This one is just for fun. The subtitle is "Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong."

The authors state in the introduction that "Animals know things we don't. You may think this is pretty obvious, but in a book about 'animal ignorance,' it's important to point out who it is that's ignorant here." They say that this is not a reference book nor an animal rights polemic. It's an "armchair safari" about a hundred animals, because they can cheer us up and they deserve our respect.

So here are some samples. Did you know that more than half of the phyla of the animal kingdom are made up of various kinds of worm? Or that woodlice are edible? One researcher gave a recipe for a woodlouse sauce. How about the fact that the blue whale is the largest animal that ever lived? Not just now, but ever.

Aardvarks don't have any close relatives. Their teeth are completely different from any other animal. Brown bears can be black and black bears can be brown. It seems that it is important to know the difference. Anyway, in the United States, you are more likely to die from a bee sting than by a bear.

Speaking of bees, they have a sense of time and can recognize human faces. The authors speculate that they didn't want to get to know the humans socially in that experiment, but saw them as rather odd-looking flowers. And then there are beetles. "There are about 750,000,000,000,000,000, individual beetles going about their business right now."

I had not heard of the binturong. It sounds like a good crossword puzzle word, though. It is the only Old World carnivore that uses its tail for climbing. It is a member of the civet family and lives in the trees of southern Asia's tropical forests.

Cane toads were taken to Australia to control the ravages of the cane beetle. Seventy years later, the cane toad population has grown and changed, but the cane beetle population remains the same.

Magicicadas, the cicadas of the eastern United States, spend years below ground feeding on tree roots. There are 30 different broods, each of which is timed to hatch at a different time. The 13 and 17-year cycles coincide only once every 221 years.

Cranes hold all kinds of records: the longest surviving species of a bird, the oldest recorded bird (83 years), the tallest flying bird, the highest flying bird.

Maybe you want to find all this for yourself? The Book of Animal Ignorance is available at the Mary Willis Library. You'll be the life of the party at your next event.