There are some facts that though on the first glance seem untrue or even completely bizarre, remain a fact. Some of them are weird mysteries of Nature while some seem false because we never see it from that particular perspective. Here is our list of facts where the reality is stranger than fiction.
Tarantulas keep pet frogs
You may have heard of frogs eating spiders or spiders eating frogs but, in this occasion, they have figured out the perfect balance to co-exist. This symbiotic relationship is often seen in Amazonian forests. Humming frogs are kept as a pet by tarantulas to protect their eggs from ants and fly larvae and in exchange the frog gets a giant spider’s protection and a place to live.
Most of the Egyptian mummies have been eaten
The reason why we see only a few mummies because we ate most of them. Back in the 16th and 17th century, when Medicinal Cannibalism was a thing, most of the Egyptian mummies as well as skulls from Irish burial sites were cannibalized by people looking to cure anything from headaches to epilepsy.
The Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.
Despite common perceptions, Aztec Empire was formed recently, in 1428. The Oxford University on the other hand was founded in 1096 by some estimates which means we are only 74 years away from its millennium anniversary. We expect one hell of a party.
More trees than stars
This is one of the more comforting facts that there are more trees on earth than there are stars in our galaxy. And it is not by some narrow margin but roughly by a factor of ten. There are three trillion trees in the world against only three hundred billion stars in the sky.
Lightning bolts are hotter than sun’s surface
Lightning bolts are five times hotter than sun’s surface. Lightning bolts are known to heat up the surrounding air to more than 27,000 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, surface temperature of the sun is only about 5,500 degrees. They are not however, hotter than the sun itself because the sun has different layers of hotness and its core is around 15 million degrees Celsius.
There is Cheese Cave in the US
It all started with President Jimmy Carter’s decision to help the farmers by buying cheese in bulk to raise the price of milk in the 70’s. One thing led to another and now US have a surplus of about 1.4 billion pounds of cheese. All these cheeses are kept in a cave of a limestone mine in Springfield, Missouri under army protection.
