We hate to break it to you penguin lovers, but those flightless birds we know and adore aren’t actually penguins — in fact, there are no true penguins left anymore. The term “penguin” was originally used as an alternative name for the great auk, whose binomial name is Pinguinus impennis, meaning “plump or fat without feathers.” Great auks sadly went extinct more than 180 years ago. The birds we call penguins today aren’t closely related to those original penguins at all. They belong to the Spheniscidae family rather than Alcidae, and the Sphenisciformes order rather than Charadriiformes, which is to say that puffins, guillemots, and other auks are more closely related to actual penguins than today’s penguins are.

Penguins are the only birds that can’t fold their wings.

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Penguin wings are short, stiff, and fused straight in such a way that they’re unable to fold. Their strength and rigidity has earned more comparisons to flippers rather than conventional wings.

It’s believed that everyone’s favorite Antarctica residents got their name from errant sailors who called them penguins simply because of their strong resemblance to the great auk. Both species are flightless yet excellent swimmers, with black backs, white bellies, an upright stance, and webbed feet. Pinguinus impennis lived in the coastal waters of the North Atlantic and could be found everywhere from the East Coast of the United States to the western shores of Europe, as well as Iceland and Greenland. They went extinct for the same reason that many other species did: People liked the way they tasted and were careless, even cruel, in their treatment.

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Compared to other members of the animal kingdom, humans are pretty good at tasting things. Our primate biology gives us the ability to detect five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (or savory). These five basic tastes create the nearly limitless flavor profiles of all the foods we enjoy (or detest) — but not all animals are so lucky. Birds, for example, can’t detect spiciness in foods, which is why a pigeon could munch on a Carolina Reaper without a second thought. Taste also varies widely among mammals, and dolphins and whales may be some of the worst off, because they have devolved to only taste salt. That’s right — these unfortunate creatures have slowly lost their sense of taste over millions of years. 

Taste buds are only on your tongue.

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Humans have between 2,000 and 10,000 taste buds (we lose some as we age), and a majority of them are located on the tongue. However, other parts of the mouth, including the soft palate, inner cheek, esophagus, and epiglottis, also contain taste buds.

In 2014, scientists analyzed the genomes of 15 species of baleen and toothed whales, and found a massive loss of taste receptors across the board. Although these receptors were technically still present, they had been irreparably damaged by genetic mutations. Researchers were particularly surprised by the loss of bitter receptors, as many toxins in the sea have a bitter taste. This slow-but-steady loss of taste is likely tied to how whales and dolphins eat, as they tend to swallow prey whole rather than chew like many fellow mammals do. So while slowly losing their sense of taste is certainly a bitter pill to swallow, luckily these cetaceans can’t taste it anyway. 

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By the end of the 1970s, Hollywood screenwriter Robert Towne had reached the pinnacle of his profession by way of his celebrated work on classics such as Chinatown and Shampoo. Set to make his directing debut with the sports drama Personal Best, he was also heavily invested in a film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan books, which he intended to direct.

Rin Tin Tin garnered the most votes for Best Actor at the first Academy Awards.

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Although legend has it that the winning votes for the prolific German shepherd actor were overturned by organizers who wanted the 1929 ceremony to be treated seriously, further research has shown that consideration for Rin Tin Tin came from a studio executive’s joke ballot.

Of course, it's a dog-eat-dog world in the high-stakes business of moviemaking, and after a 1980 Screen Actors Guild strike halted production of Personal Best, Towne sought out independent financing in a deal that ultimately forced him to relinquish his rights to the Tarzan property. And when Personal Best flopped at the box office in 1982, Warner Bros. handed Tarzan to director Hugh Hudson, who subsequently brought in writer Michael Austin to revise Towne's sprawling, unfinished script.

Unhappy with the wholesale changes to his story, Towne took a page from the disgruntled directors who disown their films under the pseudonym of Alan Smithee and insisted on being credited as "P.H. Vazak" — the name of his Hungarian sheepdog — for his contributions to the script. Lo and behold, the completed Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes garnered a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination in 1985 for the duo of Michael Austin and P.H. Vazak. The awards ceremony seemed ripe for comedy, but ultimately human Peter Shaffer received the trophy for Amadeus.

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The end of the dinosaurs is often pictured as an apocalyptic event complete with a giant asteroid, a cataclysmic collision, and general fire and brimstone-type stuff, but the ends of biological epochs are rarely so cut-and-dried. In fact, the story of the dinosaurs didn’t even end on that unfortunate spring day 65 million years ago, because dinosaurs still live among us — we just call them birds. 

Chickens are the most abundant wild birds in the world.

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Chickens are the most abundant domesticated birds, but the most plentiful wild bird is the red-billed quelea (Quelea quelea). This sparrow-like bird, native to sub-Saharan Africa, flies in synchronized hordes, and has an estimated world population of 1.5 billion.

Today, scientists consider all birds a type of dinosaur, descendants of creatures who survived the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous. And yes, that even includes the chicken. In 2008, scientists performed a molecular analysis of a shred of 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein, and compared it to a variety of proteins belonging to many different animals. Although proteins from alligators were relatively close, the best match by far belonged to ostriches — the largest flightless birds on Earth — and the humble chicken. 

Today’s chicken is a descendant of a still-extant tropical bird known as the red junglefowl, and a member of an order of birds known as Galliformes (gallus means “rooster” in Latin). Following the initial 2008 study, further research has proved that a chicken’s genetic lineage closely resembles that of its avian dinosaur ancestors. Scientists have even concluded that a reconstruction of T. rex’s chromosomes would likely produce something similar to a chicken, duck, or ostrich. So the next time you eat a chicken for dinner, you might pause to consider its connection to some of the most fearsome beasts to ever stalk the planet.

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