Mr. Write's Page

More “Useless Facts for Inquiring Minds.”

● Wolf packs range in size from two to 30 members and average about 10. The number varies with such factors as the availability of prey in the territory. In most cases, a pack consists of parents and a season or two of offspring.

● Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender.

● Change for a dollar bill can be made in 292 different ways. 293 if you count swapping a dollar bill for a dollar coin.

● The rarest color combination among humans is red hair and blue eyes. Both are recessive traits; only about 17 percent of us have blue eyes, and less than two percent have red hair. Blue-eyed redheads make up about one percent of the population.

● The ears of an elephant radiate heat to help the animals stay cool. Elephants also spray water on themselves with their trunks, after which they may roll in the dirt to add a layer of insulation.

● The northernmost community in the US is Point Barrow, Alaska.

● The soft drink Sprite was introduced in West Germany in 1959 by the Coca-Cola Company. Back then, it was part of the Fanta line and was called Fanta Klare Zitrone (Fanta Clear Lemon). It was renamed Sprite when introduced in the US a few years later to compete with 7 Up.

● The world’s fastest animal is the peregrine falcon, which swoops down on its prey at an average of 185 mph. The highest measured speed: 242 mph.