The world is a stranger, more beautiful place than you could ever imagine.
#22. Bioluminescent phytoplankton can create a beautiful blue glow when they are washed to shore as in this picture taken in Dongying, Shandong Province, China.
#21. There is a lake in Senegal that turns entirely pink due to the light-absorbing algae it contains.
#20. The Zhangye Danxia Landform in Gansu, China, is formed out of colored rocks resulting from red sandstone and deposits of minerals building up over the course of 24 million years.
#19. A blue whale’s heart is as large as a small car, with some arteries large enough for a human to swim through.
#18. Some of the largest natural crystals ever discovered were formed by hydrothermal fluids in the “Cave of Crystals” below the Naica Mine in Mexico.
#17. Goats have rectangular pupils.
#16. In Christmas Island, Australia, red crabs migrate en masse from the forest to the ocean to breed, during the spring.
#15. There’s a tree in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, that has adapted its roots to grow in the pattern of the brick pavement around it.
#14. The Moeraki Boulders on the Otaki coast of New Zealand occur isolated and in clusters. Their highly spherical shape is the result of wave erosion.
#13. During the rainy season, 4,000 square miles of salt flats in Bolivia transforms into the world’s largest naturally occurring mirror.
#12. Nobody knows where the water from Devil’s Kettle Falls in Minnesota goes. Water falls into a giant pothole without any discoverable exit.
Researchers have dumped multiple different kinds of materials into the falls, including colored dyes, logs, and ping pong balls, but no one has ever been able to figure out where it goes.
#11. Most regular clouds weigh around 215 thousand pounds. The average storm cloud weighs around 105 million pounds.
#10. In 1969, scientist Ágúst Bjarnason found a tomato plant in the lava of the volcanic island of Surtsey. It had grown from the feces of one of the very few scientists allowed to visit the island.
#9. The species of jellyfish called Turritopsis dohrnii is technically biologically immortal.
#8. The sounds made by the wind blowing in the Sagano Bamboo Forest in Japan has been voted as a “must-be-preserved sound” by the Japanese government.
#7. There is a place in southwestern Turkey called Pamukkale, where natural terraces containing hot springs form due to carbonate buildup. “Pamukkale” means “cotton castle.”
#6. The largest glacier in Europe, the Vatnajokull national park, is so massive that in the summer months, the meltwater creates ice caverns that are large enough to be explored.
#5. The world’s largest cave wasn’t discovered until 1991. Son Doong Cave in Vietnam could fit 15 of the world’s largest aircraft carriers inside it, and the ceiling is high enough to contain the 47-floor Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
#4. A small treehouse called La Casa del Arbol at the edge of a cliff near the Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador is home to “The Swing at the Edge of the World.”
#3. There is a massive, round sinkhole off the coast of Belize that’s 1,000 feet across and 400 feet deep.
#2. Hummingbirds can fly backwards. They are the only known animal that can do this.
#1. The roof of the “Glowworm Grotto” in the Waitomo Caves lights up like the night sky thanks to a luminescent species of glowworm called Arachnocampa luminosa that are only found in New Zealand.
