Most people aren’t aware of this, but an alarmingly large number of cats die of leukemia every year. To raise awareness about the plight of these suffering cats, Maria Torero has converted her own two-story, eight-room apartment into a feline hospice. The 45-year-old nurse from Lima, Peru, currently has 175 patients residing with her, and spends over $1,500 a month just to care for them.

Maria has been caring for the diseased cats for the past five years now – she brings unwanted strays into her home and nurses them as they slowly succumb to their deadly illness. The mother-of-three doesn’t distinguish between her own children and her cat-patients. In fact, she says that she considers it her duty as a nurse to take in creatures that no one else wants to care for.

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A Belarusian family from the village of Zacherevye, 250 kilometers north of Minsk, is raising an entire family of wolves as pets. It’s been five years since the Selekhs took in a group of young wild wolves, and they’ve got the beasts completely domesticated now. In fact, the pet wolves’ behavior is quite opposite to what people normally expect from them.

Wolves are supposed to be instinctively wild, and follow a strict code of hierarchy within the pack – they are led by an alpha couple. But the Selekh wolves display none of these characteristics. They are quite a joyful lot instead, playing games and entertaining 10-year-old Alisa Selekh. They even take turns giving the girl piggyback rides through the Selekhs’ front garden.

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Kanzawa Sensei, a renowned Japanese Chi Master, claims that he has the power to make animals fall asleep. He says that his mind is so powerful that it can take control of multiple animals at a time. His superhuman mind control has been featured on various TV shows, and while it appears he can truly put animals to sleep, there are those who think he’s nothing but a fraud.

Chi, or Qi, is an ancient Chinese concept that translates as ‘life energy’ – an energy that permeates the whole universe. By using their bodies to tap into this energy, Chi Masters are able to perform marvellous feats that are otherwise impossible for normal human beings. That’s why it’s entirely plausible that Kanzawa Sensei might just be telling the truth about his powers.

Kanzawa claims that he uses another kind of Chi to control animals. “I exchange energy with the animals and then they go to sleep,” he said. “I can use my Chi to make them fall asleep. I put my fingers together and then there’s an exchange of Chi between the palm of my hand and the animal. The strength of the energy grows and eventually the animal relaxes and goes to sleep. Every animal is different, but yes, I can make any animal go to sleep.”

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Tonawanda Island, a small patch of land located just off the city of North Tonawanda, in Niagara County, New York, is currently suffering from a serious case of cats. Hundreds of abandoned felines freely roam the 85-acre island, and they’re multiplying at an alarming rate. Believe it or not, there are already more cats than people on the island!

“This is a small island with a big cat problem,” said islander Danielle Cooligan. Most of these cats are forgotten or unwanted pets who were left to fend for themselves. “They’re just everywhere,” said Wayne Howard of North Tonawanda. “People drop them off. I’ve caught people dumping them on the road; they just unload them on the island.”

While most of the island’s human residents are seasonal, the cats live there all year round. Most of them hide during the day and come out at night. “The messes they make, especially the feces around the island and where people walk, it’s disgusting,” Howard added. “I’ve caught them on my boat a few times and they made messes; they’re just a problem.”

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Starting this fall, a Texas company called Celestis Inc, is offering a new, one-of-a-kind pet funeral service – they will send the cremated remains of people’s pets into outer space. The new initiative is called ‘Celestis Pets’, and according to the company, it’s all about helping owners ‘celebrate the life of their pet’.

Since 1997, Celestis Inc. has been in the business of taking human remains into outer space and bringing them back, including the ashes of ‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry. This is the first time they’re extending their services to pets, in collaboration with San Diego-based ‘Into the Sunset Pet Transition Center’ to handle the remains.

“I think we’re also creating some new cultural norms,” said Steve Eisele, Director of Houston-based Celestis Pets. “Humanity has a lot of different rituals. We think we take our rituals with us when we end up traveling to different places whether they’re on this planet or off the planet,” he explained.

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Dogs are amazing creatures and Lilica, a Brazilian stray, is a perfect example of that. She lives in a junkyard, hangs out with a motley crew, and she makes sure her friends never go hungry. Every night, Lilica walks four miles in the dark, braving the rush hour traffic, just to bring food back to the other animals in her ‘family’ – a dog, a cat, a few chickens and a mule.

Lilica was abandoned at a junkyard in San Carlos, Brazil, when she was just a puppy. Neile Vaina Antonio, the junkyard caretaker, took her in and cared for her. As she grew, she became friends with all the other animals in the junkyard. It appears that they offer each other warmth, companionship and solidarity.

Three years ago, Lilica was pregnant and had eight puppies. As her responsibilities grew, she knew she had to find a way to provide food for her cubs, as there was little to be found at the junkyard. That’s when she started going out at night, walking for miles, in search of scraps. During one of her nightly travels, Lilica was lucky enough to meet dog-lover Lucia, who took pity on her.

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A small town in Spain has come up with a new way of dealing with dog waste – a canine public toilet. Located along a busy thoroughfare in El Vendrell, northeastern Spain, the stainless steel contraption consists of two sections placed side by side – a doggy potty and a doggy urinal.

The potty is a raised steel platform with a covered hole. Dog owners need to lift the lid for their pets to defecate, and later press a handle to flush. Jets of water are released, which carry the excrement through underground pipes into the sewer system. Right next to the potty is the urinal – also a raised platform with small holes over which dogs can squat. The public toilet is the brainchild of dog-lover Enric Girona, who has spent over ten years observing and photographing dogs. Through his work, he recognized the need for a toilet for dogs, so he set about creating one himself. “Over the years, I’ve seen that if you train and raise dogs well, these animals can be just like humans,” he explained.

Girona invented several variants of the toilet, modifying each one as he learned more and more about dog behavior. The present version of the urinal, for example, doesn’t clean itself perfectly when flushing, because need to pick the odor so they are lured to the toilet. He also had the location in mind while designing these toilets, so they’d naturally blend into surroundings like parks and other public places. “You can’t have something that clashes with the setting,” he pointed out. “The design was done with the concept of being attractive.”

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40-year-old wildlife conservationist Vava Suresh has a way with snakes. His life’s mission is to ‘love and guard’ even the most venomous of slithery creatures – he’s already rescued over 30,000 snakes so far. His unique talent and hobby have earned him the nickname ‘Snake Man’; people all over the South Indian state of Kerala summon his expert services when they want a snake safely removed from their homes.

Suresh, who was born into a poor family in the city of Thiruvananthapuram, has a completely different perception of snakes than most people. He says that they’re gentle, lovable creatures that need kindness and protection from humans. “Snakes are a part of my life since childhood,” he said.

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Milkshake may be a perfectly normal-looking cow, but she’s ‘udderly’ confused. All her best friends are dogs, she refuses to graze like all the other cows and she wants her food to be brought to her in a bowl, just like for her canine friends.You guessed it, the eight-year-old Hereford heifer thinks she is a dog!

Beth DiCaprio of the Grace Foundation, who rescued Milkshake from an abusive animal hoarder, said: “I think a lot of people think it’s like a trick. She hung out with the dogs, so I think that’s what she assumed – that’s what she is, more than a cow. She doesn’t really know. She was never around another cow.” Beth even tried getting a cow friend for her, at the El Dorado Hills ranch in California, but Milkshake still feels comfortable with the pack. She follows Beth and her mutt Riley all over the ranch. “She follows me around all day long, just like my dogs – she comes and watches me tend to all the other animals. She’s even followed me into the bathroom before, although she was a little scared of her own reflection.” Milkshake has tried to get into the backseat of Beth’s car and has no problems hanging out in her house.

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The northern clingfish is a species of salt-water fish that truly lives up to its name. The remarkably strong fish has such high suction powers that it can pick up and hold on to stuff that’s almost 300 times its own body weight. It can easily outperform all sorts of man-made suction cups. Scientists are now actively studying the fish so they can mimic its design and create a new class of suction devices.

There are currently around 160 known varieties of clingfish in the world, each with its own unique characteristics. There’s a tiny one that sticks itself to the individual spines of sea urchins, a deep-sea variety with not much of a sucker, and a giant one that’s about the size of your forearm. One of the most well-known varieties is the northern clingfish, thanks to studies conducted by biologist and researcher Adam Summers, from the University of Washington.

Native to the Pacific Coast of North America, the northern clingfish lives in rocky intertidal environments, where strong waves and currents can toss them out at any moment. In order to survive in its natural habitat, the clingfish has evolved an adhesion disc that covers about a quarter of its belly. Using this disc, it can stick on to almost any surfaces.

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The moor frog certainly cannot turn into a prince with true love’s kiss. But this seemingly uninteresting amphibian is capable of something quite spectacular – it changes color from a boring brown to an azure blue, just to be able to distinguish between genders during mating season. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures are really quite unbelievable – it looks they’re two different frogs.

A fully grown adult male moor frog is up to seven centimeters long and reddish-brown in color. But every year, between March and June, the frog exhibits chameleon-like tendencies. During this period, the frogs emerge from their winter hibernation and are naturally in the mood to procreate. They populate the ponds in the lowlands of Central and Southern Europe, completely filling the air with their mating calls. The sounds they create are similar to the noise of air released from a bottle under water.

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Jacobins aren’t your average, everyday pigeons that flock on your terrace and mess it up with droppings. Take one look at them and you’ll know they are a cut above the rest. How can they not be, with a royal hood of feathers that covers them from the neck up, almost entirely hiding their pretty little heads. I like to think of them as pigeons-in-parkas, which is really high fashion as far as birds are concerned.

Jacobins are one of the oldest domestic pigeon breeds in the world – an excellent exhibition breed with relatively unknown origins. Some believe that that the original breed came from India, while others think they’re natives of Cyprus. They arrived in Europe around the 16th century, where they were put through four stages of development, by breeders, until they evolved into their current state.

Although they have been bred for centuries, Jacobin pigeons have undergone remarkable changes in the past 80 years. They started off rather small, which was popular back in the day. But the current breed of Jacobins are slender and of medium size, with long flight feathers, long legs and slim tails. The most remarkable feature, the ‘rosette’, makes up the hood that completely covers the top and sides of their tiny head. In fact, the bird’s face is only visible from the front. The bigger the hood, the higher the quality of the specimen. And they always maintain an upright posture, adding to their ‘royal airs’.

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Tally, a shy husky mix, is a dog with a difference. While most dogs chase cats, Tally prefers to behave like one. Well, she can’t be blamed for it – she was raised around cats so, you know how it goes, doggy see, doggy do.

Redditor Dong_of_justice, recently put up photographs of the insanely adorable dog. She can be seen sitting around the house with her legs tucked under her body, and hanging out under the dining table or in boxes. And she never barks – the poor thing probably doesn’t even know that she can.

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It’s hard to imagine a fragile spider killing and eating a full-grown bat. I mean there’s no way a tiny spider could have any sort of muscle power over a fully grown bat, right? Believe or not, there are eight-legged bugs out there that can pounce on bats and eventually devour them. And when they can’t, they rely on their superior web-spinning skills to get the job done.

One of the earliest sightings of bat-eating spiders occurred way back in 1941, when Indian scientist G.C. Bhattacharya (of the Bose Research Institute) walked into a cowshed in a village near the city of Calcutta. In a letter to an unknown publication, he wrote a detailed account of his experience: “Entering into the cowshed, I noticed a pipistrelle bat struggling to drag itself out of a crevice between two bamboo strips of a wall and a big house-spider was seen firmly gripping the former by the neck with its powerful mandibles.” No matter how much the little bat kicked, and screamed and flailed, the spider held on with a death-grip. “There was intermittent gasping and screaming of the bat,” Bhattacharya wrote.

Eventually, he focused a torch on the spot and as soon as the light fell on the pair, the bat screamed loudly and managed to drag itself through a certain distance on the matted shed wall. About 20 minutes later, the bat, thoroughly exhausted, stretched out its wing and gave in.   Bhattacharya then captured both victim and predator in a glass jar and took them home for closer observation. The next morning, he found the spider resting peacefully at the top of the jar, while the bat lay dead at the bottom, untouched. It had visible injuries to its neck and had died sometime during the night.

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Looking at a photo of Hemeroplanes triptolemus, nine out of ten people would swear it’s a snake. But look closer, and you’ll realize there’s something peculiar about it – the body is unusually short and ends abruptly with a large reptilian head. The truth is, it’s not a snake at all. The Hemeroplanes is actually a caterpillar pretending to be a snake. And it does a darn good impression of the deadly creature, often fooling curious travelers and predators alike.

Hemeroplanes are moths of to the Sphingidae family, found in many parts of South America, Africa and Central America. In the larval form, they are capable of expanding their anterior body segments to closely resemble a snake, complete with reptilian scales and scary eyes. To make their mimicking act even more believable, the harmless caterpillar will sometimes even snap at potential predators. Of course, they have no real fangs so they can’t really do any serious damage, but their appearance is convincing enough to scare even humans away,

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