Topic of the day 3/25

Today, I wanted to do something a little lighthearted for a Friday.  I must admit that I was a bit inspired by my lunch snack - string cheese, and it's cute fun facts. It said Penguins can jump up to 6ft high! 
So I thought I'd look at some other animal facts for today's "lesson".

Here are some quick facts I discovered.

1. The loudest animal on earth is the humpback whale.
2. The longest gestation period for any animal is the elephant at 22 mos. the shortest is the short nosed bandicot at 12 days.
3. The whale shark has 4,000 teeth.  The most of any animal on earth.
4. There are 701 pure breeds of dogs.
5. A snail can sleep for 3 years.
6. A cow can supply nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
7. A shark is immune to all diseases and can not get sick.
8. The black mambo snake is the deadliest animal in the world with a mortality rating of 95%.
9. Mosquitos are most attracted to the color blue.
10. The spine-tail swift is the fasted bird and can fly at speeds up to 106mph.

11. Giraffes have the highest blood pressure of any recorded animal.

And one detailed question:
Chameleons can camoflauge themselves to blend into their surroundings.  Some animals grow new fur or feathers as the seasons change from colorfull and bright to white and wintery, producing a whole new coat to alter their appearance. 
Chameleons are furless though, so how do they change colors so readily?
Chameleons and other camo capable reptiles, amphibians and fish have living skin cells with biochromes in them that determine the color that they portray.  This is cool.  We as humans have dead skin cells so the makeup in the them is unaltering, but these critters actually have living skin! 
These biochromes can be on the skins surface or deeper imbedded.  The deeper biochromes are called chromatophores.
Chromataphores are voluntary muscles that the creature can voluntarily alter to match it's surroundings.  Surprisingly, chameleons are less concerned with camoflauge and are more interested in expressing their moods.

Cool!  Kinda makes me want one.