Friday the 13th occurs when the thirteenth day of a month falls on a Friday, which superstition holds to be a day of good or bad luck, but often bad luck. In the Gregorian Calendar, this day occurs at least once, but at most three times a year. Any month's 13th day will fall on a Friday if the month starts on a Sunday. In 2009 this applies to the months of February, March and November. The next instance of this appears on the calendar for the year 2015.

The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskevi (meaning Friday), and dekatreis (meaning thirteen), attached to phobia (meaning fear).

History
According to folklorists, there is no written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th century. The earliest known documented reference in English occurs in an 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini:

[Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; and if it be true that like so many other Italians, he regarded Friday as an unlucky day, and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday, the 13th of November, he died.

On the other hand, another theory by author Charles Panati, one of the leading authorities on the subject of "Origins" maintains that the superstition can be traced back to ancient myth:

The actual origin of the superstition, though, appears also to be a tale in Norse mythology. Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil - a gathering of thirteen - and plotted ill turns of fate fot the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as "Witches' Sabbath."

However, some folklore is passed on through oral traditions. In addition, "determining the origins of superstitions is an inexact science, at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork." Consequently, several theories have been proposed about the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition.


Why 13 is considered as an unlucky number?

by: Bong Barrameda, Pinoy Trivia Vol. 3

Q.  On a yearly average, how many typhoons visit the Philippines?

A. 20

For the Record.  You can determine how far away a thunderstorm is without using any special instruments.  First, wait for a lightning flash.  Then count the seconds that pass until the sound of thunder is heard.  Sound travels about 1 mile (1.6km.) in five seconds.  Thus if there are five seconds between the lightning flash and the thunderclap, the storm is about a mile away.  If ten seconds pass, it is 2 miles away, and so on.

A Friendly Reminder.  If you are driving during a thunderstorm, stay in your car.  It is one of the safest places to be.  If lightning does strike, it will flash over the surface of the vehicle - which is virtually a metal cage -  and run harmlessly to the ground.  If you're on foot in the wilderness, do not take cover in cave mouths, rock-face overhangs or recesses under boulders.  They create spark gaps across which lightning can arc on its way to earth, striking anyone there.  However, a deep cave is safe haven as long as you go right to the back.

FEAR
Fear is an emotional response to a threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. Some Psychologists John B Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested that fear is one of a small set of bsic or innate emotions. This set also includes such emotions as joy, sadness, and anger. Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any external threat. Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable. Worth nothing is that fear always relates to future events, such as worsening of a situation, or continuation of a situation that is unacceptable.

Fear is also an important protective instinct. At any hint of danger, the hormone noradrenalin is released into the blood, and prepares the body for action: skin goes pale as blood is diverted to the muscles; sweating increases to cool the muscles; faster breathing provides more oxygen for the muscles; fast heartbeats push more blood to the muscles; gut and bladder relax as blood is diverted from them to the muscles.

BURYING OSTRICH'S HEAD
A popular belief about ostriches is that they bury their heads in the sand when they are afraid, in the hope that their enemies will not notice them. Ostriches may well listen intently for sound with their heads close to the ground, and sometimes they even lower their heads to rest their neck muscles.

Some believe that the rumor that ostriches bury their heads in the sand comes from the fact that ostriches ingest sand and pebbles, which help them swallow their food; people may have noticed them picking up pebbles in their mouths and believed that the ostriches were burying their heads instead.

Another possible reason for this belief could be the scientific fact that, when threathened, the ostrich will fall forward in the sand and lay its head to the ground, so that its body will resemble a bush to passing predators. This action is especially common when the ostrich is attempting to protect its eggs. Because their head and neck are the same color as the sand, to an observer, it may look as though the ostriches bury their heads in the sand.

Even if the reason of this rumor is still uncertain, it is certain that they never bury their heads in the sand. If they did, they would probably suffocate.

SLOGAN ORIGIN
A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. The word slogan is derived from slogorn which was an Anglicisation of the Scottish and Irish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm, sluagh meaning "army", "host" and gairm meaning "cry". The battle cry of the Old Highland clans were said to be the name of the clan or the leader of the clan, repeated again and again by the soldiers in unison as they moved against the enemy. Slogans vary from te written and the visual to the chanted and the vulgar. Often their simple rhetorical nature leaves little room for detail, and as such they serve perhaps more as a social expression of unified purpose, rather than a projection for an intended audience.

EMBLEMS
Slogans are used in emblems, specifically in Scottish heraldry, in the same way as a motto is used. While mottoes may have several different origins, slogans are considered to originate as, or represent, war cries or battle cries. They usually appear above the crest on a coat of arms.

DO YOU KNOW THAT...

• The run-up to World War II saw growing American resentment against products labeled "Made in Japan." The ever ingenious Japanese thought of overcoming this by renaming one of their industrial centers "USA." The center's exports were thus marked "Made in USA."

• The American Dollar may travel over the world, but the American advertising slogan needs an extra bit of laundering. General Motors is aware of this, for it's Chevy Nova had some trouble in Puerto Rico because "No va" means "It doesn't go" in Spanish. The Pepsi company had a similar problem when it opened shop in China. Its slogan "Come alive with Pepsi" was rendered into the Chinese "Pepsi brings your ancestor back from the grave."

FAMOUS SLOGANS
Here is a list of the very famous commercial slogans by different companies around the world...

• Information Driven - Oracle
• Welcome to the Human Network - Cisco Systems
  
• Do you... Yahoo!? - Yahoo
• Where do you want to go today? - Microsoft
• High Performance, Delivered - Accenture
• Intel Inside - Intel
• The World's Online Market Place - eBay
• Buy it, Sell it, Love it - eBay
• Let's make things better - Philips
• Sense and Simplicity - Philips
• Life's Good -LG
• Like.no.other - Sony
• It's a Sony -Sony
• Imagination at Work - General Electric (GE)
• Everything we do is driven by you - Ford
• The car in front is a Toyota - Toyota
• Moving you forward - Toyota
• Connecting people - Nokia
• Hello Moto - Motorola
• I am what I am -Reebok
• Just Do it - Nike, Inc
• Imposible is Nothing - Adidas
• Because you are worth it - L'Oreal Cosmetics
• A diamond is forever - De Beers
• Keep Walking - Johny Walker
• The King of Good Times - United Breweries
• Coffee at its Best - Nescafe

HUMAN HEAD
In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones, consisting the cranium and the facial bones. The cranium is formed by 8 bones: the frontal bone, two parietal bones, two temporal bones, the occipital bone in the back, the ethmoid bone behind the nose, and the sphenoid bone. The face consists of 14 bones including the maxilla (upper jaw) and mandible (lower jaw). Except for the mandible, all of the bones of the skull are joined together by sutures, synarthrodial (immovable) joints formed by bony ossification, with Sharpey;s fibres permiting some flexibility.

HISTORY IN A SKULL
Like the face of a living individual, a human skull and teeth can also tell, to a certain degree, the life history and origin of its owner. Forensic scientists and archaeologists use metric and non-metric traits to estimate what the owner of the skull looked like. When a significant amount of bones are found, osteologists can use traits, such as proportions of length, height, width, to know the relationships of population of the study, with living or extinct populations.

MALE AND FEMALE SKULLS
In general, male skulls tend to be larger and more robust than female skulls, which are more slender. Male skulls typically have more prominent supraorbital ridges (situated above the eye socket.), a more prominent glabella (The most forward projecting point of the forehead in the midline of the supraorbital ridges. Also called mesophryon.), and more prominent temporal lines. Male skulls on average have larger, broader palates, squarer orbits, larger mastoid processes (a large, bony prominence on the base of the skull behind the ear, containing air spaces that connect with the middle ear cavity.), larger sinuses, and larger occipital condyles than those of females. Male mandibles typically have squarer chins and thicker, rougher muscle attachments than female mandibles.

All of these features vary considerably within human populations, making it difficult to identify the sex of a skull without knowledge of the population from which it came.

SHRUNKEN HEADS
A shrunken head is a human head that has been prepared for ritual use or trade.

Most known shrunken heads were manufactured either by indigenous peoples in Malanesia and Amazon Basin, or by European or Euro-Americans attempting to recreate the practice. In Amazon, the onlu people known to have shrunk human heads are the Shuar, Achuar, Huambisa and Aguaruna, collectively classified as the Jivaroan peoples of Ecuador and Peru. Among the Shuar, a shrunken head is known as a tsantsa, also transliterated tzantza.

HOW ARE SHRUNKEN HEADS ARE BEING MADE?
The skull was removed from the head; the maker would make an incision on the back of the neck and proceed to remove all the skin and flesh from the cranium. Afterwards, they place red seeds underneath the eyelids and sewed them shut. The mouth was held together with three palm pins. Fat from the flesh of the head was removed. The flesh was then boiled in water which a number of herbs containing tannins were steeped, then dried with hot rocks and sand, while being molded by the preparer to retain its human feature. The skin was then rubbed down with charcoal ash, with the belief that this would keep the musiak, or avenging soul, from seeping out. The lips were sewn shut and various decorative beads were added to the head.

WHY ARE SHRUNKEN HEADS MADE?
The practice of preparing shrunken heads originally had religious significance; shrinking the head of an enemy was believed to harness the spirit of the enemy and compel him to serve the shrinker. It was said to prevent the soul from avenging his death.

HEADHUNTER
A headhunter or head hunter is someone who engages in the cultural practice of headhunting.

DID YOU KNOW THAT...
Among the headhunting Ilongots of Nueva Viscaya in the Philippines of old times, an upcoming father-in-law was expected to give his future daughter-in-law with a stock of knives and spears as a pre-wedding gift. While for the husband-to-be, the best present he could possibly offer to his bride was a freshly cut human head.

Tears are the liquid product of a process of crying to clean and lubricate the eyes. The word lacrimation,(from L. Lacrima meaning Tear) which can be also spelled as lachrimation, may also be used in a medical or literary sense to refer to crying. Strong emotions, such as sorrow or elation may lead to crying. The process of yawning may also result in lacrimation. Although most land mammals have a lacrimation system to keep their eyes moist, humans are the only mammal generally accepted to cry emotional tears.

WHAT'S IN A TEAR?
Tear fluid contains water, mucin, lipids, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lipocalin, immunoglobulins, glucose, urea, sodium and potassium. Some of the substances in lacrimal fluids(such as lysozyme) fight against bacterial infectin as a part of the immune system. Lysozymes does this by dissolving the outer coating of certain bacteria. It is a typical body fluid with a salt content similar to blood plasma.

TEAR TYPES
Basal Tears is the tear that continually keeps the cornea wet and nourished. It lubricates the eye, and help to keep it clear of dust.

Reflex Tears is the tears that is produced when the eye gets irritated by foreign particles, or from the presence of irritant substances such as onion vapors, tear gas or paper spray in the eyes environment, including the cornea, conjunctiva, or nasal mucosa. It can also occur with bright light and hot or peppery stimuli to the tong and mouth. It is also linked with vomiting. These tears attempt to wash out the irritants that may have come into contact with the eye.

Emotional Tears this is the increased lacrimation due to strong emotional stress, suffering, mourning or physical pain. this practice is not restricted to negative emotions; many people cry when extremely happy. In humans, it can be accompanied by reddening of the face and sobing - cough-like, convulsive breathing, sometimes involving spasms of the whole upper body. Tears brought about emotions have a different chemical make up than those for lubrication; for it contain more of the protein-based hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and leucine enkephalin (a natural painkiller) than basal or reflex tears.

ONION TEARS
The substance in onions that makes us cry, is a gas called propanethiol-S, which is released into the air when a fresh onion is cut. When this gas reaches the eye, it combines with the water in the eye to form a weak acid. This acid irritates the eye and causes the lachrymal, or tear-producing glands, to fill the eye with tears in an effort to wash the acid away.

TEAR CULTURE
In nearly all cultures, crying is seen as specific act associated with tears trickling down the cheeks and accompanied by characteristic sobbing sound. Emotional triggers are most often anger and grief, but crying can also be triggered by sadness, joy, fear, laughter or humor, frustration, remorse or other strongly- experienced emotions. In many cultures, crying is associated with babies and children. Some cultures consider crying to be undignified and infantile, casting aspersions on those who cry publicly, except if it is due to the death of a close friend or relative. In most cultures, it is more socially acceptable for women and children to cry than men.

CROCODILE TEARS
It isn't true that a crocodile weeps crocodile tears for it has no tear glands. But the reptile does shed a tear-like eye secretion whenever it opens its mouth to gobble up a big victim, or whenever its jaws are forced far apart, just as our eyes water when we yawn. The phrase crocodile tears has come to mean tears shed or grief expressed in an insincere way, something the creature is mentally incapable of indulging in.

DO YOU KNOW THAT...

• When the Trigeminal nerve(the one that bears the sensory pathways of the tear reflexes) is cut, tears from reflexes will stop, but not emotional tears. Likewise, application of cocaine to the surface of the eye inhibits the reflex even under exposure to strong tear gases.
• A newborn infant has insufficient development of nervous control, so he/she "cries without weeping."
• Lest the cornea be damaged in surgery or other failure of lacrimal function occur, it is not a serious matter, for the accessory glands are enough for general secretion.
• Most mammals will produce tears in response to extreme pain or other stimuli, but crying as an emotional reaction is considered by many to be a uniquely human phenomenon, possibly due to humans' advanced self-awareness.
  
• Some studies suggest that elephants, gorillas and camels may cry as well.
• You'll shed less tears if you cut off last the root end of the onion. For that's where the irritating gas is mainly stored.
• Some modern therapy movements such as Re-evaluation Counseling teach that crying is beneficial to health and mental well-being, encouraging it positively.
  

MALE OR FEMALE?
It's quite difficult to tell if a goldfish is male or female, for the only time male and female goldfish look different from each other is when they are ready to breed. The male develops small white spots, called tubercles, on his gill covers. The female, on the other hand, will fill up with eggs and look fatter than the male.

FISHY TIPS
If you can afford it, thaw frozen fish in milk, for it draws out the frozen taste and produces a fresh-caught flavor. You can also try soaking a fish in vinegar and water before cooking it for a sweet tender taste. To remove the fishy smell from your hands, wash with vinegar and water, or salt and water.

OPERCULUM
Pronounced as oo pur'kyoo lum, it is a lid or flap covering an aperture, such as the gill cover in some fishes or the horny shell cover in snails or other mollusks.

FROM THE PHILIPPINES
Three out of every four tropical marine fish sold in American Petshops came from the Philippines.

DO YOU KNOW THAT...

• The most poisonous fish in the worls is the Stone fish.
• The largest known fish in the sea is the Whale Shark. It weighs up to 20 tons and grows to a length of 40 feet.
• Jelly Fish, not sharks, are the deadliest killer in oceans and seas. A certain kind of box jelly fish kills more people than all the shark species do put together.
• The elephant snout, an African fish, communicates with other fish by emitting an electrical signal, sort of a fish's version of Morse Code
• In Japan meat from the 'Fugu' or spiny puffer fish is considered to be a rare delicacy, however the liver and intestines contain a powerfull neurotoxin and the slightest contamination during preparation can be deadly. Restaurants who serve fugu must have a 'Fugu certified' chefs.
• In Japan about one hundred people on average die annually from fugu poisoning.
• All the sturgeon, which eggs are made caviar, caught in British waters are property of the Queen.
  

LEAP SECOND
Four or five million years ago, a day lasted only 22 hours. The lengthening of the day is due to the very gradual slowing down of the Earth's rotation on its axis. Since the introduction of the "coordinated universal time" as the world's standard form of time measurement in 1972, one "leap second" has been added onto the last second of each year to make up for the planet's deceleration.

THE TIME IT TAKES
The durations, in seconds, of certain events: bee's wing beat (0.03); human heartbeat(1); time it takes for sunlight to reach the earth (492); the earth rotates on its axis (86,164.1); the earth completes an orbit around the sun (31,557,600).

DO YOU KNOW THAT...

• The duration for Pluto to go around the sun is equivalent to 248 earth years.
• "Fortnight" is a contraction of "fourteen nights." In the US "two weeks" is more commonly used.
• A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
• Any month that starts on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th in it.
• Easter is the first Sunday after the first Fool Moon after March 21
• Flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave.
• If the sun stopped shinning suddenly, it would take eight minutes for people on earth to be aware of the fact.
• In 1947, heavy snow blanketed the Northeast, burying New York City under 25.8 inches of snow in 16 hours; the severe weather was blamed for some 80 deaths.
• Light travels at the rate of 186,200 mile a second.
• More than 99.9% of all the animal species that have ever lived on earth were extinct before the coming of man.
• The greatest snowfall ever in a single storm was 189 inches at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in February, 1959.
• The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582 AD, and was adopted by Great Britain and the English colonies in 1752.
• The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers and compline.
• The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.

COLOR BLACK
Black is the total absorption of all color and the absence of light. It was used for mourning by the Egyptians and Romans, today almost all countries associate it with death and mourning. Black has also been recognized to imply humility and secrecy. It is frequently associated with witchcraft. In India and other countries in Asia, black represents the serfs and slaves. In the Hindu Upanishads, the black color of the fire was considered to be the color of the earth.

BLACK SLOGAN
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., popularized the slogan "Black is beautiful" in a poster campaign in 1967, but another black civil rights leader, Stokely Carmichael, had used the phrase a year earlier at a Memphis rally. However, both may have been inspired by a line from the Song of Solomon in the Bible: "I am black, but comely."

FROM WHITE TO BLACK
In 1959 John Howard Griffin, an American journalist and author much of whose writing was about racial equality, went to a doctor who administered the drug Oxsolaren, which makes skin turn a dark brown upon exposure to the ultraviolet rays of the sun or a sunlamp. Used with a vegetable dye, it allowed Griffin to "pass" for black and find out first-hand the prejudices Negroes had to endure. On assignment from Sepia magazine, he journeyed through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. He walked, hitchhiked and rode buses through the Deep South for six weeks and discovered to his dismay the extent and intensity of the racial hatred that existed. He turned his experiences into a 1961 bestseller titled Black Like Me, and in 1964 it was made into a movie. The book was not popular with some of Griffin's neighbors; in fact they hanged him in effigy.

AETA
Aeta (pronounced as "eye-ta,") are the indigenous people who lived in scattered, isolated mountainous parts of Luzon, Philippines. They are considered to be Negritos, who are dark to very dark brown skinned and tend to have features such as a small stature, small frame, curly hair, small nose and dark brown eyes. The word Aeta is from the Chinese word haitan, which probably derives from the Malay hitam, meaning "black."

Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species, in everyday usage it almost always refers to the Ovis aries. Numbering a little over 1 billion, domestic sheep are the most numerous species in their genus.

Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purpose, sheep are raised for fleece, meat(lamb or mutton) and milk. A sheep's wool is the most widely used of any animal, and is usually harvested by sheering(shaving). Its meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meet today, and are also raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.

A sheep makes a bleating sound, and its baby can identify its mother by her bleat. Lamb is the lowest in cholesterol of all red meats there in the market. Sheep have naturally occuring oil in their wool called "lanolin". This oil makes the wool water repellent and prevents the cold rain and snow from penetrating to the sheep's skin.

Sheep have no top front teeth but the roof of their mouth is hard. This permits sheep to eat vegetation close to the ground and prevents them from pulling up plant roots. One difference of a goat to a sheep is that sheep are grazers, while goats are browsers. This means that goats prefer to eat leaves from trees and small shrubs, whereas sheep prefer grass.

BLACK SHEEP
Since early times black sheep were considered less valuable than white ones because their wool could not be readily dyed. Shepherds also belived that black sheep frightened the other sheep. Fortunately, they were rare, as most domestic sheep range from white to light brown. By the late 18th century, the expression black sheep came to be applied to disgraced people.

SHEEPSKIN
Most people still refer to diplomas as sheepskin, a slang coined by American students. But the fact is most diplomas are no longer made of genuine parchment or sheepskin. What graduates now grasp with joy is plain heavy paper.

INSOMNIAC'S PARADISE
The Falkland Islands, a group of British isles east of the southern tip of South America, is an insomniac's paradise. Here the human population of just over 1,900 can count up to 695,000 sheep - a ratio of 1,916 sheep for every person. In New Zealand the ration is 20 to 1, and in Australia it's 10 to 1.

There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth. There are more than 900,000 known species of insects in the world. Scientists discover approximately 7,000 to 10,000 new insect species every year - and it is believe that there are between 1 million and 10 million species yet to be found. Here are a few fascinating trivia about them...

CRICKETS
The symphony of cricket trills, gracing grassy fields in many parts of the world, arises from an all-male orchestra. Each male advertises his presence and prowess by scratching together the of his forewings, which are ridged like tiny washboards. Each stroke creates a single chirp, and the cricket's song consists of a series of chirps called a trill.

You may think that a field may sound full of crickets all calling at once, but the truth is male crickets take their turns. If two males call at the same time, one will fall silent and move a respectful distance away. A female cricket will not respond to just any male cricket, the male must sing a song specific to her species. This discrimination is so specific that a female hybrids prefer the song of identically crossbred males

The male mole crickets is one of the animal kingdom's most imaginative suitors. When calling for a mate he don't just rub his forewings together, to make sure his song is heard, he construct his own kind of stereo amplifier. With his large, flattened fore legs he digs an underground nest with a twin-horned tunnel entrance. Then he sits at the junction of the horns and beams out his hi-fi message for any passing female to hear.

ANTS
Ants detect their food through their five noses, each designed to track a different smell.

Pharaoh ants are a serious nuisance pest in hospitals, rest homes, apartments, hotels, grocery stores and other buildings. They feed on a wide variety of foods including soft drinks, greases, jellies, honey, shortening, peanut butter, fruit juices, baked goods, dead insects and even shoe polish. They also gnaw holes in silk, rayon and rubber goods. In hospitals, these foraging ants have been found in surgical wounds, I.V. solution, sealed packs of sterile dressing, water in flower displays and water pitchers. Pharoah ants mechanically transmit diseases and contaminate sterile materials.

King and queen ants mates in the air, after the deed is done the male ant dies while the queen eats her own wings in preparation for pregnancy and because she would not need them anymore.

TERMITES
Queen termites may live for as many as 50 years, and she is capable of laying egg every 15 seconds. Termites rarely exposed themselves to light, they work for 24 hours without sleep, and a typically infested home may have three to four subterranean termite colony around it with as many as 1 million termites in each collony.

ROACHES
Roaches can live without food for a month, but will only survive a week without water. Some female cockroaches incubate their egg cases in their bodies until they are ready to hatch. These babies stay with their mothers a day or two after they are born. Cockroaches have lived on the Earth for 250 million years, many varieties, found today, look identical to the fossilized record of their ancestors.

Cockroaches have quite a capacity for survival. If the head of one is removed carefully, so as to prevent it from bleeding to death, the cockroach can survive for several weeks. When it dies, it is from starvation.

Biologists have discovered that cockroaches can change course as many as 25 times in one second, making them the most agile animal known.

PRAYING MANTIS
Was named so for it's front legs, these were modified into prey-grasping structures held to the position that reminds some people of praying. When mating the male approaches the female very carefully and after the mating ends the female praying mantis beheads the male and eat him.

SPIDERS
The spider may look like an insect, but it isn't one. It belongs to a group of creatures called arachnids. An insects body is divided into three parts - head, thorax and abdomen - while the body of a spider is divided into two parts, the head and the thorax being joined. There are other physical differences. The closest relative of the spider are the scorpion, mite and tick.

The tarantula can live without food for up to two years.

The venom of a female black widow spider is more potent than that of a rattlesnake.

MOTHS
It's natural for moths to lay their eggs in sunflower seeds. The eggs lay dormant as long as the seeds are stored in a cool dry place. In the summer, seeds get hot and the eggs hatch. A large group of moths are called "micros".

STINK BUG
Stink bugs earn their name for when squashed a very strong odor emits from it's thorax(body). This is to discourage birds and mammals from eating them, some subspecies can cause blisters to the skin.

BEES
Between 20,000 and 60,000 bees live in a single hive. The queen bee lays nearly 1,500 eggs a day and lives for up to 2 years. The drone, whose only job is to mate with the queen, has a lifespan of around 24 days and has no stinger. Worker bees - all sterile females - usually work themelves to death within 40 days, collecting pollen and nectar. Worker bees will fly up to 9 miles (14 km) to find pollen and nectar, flying at speeds as fast as 15 mph (24km/h).

SNAILS
Snails produce a colorless, sticky discharge that forms a protective carpet under them as they travel along. The discharge is so effective that snails can crawl along the edge of a razor without cutting themselves.

Snails sleep a lot. In addition to several months of winter hibernation, they crawl into their shells to get out of the hot sun, which dries them, or heavy rain, which waterlogs them. Desert snails may even doze for three or four years.

CICADAS
Cicadas have their hearing organs in their stomachs, at the base of the abdomen. They are well-known singers, the song is a mating call produced by the males only. Each species has it's own distinctive call and only attracts females of it's own kind, even though rather similar species may co-exist within the same territory. Cicadas are the only insects known to have developed such a specialized and effective means of producing sound.

CENTIPEDES
Centipedes always have an uneven number of pairs of walking legs, varying from 15 to more than 171 pairs. Common house centipedes have 15 pairs of legs.

BUTTERFLIES
Butterflies have a fine powder on their wings that helps them fly. Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees. And they taste with their hind feet.

WATER FLEAS
Female Water Fleas carry their eggs in a broad pouch, much like a backpack. This pouch is located between their carapace and their body. Vernal pool Water Fleas sometimes carry up to 20 eggs. The brood pouch can become so heavy that the Water Flea tips over. She has to swim upside down until the eggs hatch and the young Water Fleas swim away.