The Mega Book of Useless Information. Noel Botham

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      • New Zealand has abandoned plans for a flatulence tax on animals in the face of fierce opposition from farmers.

      • A sea-hare can lay 40,000 eggs in one minute.

      • A three-year-old boxer is being dubbed the most allergic dog in the UK after being found to suffer severe allergies to grass, flowers, cotton, lamb, soya, white fish and most materials used in bedding.

      • China has built a biscuit factory to cater exclusively for the nutritional needs of its captive giant pandas.

      • British dog owners spend an average of £981 a year on their animals while cat owners shell out £476, researchers have concluded.

      • A gozzard is a person who owns geese.

      • A zoo in Russia is claiming a world record after a hippopotamus named Mary gave birth for the 24th time at the age of 47.

      • The UK’s first canine classroom assistant has been appointed to a school in Derbyshire.

      • Armadillos get an average of 18.5 hours of sleep per day.

      • After giving postmen training in dog psychology, the German Post Office claims attacks on them have been cut by 80 per cent.

      • A gym exclusively for dogs has opened in Santiago, Chile.

      • When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.

      • A zoo in India is serving brandy to bears to keep them warm in winter.

      • Chocolate affects a dog’s heart and nervous system; a few ounces are enough to kill a small dog.

      • A flock of swallows have delayed more than 100 flights after taking over a runway at Beijing International Airport.

      • A Canadian scientist claims to have proven that the world’s most expensive coffee really does taste better because the beans it is produced from have been eaten and defecated by a wild cat.

      • Former First Division footballer, ex-Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough defender Craig Harrison says he had dozens of dogs on a waiting list after opening a hydrotherapy pool for overweight hounds.

      • The UK faces an invasion of parakeets, with the wild population likely to exceed 100,000 in a decade, experts are warning.

      • Male and female rats may have sex twenty times a day.

       • Rabbits love liquorice.

      • An Essex man believes he has the biggest cockerel in Britain – a 2ft monster called Melvin.

      • Farm animals have been banned from council flats in Kiev after a survey found residents were keeping more than 3,000 pigs, 500 cows and 1,000 goats.

      • Mosquitoes have teeth.

      • Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.

      • Scottish scientists have become the first in the world to breed a golden eagle chick from frozen sperm.

      • A snake measuring more than 19ft long and weighing almost 16 stone was found inside a factory in Brazil.

      • Polar bears’ fur is not white, it’s clear. Polar bear skin is actually black. Their hair is hollow and acts like fibre optics, directing sunlight to warm their skin.

      • Italy has put border collies, corgis and St Bernards on a dangerous-dogs list that bans children and criminals from owning them.

      • A Japanese department store cashed in on a pet boom by offering a special £145 New Year meal for dogs.

      • Princess Tamara Borbon and her five-year-old Yorkshire terrier Bugsy were top of the bill at a canine fashion show at Harrods.

      • Thailand’s prime minister has banned vagrant elephants from the streets of Bangkok in an effort to ease traffic chaos.

      • Canada’s entry in the world’s most prestigious international art exhibition featured a video filmed by a Jack Russell puppy called Stanley.

      • Trained hawks employed to keep pigeons from making a mess on visitors in a Manhattan park were grounded in August 2003 because one of the birds mistook a Chihuahua for its lunch.

      • A British homing pigeon has become a star in the US after completing a 3,321-mile journey across the Atlantic.

      • Giant rats have been trained to sniff out landmines in Tanzania.

      • Most marine fish can survive in a tank filled with human blood.

      • Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.

      • Poodles, dachshunds and Chihuahuas have strutted down the catwalk at a fashion show organized by a Tokyo department store.

      • Some dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure, and even protect the child from injury. They’re not trained to do this, but simply learn to respond after observing at least one attack.

      • Rats destroy an estimated third of the world’s food supply each year.

      • The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.

      • International animal-rights groups are urged Thailand to ban orang-utan kickboxing fights being staged at a Bangkok safari park.

      • A chain of gyms in the US has started offering yoga classes for dogs.

      • Armadillos breed in July, but get pregnant in November after delaying implantation. This allows the young to be born during the spring when there is an abundance of food.

      • The world’s smallest winged insect is the Tanzanian parasitic wasp. It’s smaller than the eye of a housefly.

      • The world’s only robotic swimming shark is moving into an aquarium with four live sharks. The 2m-long creature called Roboshark2 will spend up to three years alongside sand tiger sharks at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth.

      • In Tokyo, they sell wigs for dogs.

      • Tarantulas can go up to two years without eating or drinking. Sea turtles can go up to 35 years without eating or drinking.

      • Manatees possess vocal chords that give them the ability to speak like humans, but they don’t do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.

      • Homing pigeons use roads where possible to help find their way home.

      • Authorities in New Delhi are planning to export cow dung and urine to the United States. The dung will be processed into compost while the urine will be converted into a biopesticide.

      • Engineers in the East Midlands are fitting rubber boots to the top of pylons to save squirrels from electrocution and keep the power flowing.

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