The Book Of General Ignorance Part 8

A persistent misconception is that rhino horn is used as an aphrodisiac. Chinese herbalists say this is untrue; its effect is cooling rather than warming, and is used in treating high blood-pressure and fever.

'Rhinoceros' comes from the Greek words rhino rhino (nose) and (nose) and keras keras (horn). There are five living species of rhino: Black, White, Indian, Javan and Sumatran. Only sixty Javan rhinos survive, making it the world's fourth most endangered species after the Vancouver Island marmot, the Seych.e.l.les sheathtailed bat and the South China tiger. (horn). There are five living species of rhino: Black, White, Indian, Javan and Sumatran. Only sixty Javan rhinos survive, making it the world's fourth most endangered species after the Vancouver Island marmot, the Seych.e.l.les sheathtailed bat and the South China tiger.

White rhinos aren't white. It's a corruption of the Afrikaans wyd wyd, meaning 'wide'. This refers to the animal's mouth, rather than its girth white rhinos lack the agile lip of the black species which is used in grazing tree branches.

A rhinoceros has an excellent sense of smell and hearing but its eyesight is terrible. They are generally solitary animals, coming together only to mate.

When surprised, rhinos urinate and defecate prodigiously. To attack, Asian rhinos bite; African rhinos charge. A black rhino, despite its short legs, can reach speeds of 55 kph (about 35 mph).

Which African mammal kills more humans than any other?

The hippopotamus.

Unfortunately hippos like to hang out near slow-moving fresh water bordered by gra.s.s the same habitat favoured by humans.

Most accidents occur either because a submerged hippo has been inadvertently whacked on the head with a paddle and decides to overturn the boat or because people are out walking at night, just the time when hippos leave the water to graze. Being trampled by a startled hippo is not a dignified way to die.

Hippopotamuses, once believed to be members of the pig family but now shown to be most closely related to whales, are divided into two species: Common and Pygmy. The common hippo is the third-largest land mammal after the African and Asian elephants.

Not many animals are stupid enough to attack a hippo. They are very irritable beasts, especially when they have young. They dispose of lions by plunging 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 gra.s.s.

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 close their 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 Was.h.i.+ngton's set of false teeth was made from hippopotamus ivory.

According to the Oxford Companion to Food Oxford Companion to Food, the best part of a hippopotamus to eat is their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, 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. 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 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 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 and Aquarium a.s.sociation 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 owners.h.i.+p 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 owners.h.i.+p 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. 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. Yeah.

ALAN And they said, er, 'Shouldn't really handle them, er, after the age of ten months,' so I said, 'How old's that one?' He said, 'Eleven months And they said, er, 'Shouldn't really handle them, er, after the age of ten months,' so I said, 'How old's that one?' He said, 'Eleven months ... ...'

What would you use to overpower a crocodile?

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a) Paper clip b) Crocodile clip c) Paper bag d) Handbag e) Rubber band For crocodiles up to 2 m (6.5 feet) long, an ordinary rubber band should be sufficient for you to make your escape.

The muscles that close the jaws of a crocodile or alligator are so strong that they have the same downward force of a truck falling off a cliff. But the muscles that open their jaws are weak enough for you to hold their mouths shut with one hand.

The technical difference between alligators and crocodiles is that crocs have a longer, narrower snout, eyes further forward, and their fourth tooth sticks out from the lower jaw rather than fitting neatly into the upper jaw. Also, some crocodiles live in salty water; alligators generally live in fresh water.

'Crocodile' means lizard, from the Greek krokodeilos krokodeilos. This name was first recorded by Herodotus who remarked on them basking on the pebbly banks of the Nile. 'Alligator' is a corruption of the Spanish el lagarto das Indias el lagarto das Indias, 'the lizard of the Indies'.

Neither animal cries as it savages you to death. Crocodile tears are a myth from medieval travellers' tales. Sir John Mandeville, writing in 1356, observed, 'In many places of Inde are many c.o.kadrilles that is, a manner of long serpent. These serpents slay men and eat them weeping.'

Crocodiles do have tear ducts, but they discharge straight into the mouth, so no tears are visible externally. The origin of the legend may be in the proximity of the throat to the glands which lubricate the eye. These can cause the eye to water a little from the effort of swallowing something large or reluctant. They can't smile either: crocodiles and alligators have no lips.

The digestive juices of crocodiles contain enough hydrochloric acid to dissolve iron and steel. On the other hand, there is no need to worry about alligators living in city sewers. They can't survive without the ultraviolet radiation from the sun that enables them to process calcium. This urban legend can be traced back to a New York Times New York Times article in 1935, which reported that some boys had dragged an alligator out of a sewer in Harlem and beat it to death with shovels. It probably swam up a storm conduit after falling from a boat. article in 1935, which reported that some boys had dragged an alligator out of a sewer in Harlem and beat it to death with shovels. It probably swam up a storm conduit after falling from a boat.

RICH When it says to defend yourself against an alligator, that's the trick part of the question. This means if the alligator is litigious. And trying to sue you. Let's say, because you're wearing his mom on your feet. There's a lot of paperwork involved in defending yourself in court against an alligator. When it says to defend yourself against an alligator, that's the trick part of the question. This means if the alligator is litigious. And trying to sue you. Let's say, because you're wearing his mom on your feet. There's a lot of paperwork involved in defending yourself in court against an alligator.

JEREMY HARDY Is that where the word 'allegation' comes from? Is that where the word 'allegation' comes from?

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What is the bravest species of animal?

The carrier pigeon, which has received more than half of all the d.i.c.kin Medals for Animal Bravery ever issued.

The medal was inst.i.tuted by Mrs Maria d.i.c.kin, founder of the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) in the UK in 1943. Between 1943 and 1949 the PDSA awarded fifty-four d.i.c.kin Medals to thirty-two pigeons, eighteen dogs, three horses, and one cat. Recently a few more awards have been given, most notably to two guide dogs that led their owners to safety down more than seventy floors of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.

Messenger pigeons were used throughout World War II, during communication blackouts and attacks. One of the first to win the DM was Winkie, who was on a plane when it crashed. Winkie broke free and found her way back to her owner in Scotland. From her oily and bedraggled appearance, Winkie's owner could roughly estimate how long she had been flying. Using this information, along with the last known coordinates of the plane, the crew were saved.

A few years later, a pigeon named Gustav was issued to the war correspondent Montague Taylor, and braved a 150-mile trip to deliver the first account of the Normandy landings. Gustav came to a sticky end after the war when someone cleaning out his loft accidentally sat on him.

In 1942, behavioural scientist B. F. Skinner came up with the idea of using trained pigeons to guide weapons. The system worked by training pigeons to earn a food reward by pecking at the image of a s.h.i.+p. Three of them were then placed in the nose of a missile. Once launched, the pigeons would see the s.h.i.+p in their window and peck at it, triggering a corrective mechanism linked to the missile's guidance system.

The closer the s.h.i.+p got, the bigger it appeared in the screen, and the more the pigeons pecked, so that just before they hit the target and were obliterated, they were being showered with grain.

The system worked well in simulations but the Navy eventually balked at putting it into practice.

The pigeon guidance technology work wasn't entirely wasted for a while the US Coastguard used pigeons to guide rescue helicopters. They were trained to peck at orange dots, which meant they could be used in searches for orange lifejackets in open seas, their eyesight being ten times sharper than that of the pilots.

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Name a poisonous snake.

Wrong.

The correct answer is 'gra.s.s snake'.

Vipers, cobras, rattlesnakes and mambas aren't poisonous they're venomous. It's an important distinction: poison harms you when you swallow it, venom when it's injected into you. So, something's 'poisonous' when you bite it, but it's 'venomous' when it bites you.

Though experts believe there may be others yet to be discovered, there are only two known species of 'poisonous' snake. One is the yamakagas.h.i.+ yamakagas.h.i.+ or j.a.panese gra.s.s snake ( or j.a.panese gra.s.s snake (Rhabdophis tigrinus). It eats toxic toads and stores their poison in specially adapted glands in its neck. When attacked, it arches the front of its body to make the glands stand out, with the result that anything biting its neck (the usual place for predators to strike) gets a fatal mouthful of poison. As it happens, the yamakagas.h.i.+ is venomous as well, but its fangs are located right at the back of its mouth, so you have to really annoy it to get bitten.

The orange-bellied, rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa) of North America is not a snake, but it is one of the most poisonous creatures on earth, packed full of tetrodotoxin or TTF the same poison contained in the puffer fish used to make the legendarily risky j.a.panese delicacy fugu fugu. In 1979 a twenty-nine-year-old man in a bar in Oregon swallowed one of these newts for a bet. He was dead within hours.

The only creatures known to eat these newts and survive (and thus the only other known poisonous snakes) are a small population of garter snakes, also resident in Oregon, that have evolved a tolerance to the poison. This produces a deadly surprise for any of their predators, such as foxes and crows, which are partial to their livers.

Virtually all spiders are venomous including the 648 species recorded in Britain but most of them are too small for their tiny fangs to puncture human skin and deliver their venom.

The Anglo-Saxon word for spider was attercop attercop, which meant literally 'poison-head', from ator ator, poison, and cop cop, head.

As far as we know, there are no poisonous spiders. Crispy tarantulas, for example, are eaten in Cambodia with no ill effects.

What's three times as dangerous as war?

Work is a bigger killer than drink, drugs or war.

Around two million people die every year from work-related accidents and diseases, as opposed to a mere 650,000 who are killed in wars.

Worldwide, the most dangerous jobs are in agriculture, mining and construction. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the year 2000, 5,915 people died at work including those who had a heart attack at their desks.

Lumberjacks had the most dangerous job, with 122 deaths per 100,000 employed. The second most dangerous job was fis.h.i.+ng and third was airplane pilots with a death rate of 101 per 100,000. Nearly all of the pilots, you'll be rea.s.sured to hear, died in small-plane crashes, not pa.s.senger jets.

Structural-metalworkers and people in mining and drilling came fourth and fifth, though the death rate for both was less than half that of timber cutters.

The third most common cause of death on the job in all occupations was murder, which claimed 677 workers. Fifty policemen were murdered. But so were 205 salespeople.

Falls were the second most common cause of death, accounting for 12 per cent of the total. Roofers and structural-metalworkers were the main victims.

The most common cause of death on the job was the car accident, accounting for 23 per cent of the total. Even police officers were slightly more likely to die behind the wheel than by homicide.

The single most dangerous specific job is said to be that of Alaskan crab fishermen working in the Bering Sea.

The risk of death can be calculated using the Duckworth scale, devised by Dr Frank Duckworth, editor of the Royal Statistical Society magazine. It measures the likelihood of dying as a result of any given activity. The safest kind of activity scores 0 and 8 will result in certain death.

One game of Russian Roulette carries a risk of 7.2. Twenty years of rock climbing weighs in at 6.3. The chances of a man being murdered are 4.6. A 160-km (100-mile) car journey by a sober middle-aged driver scores 1.9: slightly more risky than a destructive asteroid impact (1.6).

On the Duckworth scale, 5.5 is particularly perilous. It's the risk of death by car crash or an accidental fall for men, as well as the chance of either s.e.x dying while vacuuming, was.h.i.+ng up or walking down the street.

STEPHEN It's work. You're more likely to die at work than you are at war. It's work. You're more likely to die at work than you are at war.

ALAN Does that include soldiers? Does that include soldiers?

What killed most sailors in an eighteenth-century sea battle?

A nasty splinter.

Cannon b.a.l.l.s fired from men o' war didn't actually explode (no matter what Hollywood thinks), they just tore through the hull of the s.h.i.+p causing huge splinters of wood to fly around the decks at high speed, lacerating anyone within range.

British naval s.h.i.+ps of the period were often rotten and unseaworthy. Many of the officers had no idea how to sail, fight or control their men. Hernias caused by manhandling acres of wet canvas were so common that the navy was forced to issue trusses. To cap it all there wasn't a single pay rise for a century.

At close range, a 32-pound ball was capable of penetrating wood to a depth of 60 cm (2 feet). The best way to stop splinters (other than by building a metal s.h.i.+p) was to use a type of wood found in the south-eastern USA which resisted splintering.

As well as being one of the hardest of all woods, the Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) is the state tree of Georgia and a symbol of strength and resistance for the southern states. It is the tree draped with long garlands of moss in films like Gone with the Wind. Gone with the Wind.

Which war killed the highest proportion of British soldiers?

The English Civil War (or the 'War of the Three Nations' as historians now call it).

In the seven years between 1642 and 1649, a staggering one in ten of the adult male population died, more than three times the proportion that died in the First World War and five times the proportion who died in the Second World War.

The total UK population in 1642 is estimated at five million, of whom roughly two million were men of fighting age: 85,000 died on the battlefield, another 100,000 died of their wounds or of disease. The war was the biggest military mobilisation in English history with a quarter of those eligible to fight finding themselves in uniform.

In Ireland, things were even worse as the Civil War merged into a doomed battle for independence. Some historians calculate that half the Irish population had perished by the end of Cromwell's expedition in 1653.

In a 2004 poll organised by the BBC, it was revealed that 90 per cent of Britons cannot name a single battle of the English Civil War, 80 per cent do not know which English king was executed by Parliament in 1649 and 67 per cent of schoolchildren have never heard of Oliver Cromwell.