Did you know... that a cheetah only has about 20sec to make a kill before its muscles burn out?

The cheetah, which is inhabiting most of most of Africa and parts of the Middle East, is the fastest land-living animal. It can get as fast as up to 120km/h on distances up to 500m and has the ability to accelerate from 0 to over 100km/h in around three seconds. More facts about the cheetah and its hunting in the following video:

Video: National Geographic presents some interesting facts about lions >>

Did you know... that no two zebras have stripes that are exactly alike

A zebra has typically vertical stripes on the head, neck, forequarters, and main body, and horizontal stripes at the rear and on the legs of the animal. With each striping pattern unique to each individual, zebras can, according to some researchers, recognize one another by their stripes.

While some experts believe that the stripes are mainly for identification, others believe that the stripes may have different functions:

• The zebra's main predator, the lion, is color blind. Theoretically, a zebra, camouflaged in tall grass through the vertical striping when standing still, may therefore not be noticed at all by a lion.
• Zebras are herd animals and so the stripes may help to confuse predators. A number of zebras standing or moving close together may appear as one large animal, making it more difficult for the lion to pick out any single zebra to attack.
• The zebra's disruptive colouration may also be an effective way of confusing the visual system of the blood-sucking tsetse fly.
• the stripes coincide with fat patterning beneath the skin, serving as a thermoregulatory mechanism for the zebra

btw - zebras are black animals with white stripes!

Did you know that ... the tongue of a giraffe can be as long as 45cm?

Giraffes are the tallest land animals. They are approximately 4.3m to 5.2m tall, although the tallest male recorded stood almost 6m. Their neck is in average about 1,8m long and weights close to 300kg. Despite its long neck, the giraffe has only seven vertebrae, exactly the same number as man and most other mammals.
A giraffe's legs are usually around 1.8m long. These long legs allow the animals to run as fast as 60km/hrs over short distances and  at around 15km/hrs over longer distances.

Each giraffe has a unique coat pattern.

Giraffes use their height to browse on mainly leaves in treetops that few other animals can reach. Their favorite leaves are from the acacia tree. Acacia trees have long thorns that keep most animals from eating the leaves. But those thorns don't stop the giraffes! They simply use their 45cm tongues to reach around the thorns. An adult giraffe can eat approximately 30kg of leaves and twigs daily, but can survive on just 7kg.
The average weight for an adult male giraffe is 1,200kg while the average weight for an adult female is 830kg.
Wild giraffes have a lifespan close to 13 years while those in captivity live up to 25 years. Female giraffes give birth standing up, so that their young are falling more than 1.5m to the ground at birth. These infants can stand in about half an hour and run with their mothers an incredible ten hours after birth.

Did you know... why the white rhino is called "white rhino"?

There are some theories around, but the most obvious one is based on a mistranslation of the word "wijd" (referring to the width of the rhino's mouth) from Dutch to English. "Wijd" in Dutch, or "wyd" in Afrikaans, means "wide" in Englisch. So early English-speaking settlers in South Africa misinterpreted the "wijd" or "wyd" for "white" and the rhino with the wide mouth ended up being called the white rhino. Other popular theories suggest the name comes from its wide appearance throughout Africa, its color due to wallowing in calcerous soil, because of the lighter colour of its horn or even because of the many bird droppings on their bodies. Black rhinos are actually not black at all. The species probably derives its name as a distinction from the white rhino and/or from the dark-colored local soil that often covers its skin after wallowing in mud.