Egg Fun Facts

Meringue comes in three types: French (raw whipped whites + sugar), Swiss (whites heated with sugar over a bain-marie then whipped), and Italian (hot sugar syrup poured into whipping whites).

Source: The Professional Pastry Chef, Bo Friberg

An ostrich egg weighs about 1.4 kg (3 lbs) and is equivalent to roughly 24 chicken eggs. Despite being the largest bird egg, it's the smallest egg relative to the bird's body size.

Source: San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

Emperor penguins don't build nests. The male balances the single egg on his feet, covered by a brood pouch, for about 65 days in Antarctic winter temperatures reaching -60°C (-76°F).

Source: National Geographic — Emperor Penguin

The platypus is one of only five living species of monotremes — mammals that lay eggs. The female lays 1-3 leathery eggs and incubates them by curling around them for about 10 days.

Source: Australian Museum

A hen can lay about 300 eggs per year. That's almost one egg every 26 hours. High-production breeds like the White Leghorn can exceed 320 eggs annually.

Source: University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service

Crocodile egg sex is determined by incubation temperature, not chromosomes. Eggs incubated at 31.6°C (89°F) produce males; temperatures above or below that threshold produce females.

Source: Journal of Experimental Zoology, 1994

The Australian malleefowl builds a mound of rotting vegetation up to 5 meters wide to incubate its eggs. The male regulates mound temperature by adding or removing material — a living thermostat.

Source: BirdLife International

Some species of cuckoo lay eggs that closely mimic the appearance of their host species' eggs — a form of brood parasitism refined over millions of years of evolutionary arms race.

Source: Nature, 'Coevolutionary arms races between cuckoos and their hosts' (2000)

Sea turtles return to the exact beach where they were born to lay their eggs, navigating thousands of miles across open ocean using Earth's magnetic field.

Source: Current Biology, 2015 — 'Sea Turtle Navigation'

Hummingbird eggs are the smallest bird eggs in the world. The bee hummingbird's egg is about 6mm long and weighs roughly 0.3 grams — less than a paperclip.

Source: Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Chickens can recognize and remember more than 100 individual faces, including humans. They also have over 30 distinct vocalizations for different situations.

Source: Animal Cognition, 2005; Scientific American