The truly hard part of defining twenty amazing facts about the animal kingdom is to limit it to only twenty. It honestly wouldn't be difficult to come up with twenty amazing facts about every genus of animal. This means that the following are not even close to all the amazing facts there are about the animal kingdom, however perhaps we can break it down a little.

Insects

1. Insects aren't just amazing; they are astonishing. To begin with, there are more individual insects than all other individual animals from all other species combined. The total weight of insects also exceeds the total weight of all mammals on the planet. Many insect species have been around for many millions of years.

2. Insects are also among the hardiest and strongest animals on the planet. Cockroaches submitted to extreme radiation, which would kill a human quickly, survive. An ant can lift over seven times its own body weight. Some insects withstand great cold while others can live in extreme heat.

3. Many insects can be damaging to crops, homes, and to man, yet they also can be the basis of food for a large number of animals, including birds. Some are also beneficial for plant life, to the extent that some species of plant would perish without those insects.

Other creepy crawlies

4. Spiders inject venom into their prey that digests the tissues of the insect, inside its exoskeleton. To feed, they merely need to slurp up or suck out the 'soup' that is left inside the insect's body. Some of the venom of certain spiders is so powerful it can cause death in a healthy human, or acute necrosis (death of tissue).

5. Earthworms eat and digest vegetable matter and expel it in a form plants are able to use. So efficient at this are they, that areas having few earthworms usually also don't have many plants.

6. While not true in all cases, how deadly a scorpion is can often be told by looking at the pincers. Those with relatively mild venom in their sting usually have large and robust pincers, while those that are very venomous often have small and delicate ones.

7. Using a black light, scorpions appear to glow in the dark.

8. For its diameter, spider silk is stronger than high-grade steel.

Water animals

9. Whales are able to hear the sounds of other whales from hundreds of miles away. This is especially great for whales such as the blue whale, which is rare and ranges the vastness of the oceans, because it allows them to find mates.

10. Several species of starfish are able to create an entire body

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