Top 10 Interesting Facts about Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom Logo. Photo by TNT – Wikimedia Commons

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Animal Kingdom

The complexities of the animal kingdom never cease to amaze and, after millions of years of evolution, many species have adapted in ways that belittle human endeavors. Whether it’s effortlessly flying, “breathing underwater, or simply being alien in appearance, these 20 animal facts will remind you of the amazing world beyond human society.

1. Animal kingdom occupies a large space as it also hosts a lot of animals inside it.

Animal Kingdom Entrance. Photo by UpstateNYer – Wikimedia Commons

Animal Kingdom covers more than 500 acres. It approximately has 250 species represented by over 1,000 animals. To keep 1,000 animals happy is not an easy job.

2. The over 100 animals in the animal kingdom consume a lot of food as well

Mountain and sea at Disney’s animal kingdom. Photo by Rjayzx – Wikimedia Commons

It takes about four tons of food a day, that is a four-and-a-half-year supply for an average person.

More than 2,000 pounds of vegetation and browse are fed to the animals every day, and several varieties of worms are provided to the animals, including super mealworms, yellow mealworms, red wigglers, nightcrawlers, and wax worms — 40,000 in a week! Dieticians also order 80,000 crickets per month as part of a healthy diet for the animals.

3. The fact that there is a Disney animal kingdom should attract children more to the animal kingdom

Disney’s_Animal_Kingdom. Photo by Matanya- Wikimedia Commons

Disney’s Animal Kingdom is home to the largest groups of Nile hippos and African elephants in North America. The first birth at Disney’s Animal Kingdom was a kudu, a large African antelope.

Disney Animal Kingdom scientists have discovered two new vocalizations never before reported in elephants.

4. The Animal Kingdom has brought life to a whole lot of animal offspring

Disney’s_Animal_Kingdom. Photo by Matanya – Wikimedia Commons

The number of species that have reproduced since the park opened is 116. Two Micronesian Kingfisher chicks were hatched at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, raising the world population of these birds by 3 percent.

The arrival of a black rhino calf born at Disney’s Animal Kingdom made him one of only 250 worldwide.

5. Animals also need to be taken care of and keep their health in check as well thanks to veterinarians

The Disney Animal Kingdom shows two Crocodiles. Photo by Matanya – Wikimedia Commons

Animal Programs veterinarians have successfully performed surgery on a tarantula spider, placed an artificial eye in a fish, and removed a golf ball from a hungry snake rescued at a Disney golf course.

The Animal Programs team performs more than 600 wellness checks per year. Lab technicians have analyzed more than 10,000 samples of animal poop since Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened.

6. The plantation and artifacts in the animal kingdom should also be an interesting thing to attract you to visit there.

The Disney Animal Kingdom. Photo by Matanya – Wikimedia Commons

More than 4 million trees, plants, shrubs, ground-covers, vines, epiphytes, and grasses from every continent on Earth — except Antarctica — were planted.

There are one million square feet of rockwork at Disney’s Animal Kingdom . . . that’s twice the volume of rockwork in the Mt. Rushmore sculptures or a volume that could create a monolith 10 feet by 10 feet by two miles high.

Some 1,500 2-to-3-foot-long fanciful hand-painted wooden folk art animal carvings — a fusion of pre-Columbian, Peruvian, African, and Polynesian forms — were crafted on the island of Bali by native craftsmen, and can be seen adorning the architecture of Safari Village.

The Tree of Life is 145 feet tall and its leafy branches spread 160 feet. It is topped with more than 103,000 transparent, five-shades-of-green leaves that blow in the wind.

Ten artists and three Imagineers worked full-time for 18 months to create the 325 animal carvings on The Tree of Life. Sculptors had between six and 10 hours to create the finished image before the plaster hardened.

There are 27 million gallons of water in Discovery River which is an amount equal to 1,800 average-sized backyard swimming pools.

There are 2.6 million gallons of water contained in various water features that come in contact with animals. On average, the entire volume of water is treated and filtered five times daily, which means that 15.6 million gallons of water are treated and filtered every day.

The largest tree replanted in the park is located in Harambe village and tipped the scales at 90 tons, which equates to the weight of 16 male elephants.

7. There is a whole of space for people to park their cars, sit or stand while in the Animal Kingdom

The Disney Animal Kingdom. Photo by Matanya – Wikimedia Commons

The parking lot can accommodate 6,000 vehicles and is 100 acres in size. There were more than 4,500 cast members on its opening day.

A core team of seven Walt Disney Imagineers, led by executive designer Joe Rohde, crisscrossed the globe in search of the essential look of life in the wild, amassing more than 500,000 miles in the last decade . . . a distance equal to circling the globe 20 times.

Sixty dump trucks of dirt were delivered to Disney’s Animal Kingdom construction site every day for two years straight, equaling 4.4 million cubic yards of dirt.

8. A whole lot of fun activities await you as you can have fun doing road trips, apart from just seeing the animals in the Animal Kingdom

Kingdom of animals. Photo Collection created by The Emirr – Wikimedia Commons

The rutted safari road also is part of the landscape design. Imagineering’s design team matched concrete with the surrounding soil, then rolled tires through it, and tossed stones, dirt, and twigs into it to create an appropriately bumpy experience duplicating a remote African road.

Planting Kilimanjaro Safaris was a challenge. With a ride-through attraction and live animals roaming about, planting patterns were based on what designers thought the animals would do, and what the guests will experience.

Paul Comstock, the principal landscape architect, laid out the plant bed lines on a motorcycle (using spray paint) riding at the same speed as the ride vehicle, “because guests will experience the landscape at that speed,” he said.

Like a snapshot from an African safari, towering acacia trees and tall grasses paint a familiar picture of the Serengeti on a vast stretch of rolling landscape, but this is Central Florida, not east Africa, and the acacias are 30-foot-tall Southern live oaks with a close-cropped crew cut.

9. The Animal Kingdom also gives you a chance to take part in Charity activities

Woman looking at some artifacts in Disney Animal Kingdom. Photo by Matanya – Wikimedia Commons

To support the incredibly large and sophisticated dinosaur Audio-Animatronics at DINOSAUR in DinoLand U.S.A., their dino-size bases were built clear through the structure down to their large foundations in the ground.

The cycad collection along Cretaceous Trail in DinoLand U.S.A. represents the third-largest such collection in North America, including direct descendants of the four botanical epochs of plant evolution dating back hundreds of millions of years, including ferns, mosses, conifers, broadleaf plants and the first flowering plants on earth.

Company founder Walt Disney’s love of animals began when he was four years old and his family moved from his Chicago birthplace to a 45-acre farm in Marceline, Missouri, where he helped take care of farm animals, as well as learned to draw pictures of his animal friends.

10. The year the Animal Kingdom was announced and its opening were in the 90s.

Elephants standing by a poolside in the Disney’s_Animal_Kingdom. Photo by Matanya – Wikimedia Commons

The Animal Kingdom Project was announced on June 5, 1995. The ground was broken in August 1995 and the Grand Opening was held on April 22, 1998.

Since 1995, the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund has devoted more than $6 million to conservation efforts around the world and has supported more than 230 projects.