wildlife

Nature has always been prepared to mix and match, seeking out the best qualities in a species to pass on to future generations. It sometimes happens that creatures which belong to the same genre families come into contact, though rarely, and manage to successfully breed. The results of such...

New York City Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe hold a red-tailed hawk before releasing it in New York's Central Park 2009. Violet the red-tailed hawk nesting on a Manhattan window ledge amazed experts and hordes of online fans when one of her three eggs beat the odds to hatch a...

A man arrested for keeping an alligator in his kitchen has told police he did it because the reptile impressed women. Police raided a property in Ford Heights, Illinois after receiving a tip-off that Dewayne Yarbrough had an alligator in his home. It is not clear who the information came...

Scotland has long been famed for the Loch Ness monster, but now Cornwall has its own water creature to boast about. A man out with a group of friends this weekend spotted a stag swimming in the Duporth Bay, near St Austell, and whipped out his camera to take a snap. Rich Brown admitted...

Following in the footsteps of other famous animals like Paul the octopus, two-headed tortoise Magdalena has taken on the role of tipster for the ice hockey World Championships in Slovakia. Magdalena an African spurred tortoise from the Slovakian town of Zilina was born with two heads...

Bahati the chimp seems more gympanzee than chimpanzee and certainly knows about those all-important stretches. Bahati is pictured doing what seem to be preparations for a heavy session in a fitness centre. The ape’s five-minute routine, seen by bemused onlookers, began with...

A 10-year-old girl was terrified when she discovered a five-foot corn snake lurking in her family's bathroom after it slithered up through their loo. Roberta Vaituke spotted the snake when she popped in to use the toilet. She ran to alert her parents and brother. They plugged up...

Mongolia, a land of mystery. Where the grave of great warrior king Genghis Khan, who created an empire stretching from the Baltic and Black to the Bering seas, remains undiscovered. Where the national dish has become Mongolian barbecue, the stir-fry buffet variety invented in the United States...

With the weather brightening up and two long weekends on the way, there’s every reason to smile and here are some pictures of some cute animals to start you off. Kalea the dachshund seems to have got the message. The five-year-old has been grinning since she was a puppy. ‘Kalea is by...

A photographer has got the bug for creepy-crawly close-ups – and the resulting pictures are definitely an eye-full. Thomas Shahan uses just a digital camera and zoom lens to capture macro images of spiders and insects, zooming in on the creatures’ eyes and producing images that show...

A tortoise the size of a grape is enjoying life in the slow lane after becoming the newest, and smallest, addition to a zoo. Tiny Tim, an Egyptian tortoise, tipped the scales at just 6g when he hatched a month ago. Today he is just 5cm long, but is expected to grow to 500g over the next...

Feline sleepy? Andre Potgieter has a pet lion called Storm that likes to cuddle up to him in bed in his South Africa home. Luckily, animal lover Andre Potgieter has nothing to fear from this particular 160kg (25st) predator as the two have been best friends for the past four years. The...

An unusual springtime friendship between a deer and a nesting goose appears to have blossomed inside a Buffalo cemetery. For the past week or so, the deer has been standing near an urn where the goose has taken up residence, positioning itself between the urn and any passing car or foot traffic...

A man has been left all shook up after looking at a bug in the forests of Singapore and finding the face of Elvis staring back at him. Amateur photographer Winston Jansen was left stunned after seeing The King while on an expedition. Mr Jansen said he had come across hundreds of...

Irwin likes the finer things in life. He is chauffeured around town, likes to wear a suit and sleeps in a comfortable bed. Trouble is, Irwin’s a kangaroo. The one-year-old great red kangaroo has free reign of owner Christie Carr’s home. Weighing 11kg (25lb), he is dressed in human...

The escaped Bronx Zoo cobra that became an internet star after spoof posts from it appeared on Link Removed has been found 'alive and well'. The deadly 24-inch Egyptian serpent went missing from the world-famous zoo's Reptile House last Saturday, sparking a frantic search and rescue...

British businessman Duncan Goose has told of his surprise at finding a squirrel peering up at him from his toilet. Mr Goose, 42, was in Malawi to check on aid projects backed by his company's One projects when he rescued the forlorn animal. He was preparing for bed in his hotel room...

A terrified seven-year-old girl lifted the lid on the family toilet and found herself staring at a seven foot long boa constrictor, say police in Hanover, Germany. Police managed to photograph the monster snake and call in wildlife experts before it disappeared back down the S-bend...

A missing cobra in New York City has been 'tweeting' about its adventures via a spoof microblogging account that's racked up nearly 100,000 followers. The 20-inch snake escaped from the Reptile House at Bronx Zoo, run by the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Society, at the weekend...

A sheep gave birth to a dog on a farm in China, claims its owner Liu Naiying, who has had people flocking to see the woolly 'lamb-puppy'. Liu says he came across the lamb-dog in one of his fields shortly after it was born. And by 'born', he means his sheep was licking the creature and...