Today is World Animal Day 2013.

This annual event started in 1931 to highlight the plight of the world’s most endangered species, and is now celebrated by animal lovers all over the globe.

So in honour of the day, here are ten weird animal facts you may not already know…

1. If kept in dim light, goldfish lose their colour. Like us, they need sunlight to keep their pigment.

2. A flamingo can only eat when its head is upside down

3. To help them collect pollen, honeybees have hairs on their eyes

4. All polar bears are left-handed

5. Bats always turn left when exiting their cave

6. The hummingbird is the only animal in the world that can fly backwards

7. At a stretch, a snail can sleep for up to three years at a time

8. The giraffe possesses no vocal chords and communicates by vibrating the air around its neck

9. For every one human on the planet, there are one million ants

10. At birth, a panda is actually smaller than a mouse

If this satisfyingly strange selection of weird animal facts has made you want to know more about the many wonderful creatures that inhabit our earth, why not take a look at our great range of animal adventure days?