Spider and the dog

Camel spiders give a painful bite - image from The Sun

A terrorized Lorraine Griffiths recounts her horrifying experience of being driven out of home. By a spider. She says it even killed the family dog, Bella, after the dog tried to confront it. It all started with her husband Rodney coming home from war in Afghanistan to their home in Essex, England. She surmises that the creature, thought to be a camel spider, arrived with him in his bag. She said the family has now moved in with her mother and they are trying to catch the spider by laying traps. What a tangled web ...

What are camel spiders?

Watch a camel spider

Coming back to life

Cats have an amazing kidney that gives them survival longevity - Image from Wikipedia

That a cat has seven lives has been proved by Bonny. Her owner Monika Hoppert, a 60 year old widow living in the town of Stadthagen, Germany, is convinced that its a miracle. The black cat with big green eyes disappeared on 19 June while construction workers replaced pipes in the block of flats where Hoppert lives. Just before the bathtub was sealed back into place Bonny must have crept in underneath. By the time the neighbour noticed Bonny's desperate but weak cries on 8 August the cat's weight had dropped from 13 pounds to a mere four pounds. After the rescue she was just a bag of bones and the vet suggested she be put down since she will not live much longer. But Hoppert was determined to have her back and nursed her to good health. Am sure Hoppert would have played "Coming back to life" for the next few days.

How long can cats survive without food and water?

Spot of Understanding

The New York Times carried an article, which states that crows never forget a face. Not just crows, but also their relatives, which include magpies, ravens and jays. They thrive in human dominated environments and are known for being street smart. John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington has studied crows and ravens for more than 20 years now and after a lot of experiments with crows on the campus he discovered that they do have the ability to recognize human faces. Next time I shoo a crow I will be more careful to hide my face.

Read the entire article

More about crows and ravens

Dirty dumping

Fred emerges from half eaten potato chips and other waste - Image from The Telegraph

30 year old Fred was dumped in the dirtiest way possible. In a trash can. The tortoise crawled into the bin looking for a deep, dark place to hibernate. His owner 55 year old Jane Deslandes, didn't see him and handed over the rubbish sack to the garbage collectors. When she realised Fred was gone along with it she was absolutely terrified. She went in search of Fred to the landfill site, 20 miles away, and trawled through the waste for three hours. She came home disappointed and heartbroken. But the landfill site bosses continued her search and finally found him hidden underneath 50 tons of garbage, minutes before the day's garbage was about to be buried. Now Fred is back home in his garden, happily munching on his favorite food - lettuce leaves, tomatoes and other vegetables. Jane says through a tear stained smile that she would have never been able to forgive herself if he hadn't been found. Shellshocking story that.

Tortoises and hibernation

Ear ear!

The Star Wars Yoda and the four-eared Yoda - Image from FOX News

As if two weren't enough. Yoda the cat has probably had enough of sounds what with four ears popping on his head. Yes you heard it right. Yoda's owners, Ted and Valerie Rock has been inundated with various offers from television, ever since their son posted Yoda's photo on the web. The Rocks, who live in Downers Grove, Illinois, found him in 2006 while watching a Chicago Bears game at a Blue Island bar. Some patrons were passing the eight week old kitten around making fun of its ears calling him "Beelzebub" and Devil's Cat." The Rocks felt sorry and and offered to adopt the kitten from the bar's owner who in fact had caged the kitten for his customers' amusement. The Rocks had lost their cat of 20 years just six months before and they saw something special in Yoda, who is named after a character in Star Wars. I think Yoda the cat is much better looking!

Despair and loss

Image from AOL news

Displays of mourning by animals are rare. This is one such case, as close to humans as possible. Gana, a gorilla in the Allwetter Zoo in Muenster, Germany, refused to let go of the dead body of her baby, which died of unknown circumstances. The three month old baby named Claudio died on Saturday 16th, but the 11 year old mother continued to walk around holding him until she finally gave him up to be disposed last week. I found this so poignant, especially this particular image, especially in a world where people hardly have the time to feel.

Do animals have emotions?

What about grief?

Tortoise on wheels

Arava on her new set of wheels - Image from wkrg

Arava the tortoise is cruising around on brand new wheels. Literally. Arava, an African spurred tortoise, landed at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo in Israel, with both her hind legs paralysed. So what did the zoo do? They fitted her with a pair of wheels fixed to a metallic cart for her to move around. Now that the ten year old has a new set of wheels, she has steered her life around to find love. The 55 pound tortoise may never walk again but she has found what most of us are searching for...

Hardworking snails

Image from The Telegraph, UK

Life has been tough. Travelling for 110 years and just covering around 88 feet or 27 painstaking metres. But this is what a snail recently discovered in Britain did. Papillifera papillaris, a type of Italian snail, arrived in England towards the end of the 19th century. They were brought in on a stone balustrade imported from Rome to the Cliveden Estate in Buckinghamshire, England. It crawled its way through to the fountain in the gardens where it was found by people who were cleaning statues in the garden of the mansion, which today is a hotel. Named the "Cliveden snail", it now lives in a colony of its own. Jane Ridout Sharpe, a snail expert, helped to identify the tiny creature, several 100 of which roost in the fountain's cracks and carved details. It first came here in 1896 and is commonly found in the Mediterranean often found snoozing in old buildings.

New Species: Brand new bird

Image from Reuters

A Smithsonian Institution team of researchers have found a new bird species by accident in the jungles of Gabon, a small country in Africa. The team visited the forests as part of a biodiversity project and finding undiscovered birds was definitely not part of it. They have named the little bird, the Olive Backed Forest Robin, and specify that the males have a fiery orange throat and breast, a yellow belly and an olive back with black feathers on his head. Vibrant would be an understatement for him!As the Smithsonian ornithologist Brian Schmidt said, it is a reminder "that the world still holds surprises for us."

Henry the tuatara

Image from Wikipedia

Have you heard of a tuatara? Well I hadn’t. It is apparently a lizard like creature, which has descended from dinosaurs and currently only a handful of them live in some of New Zealand’s islands. The word “tuatara” is derived from the Maori word meaning “spiny back” and in Maori legend they are messengers of Whiro the god of death and disaster. Henry the tuatara is in the news for a sudden shoot in his libido after showing absolutely no interest in females for the past 100 years! But at 110 Henry is just reaching middle age and has got another century ahead of him to expand his population, which will be vital to their numbers.

Baby sea turtles

Image from Wikipedia

I found this damn cute - About 60 baby turtles on a beach in Calabria, Italy lost their way and marched straight into a restaurant! They ended up startling patrons and raising the curiosity of many by crawling under tables until they were released back into the sea. Baby sea turtles complete a ritual passage of going to the sea upon being born. Female sea turtles nest on beaches and their offspring follow their instincts and crawl off to the sea after being hatched. These wandering turtles were finally rounded by rescue personnel from WWF and re-routed back to sea.