I'm going to post some entries from two of my favorite books, "The Book of Useless Information," and "The Book of General Ignorance." I love this type of book as it appeals to my pack rat mind. The "Book of Useless Info" doesn't contain boring trivia like the length of the Mississippi. "All our information has to pass the "Not a Lot of People Know That' test," precede by gasps of surprise, and, in extreme cases, followed by wild applause."
Caveat: I'm quoting all answers directly from the book. If you find an error, it's theirs, but you can let me know. The Useless Info mascot is the squirrel, and about the squirrel it reports: It is estimated that millions of trees are planted by forgetful squirrels. (I once had a house with a 30 foot pecan planted two feet away from the foundation--a real dilemma because it was so tall.)
Squirrels can climb trees faster than they can run on the ground.
A squirrel cannot contract or carry the rabies virus. (But in the Rocky Mountain area they are carriers of bubonic plague--they don't die from it but they can spread it.)
My favorite squirrel story:The Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report of the CDC related a tale about a New York man hospitalized with severe fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, muscle cramps, bruises all over the body, and pneumonia. The doctors could not determine the cause of the infection until it was related that the man had been camping in New Mexico the week before and had "playfully tossed a dead squirrel toward his wife." So the moral of the story is to not get playful with your wife. <g>
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