SCIENCE: Animals are so interesting. We start learning general facts about them when we’re toddlers, and it sure doesn’t seem like we will ever know everything there is to know.

For instance, SentientMedia.org/animal-facts/ says that cows give nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in a lifetime.

A study in 2011 determined that pigeons have the ability to reason using the abstract rules about math, on the same scale that monkeys can. That doesn’t mean they can add 2+2 to get 4, but they can put things in order by quantity. 

Here’s another interesting fact. Giraffes, long suspected to make no noise, can hum. They make the noise at night.

We’re not sure the “why” of this study: Kangaroos can … ahem… pass gas. “It was once believed that kangaroos didn’t produce methane, a greenhouse gas commonly found in the flatulence of herbivores (and a major driver of climate change). This is how the rumor got going that kangaroos can’t fart. However, after locking a group into a sealed room, feeding them a variety of food types, and measuring the resulting air quality, it was found that they do, in fact, fart.”

Good to know?

There are three members of the animal kingdom that cannot jump — elephants, rhinoceroses and hippos. What a scary world it would be if they could …

According to the website, “Jumping tends to be a mechanism for evading predators, and when you’re big enough, the need to run away becomes unnecessary.”

Squirrels will adopt orphans, which is unusual because squirrels do not live in a social group like lions or elk do.

Gorillas can catch human colds or other illnesses, particularly respiratory illnesses. Ecotourism exposes wildlife to human diseases, which can prove fatal to endangered populations.