Biology By Numbers

I have had a bit of fun, calculating some biological phenomena using basic maths (so, any errors are wholly mine). I have often used these factoids in birthday greetings (some of you may have been subjected to one or more). I thought it might be entertaining to list them here, before coming up with some new items (a kind of intellectual Spring cleaning):- 1. "The Silver ant is reportedly the world’s fastest ant runner. If they lived for a year and could maintain their top speed over this time, they could run 640 marathons between your birthdays." 2. "In only circa 1/6th of the time since your last birthday, a single female House fly could generate (assuming no early deaths) around 7,812,500,000 flies!" 3."Timber bamboo can grow >90cm per day. If it could continue this rate for every day between your birthdays, it would reach a height greater than the Eiffel tower!" 4. "If a birthday Bluebird could maintain its top flight speed both day and night for the entire year, it could circumnavigate the equator of the Earth more than 37 times." 5. "If a Peregrine falcon could dive from the Earth (overcoming gravity, extreme cold and the lack of oxygen), travelling at its maximum speed through space towards the Sun (spoiler alert- No way, Jose!), it would get less than 1/50th of its way to the target between your birthdays." 6. "A 3-toed sloth (an even slower animal than myself) when running both day and night on the ground, without stopping for any reason (such as eating or drinking), could complete fewer than 25 Marathons between your birthdays." 7. "A Bar-tailed godwit is the Mo Farah of the avian world. If it could spend all its time between your birthdays migrating at its maximum speed, it could cover 398,182k. This is 13,782k more than a trip to the moon!"