Brazil Facts

In Brazil, louse cockroaches (Nocticola species) have been documented crawling on sleeping children's faces to feed on secretions around their eyes and eyelashes.

The most expensive cow in the world was sold $1.3 million.

There is a prison in Brazil that allows inmates to pedal stationary bicycles, providing electricity to a nearby city in exchange for reduced sentences.

In Brazil, Christmas is celebrated with fireworks.

Brazil has their own version of Miss America. Miss Bumbum Brazil pageant is an annual competition for the best butt in the country.

In Brazil, prison inmates can reduce their sentence by 4 days (up to 48 days a year) for every book they read and write a report on.

In 1959, the citizens of São Paulo were so fed up with corrupt politicians that they elected a rhinoceros named Cacareco to the city council with nearly 100,000 votes—more than any human candidate. Her name meant 'garbage,' which voters felt perfectly described the political establishment.

Rio de Janeiro was once capital of Portugal, making it the only European capital outside of Europe.

In 2011, a penguin covered in oil and starving on a beach near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was rescued by a pensioner. Ever since then, Dindim the penguin travels 5,000 miles every year to visit him.

Christ the Redeemer towers over Rio de Janeiro with its arms outstretched. Lightning strikes it 3 to 5 times every year. A 2014 storm blew the tip off the right thumb. The church keeps a stock of original soapstone to repair each strike.

In Laguna, Brazil, wild dolphins herd entire schools of mullet toward fishermen waiting in the shallows, then slap the water or dive deep to signal the exact second to cast the net. Nobody trained them to do this. Fishermen haul in more and bigger fish, and the dolphins scoop up whatever scatters free. It has happened for well over a century, and how the skill spreads between dolphins is still a mystery.