Andrew Jackson's pet parrot outlived him.
Poll, a grey parrot bought for Rachel Jackson in 1827, was still alive in 1850, five years after Jackson died. The famous tale of it swearing at his funeral rests on a single account written 76 years later.
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE
Sources · October 13, 2026
Every claim from this day’s challenge, with its verdict, explanation and sources.
Round 1
A sloth can starve to death on a full stomach.
Digestion depends on symbiotic gut bacteria; if its body temperature drops too low, the bacteria die and food rots undigested.
Poinsettias are highly toxic and deadly to pets.
The sap is mildly irritating and might cause mild nausea; a dog or cat would need to eat enormous quantities for real harm.
Round 2
Your body replaces roughly 330 billion cells every single day.
That's ~3.8 million new cells per second, mostly blood and gut lining — you are continuously rebuilt.
There is no sound in space.
Not for human ears in near-vacuum — but gas clouds can carry pressure waves. A black hole in the Perseus cluster makes ripples equal to a note ~57 octaves below middle C.
An ostrich buries its head in the sand when threatened.
It would suffocate. The myth comes from heat-haze distortions of ostriches tending low ground nests — and from them lying flat to hide.
Round 3
Sharks are older than trees — and far older than dinosaurs.
Shark relatives appear ~450 million years ago in the fossil record; true trees arrived ~390 million years ago, dinosaurs ~230 million.
The largest living organism on Earth is a mushroom.
Under the clonal-organism definition (one genetic individual, connected tissue), an Armillaria fungus in Oregon spans 965 hectares and is thousands of years old.
Goldfish forget everything every three seconds.
Goldfish learn mazes, recognize their keepers, and retain feeding cues for weeks to months. Their memory is impressive for a fish.