advanced agriculture and commerce. As the story goes, by 9600 BC they had conquered all the known world except Greece, which was saved when Atlantis was engulfed by the sea and disappeared without a trace. A myth? Perhaps not. Recently it has been suggested that Atlantis was west of Italy and Sicily. Remember for thousands of years, Troy and Pompeii were considered mythical history until recently when they were found and excavated.

• The oceans contain 99% of all the living space on the planet. On land people and organisms only live on or near the surface, however, in the oceans organisms live throughout the water column and on or slightly below the sea floor.

• Sewage, pulpmill wastes, fertilizers, soaps, detergents, radioactive wastes, synthetic fibers, plastics, oils, tars, greases, and insecticides are all pollutants man has placed in our Earth's oceans. Hot and cold water from factories and silt from dredging can also be considered pollutants because they are abnormal to the surrounding water conditions.

[cschweitzer]

There are only 7, Scarborough, and slough are versions of dough, either through or rough(depending on the pronounciation of slough)

[cschweitzer]

Marcye, if you go out to the river in Cocoa, you can shake a stick in the water and see the bioluminescence (phosphorescence, whatever). Really cool. Throw a rock in and watch the water go crazy with glowing colors.

[Me No Nemo]

Don't you love that? We were in the Indian River last year at about midnight on our boat and the fish zipping around the boat looked like glowsticks zipping through the water...very cool.

[waterfaller1]

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
No word in the English language rhymes with orange ,purple, silver or month .


A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. (Who was the sadist who discovered this??)

Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
{I know what I'm eating for the rest of my life...:D }

Roses may be red, but violets are indeed violet.

The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries.

On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
{Yikes...chew on a piece of celery..you're burning calories at least.}

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.


In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.

Over 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow.

[waterfaller1]

George Bush: When you rearrange the letters: He bugs Gore
Dormitory: When you rearrange the letters: Dirty Room
Evangelist: When you rearrange the letters: Evil's Agent
Desperation: When you rearrange the letters: A Rope Ends It
The Morse Code: When you rearrange the letters: Here Come Dots
Slot Machines: When you rearrange the letters: Cash Lost in em
Animosity: When you rearrange the letters: Is No Amity
Mother-in-law: When you rearrange the letters: Woman Hitler
Snooze Alarms: When you rearrange the letters: Alas! No More Z's
A Decimal Point: When you rearrange the letters: I'm a Dot in Place
The Earthquakes: When you rearrange the letters: That Queer Shake
Eleven plus two: When you rearrange the letters: Twelve plus one

[Me No Nemo]

Hmmm...94 views at 75%...lol, that's a lot of elbow licking!

[Me No Nemo]

• The smallest fish is 1/3 inch long freshwater goby.

• Scientists use ear growth rings to determine a fish's age.

• Most freshwater eels migrate to saltwater to spawn.

• Sturgeons live in saltwater but migrate to freshwater to spawn.

• Only 1 in 100 salmon eggs will survive it to adulthood.

• Goldfish lose their color if kept in dim light.

• Shrimps' hearts are in their heads.

• The most common name for a goldfish is Jaws.

• A 400 million year old prehistoric fish species once thought extinct is still living today

• n 1999 a Heron dropped a live goldfish down the chimney of a London family. The fish survived.

[Me No Nemo]

• A baby dolphin can swim and keep up with adults an hour after it’s born.

• The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.

• The Mola Mola, or Ocean Sunfish, lays up to 5,000,000 eggs at one time.

• It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.

• Ninety-nine percent of all lobsters die a few weeks after hatching. In fact, the odds are 10,000 to 1 against any larval lobster living long enough to end up as a lobster dinner.

• A dolphin's hearing is so acute that it can pick up an underwater sound from fifteen miles away.

• A group of whales is called a pod. Free fish trivia facts.

• The embryos of tiger sharks fight each other while in their mother's womb, the survivor being the baby shark that is born.

• The eye of the giant squid is fifteen inches in diameter -- the size of a basketball.

• The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.

• A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a spat.

• It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up it's stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of it's mouth. Then the frog uses it's forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.

• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

• Starfish don't have brains.

• Shrimp can only swim backwards.

• A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

• Scientists found a whole new phylum of animal on a lobster's lip.

• The only way to stop the pain of the sting of the flathead fish is by rubbing the slime of the belly of the same fish that you were stung by on the wound that it inflicted upon you.

• Only one in one thousand animals born in the sea survives to maturity

• Female orcas live twice as long as male orcas. The larger numbers of female orcas in a pod are because of the female's longer lifespan, not because the males have collected a harem.

• Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

• Octopi have gardens.

• A whale's penis is called a dork.

• The sea wasp is half an inch long at best and more poisonous than any other jellyfish known to man.

• The difference between male and female blue crabs is the design located on their apron (belly.) The male blue crab has the Washington Monument while the female apron is shaped like the U.S. Capitol.

• The pupil of an octupus' eye is rectangular.