250 Fun Facts: Technology, Sports, Music, Art & Famous Places

Rafflesia arnoldii produces the largest single flower in the world, nearly a metre wide, and it smells like rotting meat to attract flies.

The titan arum, or "corpse flower," can take years to bloom, and its flower lasts only a day or two.

In 2005, scientists sprouted a date palm from a seed about 2,000 years old, found at an ancient fortress in Israel.

The world's smallest flowering plant is wolffia, also called watermeal. Each plant is smaller than a grain of rice.

Coconuts can float across oceans and still sprout when they wash up on a distant beach.

Pando, a grove of aspen trees in Utah, is actually a single living organism connected by one giant root system.

Baobab trees can store thousands of litres of water in their huge trunks to survive dry seasons.

Sandalwood trees develop their famous fragrance slowly, and the best scented wood comes from older trees.

The lotus is India's national flower, and lotus seeds can stay alive for hundreds of years before sprouting.

Pitcher plants trap insects in cup-shaped leaves filled with digestive liquid. India's Khasi Hills are home to a rare species of pitcher plant.

A strangler fig starts life on top of another tree and slowly wraps its roots around it, sometimes replacing the original tree completely.

For centuries, people in India have used twigs from the neem tree as natural toothbrushes, called datun.

When some plants, like tomatoes, are attacked by insects, they release chemicals that can warn nearby plants to prepare their defences.

The ginkgo tree is often called a "living fossil." Its family has existed for around 200 million years, and some ginkgo trees even survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Mushrooms are more closely related to animals than they are to plants.

One of the largest living organisms on Earth is a honey fungus in Oregon, USA, which spreads underground across nearly 10 square kilometres.

Cotton is a fibre that grows around the seeds of the cotton plant, and India is one of the world's largest cotton producers.

Orchids make up one of the largest flowering plant families, with around 28,000 known species.

More than a million insect species have been named by scientists, and many more are still waiting to be discovered.

Dragonflies are some of the best hunters in the animal kingdom, catching their prey up to around 95% of the time.

A firefly's light is almost 100% efficient, producing light with very little wasted heat.

A single ladybird can eat thousands of tiny insects called aphids in its lifetime, making it a gardener's friend.

Monarch butterflies migrate up to around 4,000 kilometres between Canada, the USA and Mexico, a journey that takes several generations.

A cockroach can survive for about a week without its head.

Termite mounds have a natural ventilation system, which inspired the design of a cool, energy-saving building in Zimbabwe.

Leafcutter ants don't eat the leaves they carry. They use them to grow fungus, which they farm for food.

A single silkworm cocoon is made from one continuous thread that can be several hundred metres long.

Butterfly wings are actually see-through. Their colours come from thousands of tiny scales covering the wings.

Honeybees have five eyes: two large ones and three small ones on top of their heads.

Many ants can carry objects several times heavier than their own bodies.

A single "supercolony" of Argentine ants stretches for thousands of kilometres along the coast of southern Europe.

Grasshoppers have their ears on the sides of their bellies.

Crickets hear through ears located on their front legs.

A flea can jump dozens of times its own body length.

Some cicadas spend 13 or 17 years underground before emerging as adults all at once.

A praying mantis can turn its head around 180 degrees to look over its shoulder.

Some stick insects can grow to more than 60 centimetres long, including their outstretched legs.

The Goliath beetle of Africa is one of the heaviest insects in the world.

Some butterflies drink the tears of turtles and crocodiles to get the salt they need.

Earthworms aren't insects, but they have five pairs of heart-like organs.

Spiders aren't insects either. Insects have six legs, while spiders have eight.

Spider silk is stronger than steel of the same weight.

Some cicadas are louder than a lawnmower.

A queen honeybee can lay up to around 2,000 eggs in a single day.

A single swarm of desert locusts can contain billions of insects and travel long distances in search of food.