Weird Animals -

Strange But True Facts

Blue whale babies weigh up to 7 tonnes at birth.

A female cod can lay up to 9 million eggs.

Snakes can see through their eyelids.

Elephants spend 23 hours a day eating.

Vultures sometimes eat so much they can't take off again.

The Amazon 'Jesus Christ lizard' can run across water.

The biggest Antartic inland animal is a wingless fly measuring about 60 mm long.

Fleas can jump up to 30 cm, twenty times their own body length.

Bluebottle flies can smell meat from distances 7 km away.

Many birds migrate, but the Arctic tern travels furthest. It flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and back again, a trip of 32,000 kilometers.

Some animals can regrow parts of their bodies if damaged. Starfish can grow new 'arms.' Slow-worms can regrow broken-off tails. Lizards can grow new tails.

One golden poison-dart frog could kill up to 1500 people with its poison.

The giant squid has the largest eyes of any animal. They can be 39 cm across, which is 16 times wider than a human eye.

The peregrine falcon can spot its prey from more than 8 km away.

The sleepiest mammals are armadillos, sloths and opossums. They spend 80 per cent of their lives sleeping or dozing.

A mayfly only lives one day, but a tortoise can expect to live 100 years.

Stegosaurus was one of the most famous of the dinosaurs and was an impressive 9 metres long. But its brain was the size of a walnut.

Fascinating Facts & Figures

Fascinating facts and fiqures, just what you need to impress your friends with your knowledge (or bore them to tears).

In England middle names were once illegal.

Halley's comet takes seventy-six years to travel once around the sun.

Humming-birds are the only birds that are able to fly backwards.

At least once a year most birds moult - they shed their old feathers and grow new ones. Birds moult before winter so that the new feathers will have grown before the weather becomes colder.

Mozart was only five years old when he wrote the music of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

The Statue of Liberty was built to celebrate the birth of the United States of America and to commemorate the friendship with France. It stands at the entrance to New York Harbour.

There are more insects in the world than all the other animals added together.

Dogs sweat through their paws.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world. It has an area of 70,000,000 square miles (181,000,000 square km).

The Bridge of Sighs is in Venice and connects the Doge's Palace with the old state prisons. It's name symbolizes the sadness of the prisoners crossing the bridge on their way to prison.

Picasso's electrician reveals artist's 'treasure trove'

The works include a portrait of the late artist's first wife, Olga

A retired electrician in southern France who worked for Pablo Picasso says he has hundreds of previously unknown works by the artist.

The treasure trove of 271 pieces includes lithographs, cubist paintings, notebooks and a watercolour and is said to be worth about 60m euros (£50.6m).

Pierre Le Guennec, 71, reportedly says Picasso gave him the works as gifts.

But the estate's administrators have filed a case for alleged illegal receipt of the works of art.

According to French newspaper Liberation, the lost Picassos include a watercolour from his Blue Period. Experts say the nine cubist works in Mr Le Guennec's possession are worth 40m euros alone.

The electrician installed burglar alarm systems at Picasso's numerous houses in France, including his villa in Cannes, during the three years before the artist died in 1973.

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• In pictures: Picasso treasure trove

In September, Mr Le Guennec approached the artist's estate in an attempt to get the canvases authenticated by Picasso's son, Claude.

But Claude Picasso dismissed Mr Le Guennec's explanation about how he came into possession of the art works.

He said his father would never have given so many works to a single person.

"To give away such a large quantity, that's unheard of. It doesn't add up," he told Liberation. "It was a part of his life."

Once the works were authenticated, the family contacted France's specialist art police who have reportedly already raided Mr Le Guennec's home on the Cote d'Azur, confiscating the paintings and interviewing him under caution.

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The BBC's Christian Fraser says investigators are trying to establish how the electrician got hold of the paintings

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The BBC's Christian Fraser, in Paris, says a multimillion-euro legal battle over the ownership of the paintings will now begin.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art says Picasso produced more than 20,000 works of art during his long career, but hundreds have been listed as missing - in part because he was so prolific, the AP news agency reports.