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A team of scientists – and a couple of lucky television crews – have “discovered” what is being characterized as the world’s largest snake, a giant anaconda. The team, led by biologist Bryan Fry of the University of Queensland, captured and studied several specimens of the northern green anaconda (Eunectes akayima), located in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
When beloved cat Krusty Noodles concluded his earthly existence, owner Kate Swan just couldn’t let go. To keep Krusty’s memory alive, Swan enlisted the services of Beth Beverly, a Pennsylvania taxidermist, who stuffed the dead cat – along with an equally dead mouse in his maw – and mounted it for the wall.
Something funny is going on with our closest relatives – chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas. Like humans, our cousins seem to revel in comedy – slapstick mainly, but comedy nonetheless. The Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior is looking into the fun.
The Eurasian eagle-owl Flaco, who escaped his confines in the Central Park Zoo in February last year, has met a sad end to his legendary life. The magnificent raptor, who became the city’s symbol of defiance and resilience over the course of his twelve months of freedom, was killed when he flew into the side of a building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
A plan to build a huge wind farm in Washington — the largest ever in the state — will likely end up much smaller than the original proposal to erect hundreds of turbines across 24 miles. That’s because Horse Heaven Hills wind farm would pose a danger to an already-endangered raptor, the ferruginous hawk.
A proposal to build an enormous monkey-breeding warehouse in Bainbridge, Georgia has prompted animal-welfare groups to launch an opposition to the plan. A company called Safer Human Medicine wants to build the country’s largest facility of this type, which would hold up to 30,000 cynomolgus, or long-tailed, macaques bred for experimentation.
Last August there were some very special passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight from Atlanta to Seattle: six rare Chilean flamingo eggs. When the eggs’ courier – a zoo official delivering the precious cargo to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo – had a problem with the incubator, he summoned for help.
It took amateur photographer Nimi Sarikhani three days of searching for polar bears, but he finally happened upon the perfect shot: a young male bear catching a few zees atop a small iceberg, illuminated in northern Norway’s midnight sun.
Last week scientists and researchers from the Khamai Foundation announced their discovery of five new species of eyelash vipers in the jungles and cloud forests of Colombia and Ecuador.
A stingray at the Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in Hendersonville, North Carolina is expecting, though we’re not sure exactly how or even with what – there are no males in her tank.
Conditions at Central Park, a humble city-run zoo in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, were not ideal for at least one resident, a 4-year-giraffe named Benito. The young male had only about a half acre to wander within a small enclosure, very few trees to nibble on, and within a climate no giraffe is accustomed to – brutal heat in the summer and freezing cold in winter.
Animal welfare group PETA UK is asking Katie Price to cease and desist owning animals because the “media personality” has had a horrible track record with her pets. The org is offering Price £5,000 ($6,300) if she’ll sign a legally binding agreement promising never to acquire another animal.
Coffee shops around Japan have fully embraced the concept of the animal cafe. First came pet-friendly spots, then cat and dog cafes, then all manner of creature-themed stops, including the latest craze: the pig cafe.
A 55-year-old Asian elephant named Nidia had chronic foot problems: painful fissures on her foot pads, cracked and ingrown toenails, persistent abscesses. She had no appetite and was losing weight. “The veterinarian in charge of Nidia’s care at a wildlife park in Mexico, was desperate,” reports the New York Times.
Last week scientists in Berlin announced they had successfully transferred a northern white rhinoceros embryo into a surrogate mom, the first successful use of a method that they say could save the nearly extinct rhino subspecies.
When the temperature dropped to 18° F in Beaumont, Texas last week, a few alligators got caught in the big freeze, locked solid in the ice. They’ll be fine though, as long as their snouts stay above water.
After Buffalo Bills’ kicker Tyler Bass missed a game-tying field goal in last weekend’s playoff game, he was bombarded with so much hate from disgruntled fans he deactivated his social media accounts. But then a favorite charity of Bass’s – cat-adoption center Ten Lives Club in Blasdell, New York – came to his defense.
Researchers have been probing the thermal vents off the west coast of Costa Rica, using a remotely operated vehicle miles below the surface. Two expeditions by the Schmidt Ocean Institute team in 2023 have yielded a wondrous find: four new species of octopus.
This spring, Americans living in the Southeast and Midwest will be subject to a very loud, somewhat stinky, and possibly delicious phenomenon: the emergence of two ginormous cicada populations. The cicada groups, known as Brood XIX and Brood XIII (also called the Great Southern Brood and Northern Illinois Brood, respectively) are on schedule to appear at the same time in a “dual emergence” that happens only once every 221 years.
Last year we noted the longevity of Bobi, both at his incredible 31st birthday, and at his passing in October. Now the arbiter of such things, Guinness World Records, is investigating Bobi’s advanced age, which has been questioned by veterinarians.
