by José Arturo CÁRDENAS Agence France Presse LA PAZ, Bolivia (AFP) — Almost a year after conservationists sent out a plea to help save a species of Bolivian aquatic frog by finding a mate for the last remaining member, Romeo, his very own Juliet has been tracked down deep inside a cloud forest. Not only did the wildlife conservation team return with a potential mate for Romeo, who had been 10 years a bachelor, but […]
Tag: animal
S.Africa’s neighbours slap import bans over foot-and-mouth disease
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — Countries neighbouring South Africa have banned the import of cloven-hoofed animals and their products over a foot-and-mouth disease breakout in the northern Limpopo province, government said Monday. On Monday Agriculture Minister Senzeni Zokwana confirmed the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), first identified a week ago in Vhembe district near the border with Zimbabwe. The outbreak prompted the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to lift the FMD-free status that the […]
Shark attacks woman, child at popular Australian tourist site
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A woman and a child were bitten by a shark in the popular Whitsunday Islands near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Thursday in the latest of a string of such attacks, reports and officials said. The Queensland state ambulance service said the pair were rushed to hospital with leg and foot wounds from the attack along a beach on Hamilton Island, but the injuries were not life-threatening. Local media said the […]
Lion kills worker at US wildlife park
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A lion attacked and killed a young American woman who had just started working at the facility where it was kept, the center said Sunday. Alexandra Black, 22, was passionate about wildlife and had worked just 10 days as in intern at the facility in Burlington, North Carolina. “The Conservators Center is devastated by the loss of a human life today,” it said in a statement. “While a husbandry team […]
The science of how cats’ tongues keep them clean
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US researchers, armed with high-speed video cameras, have revealed the secret to cat grooming. It’s all in the tongue. Just not the way they thought. A cat’s tongue contains 300 little scoop-shaped spines called filiform papillae which they moisten with saliva to clean their fur, said the report Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal. Until now, the scientific consensus on the matter was […]
Spider swarm cloaks Greek lake in 1,000-meter web
THESSALONIKI, Greece (AFP) — Lake Vistonida in northern Greece has become an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare after it was cloaked recently by massive webs spun by hundreds of thousands of small spiders. Biologists say the recent phenomenon, though rare, is not unheard of and is caused by unseasonally warm weather prompting an increase in the local population of mosquitoes and gnats. “It’s caused by an overpopulation of spiders…there is an abundance of food available,” local […]
WATCH: Seal slaps kayaker with octopus
(AFP) — Remarkable footage of the moment a New Zealand fur seal slaps a stunned kayaker in the face with an octopus goes viral.
Global warming will make insects hungrier, eating up key crops: study
by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France-Presse TAMPA, United States (APF) – Researchers have found a new way that global warming is bad for the planet: more hungry bugs. Rising temperatures will stimulate insects’ appetites — and make some prone to reproducing more quickly — spelling danger for key staples like wheat, corn and rice which feed billions of people, researchers said Thursday. And since these three crops account for 42 percent of the calories people eat […]
Paris aquarium offers haven for unwanted goldfish
by Brice Le Borgne Agence France-Presse Paris’ biggest aquarium has created a refuge for goldfish, providing a second life for any unwanted pets who might otherwise find themselves flushed down the toilet. The Aquarium de Paris allows the city’s residents to drop off their fish, with the numbers using the service swelling around the time of the long summer holidays. Instead of facing death in the city’s sewerage system, the rejected goldfish find themselves given […]
‘Devastating’ dolphin loss in Florida red tide disaster
by Kerry Sheridan Agence France-Presse SARASOTA, United States (AFP) — A state of emergency has been declared in Florida as the worst red tide in a decade blackens the ocean water, killing dolphins, sea turtles and fish at a relentless pace. More than 100 tons of dead sea creatures have been shoveled up from smelly, deserted beaches in tourist areas along Florida’s southwest coast as a result of the harmful algal bloom this month alone. […]
Slovenians strive to live in peace with bears
by Bojan Kavci Agence France-Presse MARKOVEC, Slovenia (AFP)–When he used to go hunting, Miha Mlakar would dream of killing a bear. But today the 33-year-old from Slovenia makes his living watching the animals, peacefully, in their natural forest environment. The turnaround to shooting bears with a camera, not a rifle, puts Mlakar, who runs bear observation tours, in step with wider efforts in the small Alpine nation to promote the coexistence of humans and […]
First quolls born in Australian wild in half a century
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP)–The first eastern quolls in 50 years have been born in the wild on the Australian mainland, with the rice grain-sized pups offering hope to a species of marsupial devastated by foxes. Eastern quolls — a furry carnivore that grows to about the size of a domestic cat — disappeared from the mainland in the 1960s but clung on in the island state of Tasmania. Twenty of them were returned to their native […]





