Animal Facts You Not Have Known...

The Pixar movie "Finding Nemo" is about a single father clown fish named Marlin raising his only surviving child, Nemo, after a barracuda eats his wife, Coral, and all his other eggs.

However, if we look at some real world facts, the story gets a little darker.

Firstly, in real life Barracuda don't eat clown fish, they are not part of their palette and barracuda's prefer fish like anchovies and skrill. So Coral and the other eggs couldn't have been eaten by the barracuda. But do you know what does eat clown fish? OTHER CLOWN FISH!!

Female clown fish are bigger, stronger and more dominant than their male counterparts, its actually the most dominant female that is the leader when it comes to clown fish. Female clown fish are known for cannibalizing their offspring in certain situations that are stressful or dangerous and it usually happens with the first batch of eggs.

Therefore it is possible that Marlin's family were actually offed by a deranged Coral and once she returned to her senses she committed suicide by refusing to eat until she died. Suicide is more common among fish than you would think, many fish owners have noted that their fish fling themselves from their tanks as a form of suicide. Coral's method is more likely living in the sea.

In order to deal with the loss of his children and wife, Marlin's psyche fabricated the idea that he was able to save a single egg in order to maintain some sanity. Therefore the entire movie is a figment of Marlin's imagination, the idea of his son leaving is actually the healthy part of his mind trying to break out his illusion as the movie gets more dangerous and hectic, it only settled when his mind determined that he was not able to cope without it. It can be said that Pixar alluded to this with Nemo's name which in Latin directly translate to "No one".

Here's a bonus clown fish fact before we move on. All clown fish are born males, the most dominant will change sex to female and this process is irreversible. Therefore clown fish are hermaphrodites.

WARNING - YOU MAY FIND SOME OF THE FOLLOWING FACTS DISTURBING.

You may recognize the cartoon character above as Taz the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons. Here's what he would look like in real life.

Personally, I find the real version really cute. But, after reading the following fact, will you?

Tasmanian devils got their name from the sounds they make that scared early European settlers who described their noise as "satanic" and called them "devils. If you're wondering what they sound like, the scream of Venom in Spiderman 3 was actually Tasmanian devils. Go ahead and google it.

Tasmanian devils are not dangerous to people as most of their diet consists of already dead animals, so they're kind of like furry land vultures. That's good news for us as these devils have a jaw strong enough to rip through metal traps, they have one of the strongest bites of any animal their size.

Even though Tasmanian devils don't kill their own meals, that doesn't mean their feeding habits aren't still disturbing. These animals will crawl inside the corpse and eat them from the inside out, earning their name.

Yeah... That's nasty. Moving on :)

I bet you might be asking yourself, "what could be interesting or unknown about giraffes, they're not the most exciting animals".

Lets start with a simple one. Because giraffes are easily the tallest thing on a dry open savanna, it's not uncommon for them to be struck by lightning. When this happens, their hearts literally beat themselves to death.

Giraffe's have hooves the size of dinner plates and have been seen decapitating lions with one kick. Yes, in real life Melvin the giraffe could send Simba on a one way flight to see his dad.

Due to their deadliness to predators, baby giraffes will hide under their mothers to stay safe but unfortunately sometime a mother can accidentally land a blow on its child with a kick that will shatter its neck.

WARNING - THIS NEXT ONE IS A LITTLE DISTURBING

Over 80% of giraffe sex is between two males and nothing would be wrong with that if it was for love. But its not. Its more often a case of an older stronger male giraffe asserting his dominance over a younger, weaker male.

Last giraffe fact - MATING!

Male giraffes flirt by repeatedly slamming their heads into the side of a female until she pees herself. They then taste test her pee to see if she is ovulating to decide whether to apply pressure.

There you have it, weird and interesting facts about three different animals that are not really spoken about and I can guarantee you haven't heard of most of them.