interesting

When Twitter user, @ok_girlfriend, who also happens to be a biologist, revealed that she just discovered that, "sea urchins naturally use shells as hats to make them feel safer and camouflaged so some aquarist had the genius idea to make them tiny hats." The aquarists 3D printed hats for these little sea creatures and it's indeed genius! We can't get enough of these little sea urchins donning tiny hats! 

Lately, we've been bunnies in hats, snakes in hats, and even hedgehogs in hats -- seems like we have another animal to add to the tiny hat-wearing collection! 

This is so cool and so incredibly random! It turns out, if you were to place a platypus under a blacklight, they would glow! What other amazing secrets are these creatures hiding from us?

Noted in the journal Mammalia, "shining an ultraviolet light on a platypus makes the animal's fur fluoresce with a greenish-blue tint. They're one of the few mammals known to exhibit this trait. And we're still in the dark about why they do it — if there is a reason at all."

Other animals that have exhibited this interesting trait are scorpions, lichens, puffin beaks, and believe it or not, North American flying squirrels glow bubble pink under UV light. Blue light, just a notch away from ultraviolet, turns our oceans into what looks like an indoor mini-golf course! It's also what causes multiple types of amphibians to glow green. 

Nature is lit. 

Story via The New York Times

We don't know about you but when we think of a mantis, the classic green mantis comes to mind. Who in the world knew they could come in such a vast variety of colors, and stunning colors at that? To say we're stunned is an understatement -- mantis are beautiful! 

Bugs are usually something we claim to be beautiful, but they have surprised us in the past! We're just attracted to unusual colors on things we've already decided on how they look. Which is usually brown and not so pleasant to look at. Turns out, there are more colors to little insects than we could ever imagine there would be.

We're not saying we're totally obsessed with insects now but we do appreciate their beauty!

Here's something that's never crossed our minds, if you had an identical twin, would your pet confuse the two of you? Well, seems like someone did think about it, Redditor u/Asshiq, asked the Reddit community, "Identical twins that own pets, what was your pet's reaction when they saw your twin?"

The responses were delightful but we especially enjoyed reading the silly stories people had to share about their experience as a twin and a pet. So now we're going to ask you, before reading the comment below, do you think the pets were able to tell the identical twins apart?

While all these photoshopped animals do look beautiful either way and some not even odd-looking, we're definitely grateful to live in a world where tigers and zebras have stripes. These animals have color and uniquely beautiful, if you photoshop out those iconic markings, it doesn't dilute their cuteness, but we've obviously come to love and admire these animals individual uniqueness. 

The team at Brightside.me has asked the question, "What would animals look like without their markings?" And then created it for us to help us imagine a world in which animals only come in one shade of color. Safe to say, we all love the animals just as they naturally are! 

When Tumblr user, sailorcuba, shared their thoughts on how adorable a cat's meow is to any verbal response, it paved the way for another user to share a funny and wholesome story of a cat who had never had human interaction before. 

We've heard that adult cats don't actually meow at other cats to communicate, but rather just at humans to let us know when they want something. This story could be further proof of that claim. 

Tumblr is filled with endless cat gems, we hope to never discover them all because that would just take out the excitement for when we do across a gem such as this thread below. 

These facts shared by @uberfacts are as fascinating as they are bizarre! And why do so many of them involve farting? I guess we never knew before either an animal can or can't fart, but now we do. And it's all thanks to these strange facts. 

Animal facts are always a treat because chances are, you will come out of here learning about something you've never known or even thought of before. And learning is always fun, especially when it involves random animal facts that you can bring up in conversations and become the life of the party! 

If you are in need of even more animal facts to impress those around you, look no further. 

The twitter account @OregonZoo - or as they like to call themselves this Halloween season: "Oregoth Boo" - have decided to share with us some x-rays that showcase the absolute beauty of animals - inside and out. And it's perfect. It hits just the right mood for Halloween - "gothy" and "Halloweenish". 

The thread with the x-ray pictures has gone viral on twitter, with people agreeing with us about how cool these photos are, with some people even adding their own pets' x-ray images, surprising all of us with no one but two x-rays of pregnant pets! A turtle and a cat - tini tiny skeletons inside slightly bigger skeletons. 

There are times when we look at a picture and get lost in it. It's just that we see so much in it it's hard to describe in simple words. Even 1000 of them. There are whole worlds in some pictures. It's exactly those pictures that we love the most, because they are incredibly inspiring. 

Every single week, we bring you a collection of pictures just like that in the hopes that they will inspire you too. Each one of these pictures is unique and special in its own way, either because of the animals in it or because of the incredible/wholesome/hilarious/100% magical circumstances that we just know had to come about for such a picture to be taken. These kinds of pictures inspire us to write stories of our own, they really bring out the creativity in us. Hopefully, they'll do the same for you!

It's been a while since we've had our mind blown! Last shower thought edition really brought their mind-blowing A-game. We can only hope this next installment can do that previous list justice. 

Every once in a while, we scroll endlessly through the popular subreddit r/ShowerThoughts, in hopes of stumbling into some life-perspective-changing thoughts. Thankfully, shower thoughts never seem to fail in giving us that "whoa" moment. And we especially adore the thoughtful animal thoughts that are often explored. 

Let these profound shower thoughts wash over you: 

Another Spooktober special! OK, we know what you're thinking, "Spiders? Heck no." And we get that, and we're also like that. However, when it comes to peacock spiders, there's something enchanting about them. Yes, if we were ever in the presence of one, we'd probably run. 

These are just photos and vids, they can't hurt us. Remember that. 

The peacock spider is probably the most beautiful spider out there, with its vivid colors, and disproportional huge eyes, you can't help but think, "OK, these guys can be cool." Much like peacocks, male peacock spiders are the most colorful of the sexes and have displayed their colors bolding when trying to attract a mate. 

As much as they make us squeamish, bugs can be quite cool looking!  

Oh, be still our hearts, if this is the most endearing new study reveal we've ever heard! 

Canine Cottage conducted a study in which they had four different pups fitting with a special heart rate tracking collars. These collars indicate what gets the pups excited when interacting with their owners. Over the course of seven days, the average heart rate for the four dogs was 67 beats per minute. 

When the dogs heard their owners tell them. "I love you," their average heart rate skyrocketed to 98 beats per minute! 

A new study from animal nutrition specialists at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, have discovered something quite interesting. Turns out, giving your cat one big meal is more satisfying to them than providing them with a few small meals throughout the day. 

Weird, right? That's exactly the opposite of what's been told to us. Yet, out of eight indoor cats, who over the course of 21 days were fed once daily and then fed four times daily, the cats who ate just the one, big meal a day had a higher level of three appetites-regulating hormones. The researchers claim they were more satisfied and not only more full but also burning their fat stores and even had more protein to help build some muscle. 

Story via Daily Mail

We all like to think we know everything there is to know about our favorite animals. The truth is, we'll never fully know everything about them and we will always be learning new facts. 

You might know all of these cat facts listed below, or you might not. You might learn a new fact and that's always exciting and fun. 

Either way, we can all agree that we love cats and their facts only make us feel that much more closer to them.