Talalala wrote: 
That was adorable! I want to live with them, they look like they have so much fun!

The Orangutan and the Hound

 Coaxial wrote: 
Mmmm sugar fist....

 manbirdexperiment wrote: 

I think he is stretched out with a sugar fist.

Biggest snake in the world found dead!

 

I think I'll go have a BLT now.

 

That'll do pig, zoo tells only porker

By Golnar Motevalli

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's only known pig trotted out of quarantine Saturday, two months after he was locked away because of swine flu fears, to bask again in the mud at the Kabul Zoo.

The pig, a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, was quarantined because visitors to the zoo were worried it could spread the new H1N1 flu strain, commonly known as swine flu.

"Our people did not understand that the disease only passes from person to person and felt that the swine influenza might even be spread from the zoo because we have a pig here," zoo manager Aziz Gul Saqib told Reuters.

"Other zoos abroad told us not to worry ... when people began to realize the disease doesn't come from the pig itself we decided to release the pig," he said.

"Khanzir" — Pashto for pig — appeared unperturbed as a team of zoo workers used sticks to gently prod him out of his temporary concrete home into his usual enclosure of lush green shrubs and a mud puddle.

Unsuspecting zoo visitors scattered as Khanzir dashed through the center of the zoo toward his enclosure.

One visitor, 17-year-old-Razaa, covered his nose and mouth with his t-shirt as the animal trotted past.

"It's a pig, it's the dirtiest thing, it might give me a disease," he said.

Two goats grazed quietly as their portly, pink porcine pal enthusiastically rubbed his snout in a small pool of mud.

Some human onlookers were not so comfortable.

"It is very haram (forbidden) and should not even been looked at. I don't think it should even be in the zoo," said another visitor named Nassim.

But others were intrigued.

"I think it's an interesting animal in terms of the way it looks. You can't really use it for anything ... it is haram and you shouldn't eat it," said 22-year old biology student Fatemeh.

Shabby and run-down, Kabul Zoo suffered badly during Afghanistan's three decades of war but is slowly improving.

Mujahideen fighters ate the deer and rabbits and shot dead the zoo's sole elephant during the 1992-94 civil war. Incoming shells shattered the aquarium.

Khanzir, who is about eight or nine years old according to Saqib, was one of a pair given to the zoo by China in 2002. His partner died about two years ago.

Afghanistan has reported no cases of the H1N1 flu virus.

REUTERS/Hamid Sayedi

Afghans look at Afghanistan's only known pig in Kabul Zoo July 4, 2009. 

Man Bites Python

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A Kenyan man bit a python who wrapped him in its coils and hauled him up a tree in a struggle that lasted hours, local media said Wednesday.

Farm manager Ben Nyaumbe was working at the weekend when the serpent, apparently hunting for livestock, struck in the Malindi area of Kenya's Indian Ocean coast.

"I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python," he told the Daily Nation newspaper.

When the snake coiled itself round his upper body, Nyaumbe resorted to desperate measures: "I had to bite it."

The python dragged him up a tree, but when it eased its grip, Nyaumbe said he was able to take a mobile phone out of his pocket and phone for help.

When his supervisor came with a policeman, Nyaumbe smothered the snake's head with his shirt, while the rescuers tied it with a rope and pulled.

"We both came down, landing with a thud," said Nyaumbe, who survived with damaged lips and bruising.

The snake escaped from the three sacks it was bundled into.

 manbirdexperiment wrote: 
i remember that show!

 rosedraws wrote: 

That's incredible!

 kysmet wrote: 

 rosedraws wrote: 
1.  Wow, cool!  Cool video on that webpage, too.
2.  He looks drunk
3.  Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads...fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum! 

 rosedraws wrote: 
Wow!

The fish with the see-through head.  Astounding.

Polar bear fate seen to depend on emissions cuts

 

By John Acher

OSLO (Reuters) - Global warming is threatening polar bears as it melts their icy Arctic habitat, Norway's environment minister said on Monday.

"If the ice is disintegrating in the Arctic, it will have enormous impact on polar bears," Environment and Development Minister Erik Solheim told reporters on the eve of a meeting to discuss the future of the huge white carnivore.

The meeting is the first since 1981 to bring together states which are home to polar bears — Norway, Russia, Canada, the United States and Danish-administered Greenland.

"Clearly the main point in a rescue plan for the polar bear is to reduce global warming," Solheim said.

The world's polar bear population is estimated at 20,000-25,000 animals, with 2,200-4,000 belonging to the Barents Sea population of Norway and northwestern Russia.

Polar bears spend most of their lives on or near sea ice. Though they are excellent swimmers, they are no match in the water for seals, their main prey, so they must hunt on ice floes.

Solheim said it was very helpful that the United States under former President George W. Bush put the polar bear on the list of endangered species.

"We should build on that to see what we can do to protect the polar bears," he said.

The range states agreed in 1973 to protect polar bears and their habitat, but they have not met for 28 years.

SOOT A POLAR PROBLEM

James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an expert on global warming, said pollutants and gases such as soot, ozone and methane, can be controlled more easily in the Arctic than carbon dioxide (CO2).

CO2 is the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

Industrial soot, for instance, blackens the snow and makes it soak up more heat, accelerating the melt.

"Their warming effect in the Arctic is very large," Hansen told a news conference. "Pollution in the Arctic contributes to the melting of the ice. Those climate-forcing mechanisms can be addressed more quickly than carbon dioxide."

Arctic sea ice shrank in 2007 to its smallest since satellite measurements began 30 years ago, leading to worries that it could vanish in summers.

"I think it's still possible to save sea ice in the Arctic but it requires strong, prompt actions," Hansen said.

About 700 polar bears are shot yearly in Canada, Alaska and on Greenland. Since 1973, hunting has been banned in the Svalbard archipelago off northernmost Norway.

In the Russian part of the Arctic, hunting is illegal, but an unknown number of bears is shot every year, according to the Norwegian Polar Institute.

A polar bear and two cubs are seen on the Beaufort Sea coast within the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in this undated file handout photograph provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. REUTERS/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Worldwide She-Male Fish Mystery Widens

March 4, 2009 — Around the world, increasing numbers of male fish are developing female traits — growing new sexual organs and sometimes even producing eggs. The phenomenon has been blamed mostly on chemicals that get into the water and mimic the female hormone estrogen.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/04/male-female-fish.html

Psychedelic fish 'is new species'

By Lucy Williamson

BBC News, Jakarta

A brightly-coloured fish which bounces along the seabed has been hailed as a new species by scientists - who have dubbed it "psychedelica". 

Research published in the US scientific journal Copeia says the fish was spotted by scuba divers off the island of Ambon in eastern Indonesia. 

It belongs to the frogfish family, but its looks are unique even among its peers, the journal reported. 

The question with this new discovery is how it went unnoticed for so long. 

The new psychedelica frogfish is completely covered in swirling concentric stripes - white and blue on a peach background - radiating out from its aqua-coloured eyes. 

It has a broad flat face, thick fleshy cheeks and chin, and eyes that look forward like a human's. 

The fish was spotted by divers off the coast of Ambon island last year. 

The divers described it moving away from them in a series of short hops, its pelvic fins pushing it off the sea bed with each bounce. 

"The overall impression" says the Copeia research paper, was of "an inflated rubber ball bouncing along the bottom". 

The species was first discovered almost 20 years ago, but sat on a shelf - wrongly labelled and gathering dust - until this most recent find. 

It came to light when the divers were unable to identify the fish from photographs circulated among their colleagues, and sent pictures to a frogfish expert at the University of Washington.

Psychedelica was discovered off Indonesia's Ambon island

 triskele wrote: 
Hear. Hear. Thanks.  That is very cool. 

Wow! I had no idea jaguars lived here!

Inamorato wrote:
it's very good to know they're still out there....thank you for posting this.