35 Fun Facts That Sound Fake (But Are True)

The best fun facts are the ones that make you stop and say “wait, that can’t be right.” But these all are. Here are thirty-five true facts that sound completely made up — perfect for winning an argument, breaking the ice, or just feeling a bit cleverer today.

Animals

• An octopus has three hearts — and blue blood.
• Wombats produce cube-shaped poop.
• Sea otters hold hands while they sleep so they don’t drift apart.
• A shrimp’s heart is in its head.
• Cows have best friends and get stressed when they’re separated.
• A group of flamingos is called a “flamboyance.”
• Goldfish don’t have three-second memories — they can remember things for months.

Space and science

• A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.
• There are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way.
• Honey never spoils — edible pots have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs.
• Scientists believe it rains diamonds deep inside Neptune and Uranus.
• Under the right conditions, hot water can freeze faster than cold (the Mpemba effect).
• Bananas are very slightly radioactive, thanks to the potassium they contain.
• The Eiffel Tower can stand about 15 cm taller in summer, as its metal expands in the heat.

History

• Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.
• Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.
• Nintendo was founded in 1889 — it started out making playing cards.
• The shortest war in history lasted under an hour (Britain vs Zanzibar, 1896).
• Sliced bread was only sold from 1928 — so “the best thing since sliced bread” isn’t all that old.
• Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
• Some pyramids were already ancient while woolly mammoths still walked the Earth.

The human body

• You’re a little taller in the morning — your spine compresses through the day.
• Babies are born with around 300 bones; adults have 206 as they fuse together.
• Your stomach grows a new lining every few days so it doesn’t digest itself.
• It’s almost impossible to hum while holding your nose.
• Pound for pound, the masseter (your jaw muscle) is one of the strongest in the body.
• Your nose and ears keep growing throughout your life.
• You blink around 15–20 times a minute — roughly 20,000 times a day.

Everyday oddities

• The dot over a lower-case “i” or “j” is called a tittle.
• The little plastic tips on shoelaces are called aglets.
• Bubble wrap was originally invented to be wallpaper.
• Strawberries aren’t berries — but bananas are.
• Scotland’s national animal is the unicorn.
• A “jiffy” is a real unit of time used in physics.
• The fear of long words is, unhelpfully, called hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

A new fact every single day

If you collect facts like these, Daily BrainDrop will be right up your street — a free Android app that hands you nine bite-sized brain boosts every day, including a surprising fun fact, a number fact, a science snippet, the animal of the day, a word of the day, a riddle and more. A tiny, moreish habit that leaves you a little smarter than you started.

Get Daily BrainDrop on Google Play

More on the app: the Daily BrainDrop page.

Go on — go and out-fact someone today.