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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 20 general entries.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Baby Animal Names
Elver. It's hard to think of some of these animals as babies. A nymph is a baby cockroach (also some other insects are called nymphs) and an ephyna is a baby jellyfish.
Echidna. The echidna is one of only two oviparous mammals; the other one is the platypus. The echidna lays a single egg in the mother's pouch. The baby hatches after ten days and gets milk from a gland in the pouch. Within a few weeks the baby grows sharp spines and must leave the pouch.
Dove. It originally meant "a very young bird".
Spat. Eggs laid by such creatures as toads and frogs are called spawn while fry is a general name used for a young fish. Softshell or soft-shell refers to a type of turtle or a newly-moulted crab.
After it is fertilised, usually in the water surrounding the oyster bed, an oyster's egg develops into a free-swimming larva or veliger which eventually grows a protruding 'foot' gland, when it becomes known as a pediveliger. The pediveliger then settles against a solid object, often another oyster's shell, and the gland secretes an adhesive substance that permanently attaches the larva to it. The young oyster is then known as a spat and matures into an adult oyster over the next year. At first the adult is male but becomes female during the next two to three years and may change sex several times more during its lifespan.
Poult. Grice is the name of an extinct breed of pig while squeaker and tumbler can be used to describe a young pigeon and a young mosquito respectively. Like the young of other game birds such as ptarmigans, young grouse are called poults and a group of grouse is known as a covey.
Different species of grouse are distributed across the northern hemisphere and live in moorland, forests and hills. Mostly about the size of a large chicken, they nest on the ground where the hen normally lays from six to fifteen eggs in a clutch. The young birds leave the nest very soon after hatching and at first feed mainly on insects and other small invertebrates. As they mature though, the poults gradually adopt the adult diet of vegetation such as seeds and leaves.
Calf. Although a potto is a type of lemur, both pup and infant are names used for a number of different young animals. Moles and hamsters, for example, give birth to young known as pups, while monkeys and gorillas (as well as humans) produce offspring called infants. Cows, elephants and giraffes are some of the other animals that, like the hippopotamus, give birth to babies known as calves.
The group name for hippopotami (or hippopotamuses) is a herd or a bloat, and it can consist of from five to about thirty animals. There are two species of hippopotami/amuses - the common and the pygmy. The common hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal after the elephant and the white rhinoceros by weight and, at about the same average size as this rhinoceros, the joint second largest by size after the elephant. Hippopotami/amuses are most closely related to whales and often give birth under water so that, sometimes with its mother's assistance, the newborn calf must swim to the surface to take its first breath.
Wild duck. The young of most, if not all, birds can be called chicks but, like a baby partridge, a young wild duck can also be known as a flapper. Once they have grown out of their chick stage, young domestic chickens are known as pullets or cockerels (depending on their sex) before becoming hens or cocks/roosters. There are a number of collective names for a group of wild ducks including a raft and a paddling.
The three main types of wild ducks are diving ducks (such as pochards), sea ducks (such as scoters), and dabbling ducks (such as gadwalls). Wild ducks generally lay somewhere between eight and fifteen eggs in a clutch, with the exact number varying between species. Almost as soon as they have hatched, the mother leads her young to the nearest water and specifically to the feeding areas there, and the baby ducks are able to forage for themselves.
Otters. Zebras, as well as horses and donkeys, give birth to foals whereas young frogs are known as tadpoles, polliwogs or froglets. Baby ferrets are known as kits, sharing the term with young badgers and polecats, among others. Like a baby coyote, a young otter is called a whelp and it may also be known as a pup or cub.
A group of otters, of which there are thirteen species, is known as a raft or romp, among other terms. As its name suggests, the sea otter lives mainly in water whereas the other species spend most of their time on land. Otters live in holts, where the female generally gives birth to an average of two to three young. The whelps only begin swimming at about two to three months old and stay with their mother for about a year.
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