An Indian dog breeder recently paid 500 million rupees ($5.81 million ) for a unique cross between a real wolf and a Caucasian Shephard, making it the most expensive canine in the world.

Named Cadabomb Okami, the pricy canine was reportedly bred in the US and purchased by S. Satish, a Bengaluru-based dog enthusiast and the president of the Indian Dog Breeders Association. He is renowned for his collection of over 150 dog breeds, including some of the rarest in the world. Satish told Indian reporters that he felt the 500 million rupee price tag was worth it for Cadabomb Okami because he is literally one of a kind. Plus, he is an impressive specimen; at just eight months old he already weighs 75kg and stands 30 inches tall.

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A journalistic investigation by the Chinese newspaper The Paper revealed the widespread commercialization of “fake meats”, such as fox or raccoon meat being sold as beef, mutton, or rabbit to restaurants.

The Paper reports that in Chinese areas known for fur production, such as Tangshan, Hebei, Weifang, Linyi, or Shandong, animal farms resell fox and raccoon ‘white strips’ (carcasses with the internal organs and subcutaneous fat removed) all over the country, passing them off as beef, mutton or rabbit. Some vendors even go through the trouble of braising and grilling their fake meats before freezing them and selling them to restaurants to make them even harder to tell apart from meats meant for human consumption. Experts warn that the hormones and medicines used in the breeding of animals for fur, but also the pathogens they carry make these meats extremely dangerous.

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Chilean-born artist Marco Evaristti has come under fire for trying to starve three little piglets to death as part of a controversial art installation meant to raise awareness about animal welfare.

Marco Evaristti sparked controversy when he originally announced plans for his “And Now You Care?” exhibition, but he really attracted criticism both from animal rights activists and the general public when it actually became a reality. Located in a former butcher’s warehouse in the Meatpacking District of Copenhagen, “And Now You Care?” featured three little piglets on a pile of hay, trapped in a cage made up of two metal shopping carts and surrounded by paintings of slaughtered pigs and the Danish flag. It was already an unsettling display, but it was his plan to only give the piglets water and let them starve to death that really shocked everyone.

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Standing 185 cm (6 feet and 0.8 inches) tall from hoof to withers, 3-year-old King Kong is the world’s tallest water buffalo.

Water buffalos are among the biggest bovine species, but even among them, King Kong, a 3-year-old specimen born on a farm in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, stands out as exceptionally tall. Measuring a whopping 6 feet and 0.8 inches from hoof to withers, he is about 20 inches taller than the average water buffalo, according to Guinness World Records. Owner Suchart Booncharoen said that the animal’s name is no lucky coincidence, as his potential to grow into a huge frame was obvious from birth. Still, despite his massive size, King Kong is a gentle giant who loves playing and being around people.

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An Italian doctor is currently being investigated for using hospital equipment to diagnose his injured pet cat and then operating on her in order to save her life.

Gianluca Fanelli , head of the simple structure of Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology at the Parini Hospital in Aosta, Italy, recently split his home country into two camps – one that considers him a hero who values life over rules and regulations, and another that thinks he should face the consequences for knowingly breaking the rules of his workplace. On the evening of January 27, after taking his injured cat to a veterinarian and receiving a dire diagnosis, the radiologist took his feline, Athena, to Parini Hospital and put in the CT scanner to get an idea of the internal organ damage she had suffered. He then performed pneumothoracic surgery on her in the unit’s angiography room in order to save her life.

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A family of European beavers has become an overnight sensation in the Czech Republic after taking just two days to build a series of dams that the Czech Government had been struggling to build for 7 years.

A project to restore water areas in the Brdy Nature Park began in 2018, but authorities had taken years to get all the right permits and finally get construction of necessary dams underway. The cost of the dams needed to restore the wetlands of the area to their original condition was estimated at around 30 million Czech crowns, but thanks to a family of diligent beavers, the Government doesn’t have to spend a single dime anymore. Environmentalists monitoring the Brdy area recently reported that a few beavers took just two days to build functional dams in just the right areas, sparing us humans the trouble.

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A veterinary clinic in Turkey recently shared the touching story of a stray dog who carried her unconscious puppy in her mouth and left it at the clinic door as if begging for help.

If not for the viral video footage captured by CCTV cameras, most people would probably think this story too heartwarming to be true. A vet clinic in the Adnan Kahveci neighborhood of Beylikduzu, in Turkey’s Istanbul Province, recently reported one of its most incredible cases. On January 13, an animal lover brought a young puppy they had found on the street, claiming it was the only survivor of a stray’s litter. The clinic rushed to treat the pup only to then have its mother show up on the doorstep with another unconscious puppy in its mouth. A technician noticed the desperate animal and rushed to tend to its offspring, which suffered from hypothermia and had a very low heart rate.

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There are around 45,000 species of spider in the world, all of them carnivorous, with one exception – Bagheera kiplingi, a jumping spider known for feeding almost exclusively on plants.

Native to the forests of Central America and Mexico, Bagheera kiplingi is only 5-6mm long and spends most of its time on the old leaves of acacia trees, waiting for their opportunity to snatch their favorite meal – the Beltian bodies that grow on the very tips of young acacia leaves. There is only one problem, in order to gorge on their meal of choice, these tiny jumping spiders need to go through a gauntlet of aggressive ants that also feed on Beltian bodies, quickly clip it off with their fangs, and then run away to a safe place to feast on it. Rich in lipids and proteins, Beltian bodies are very nutritious for insects, but extremely unusual for arachnids,  the vast majority of which are carnivorous.

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An Uzbek zookeeper tragically lost his life after going into the lion’s enclosure at a private zoo to film himself petting the large felines only to get mauled by them.

On December 17, 44-year-old F. Iriskulov was working the night shift at a private zoo in Parkent, Uzbekistan, when he decided to impress his fiancee by filming himself going into the lions’ enclosure to pet three full-grown African felines. A short clip retrieved from the man’s phone shows him unlocking the lion’s cage and casually walking in while talking to the lions and addressing them by name. At one one point, the felines, which had been lounging on wooden pallets, become alert and approach the zoo keeper who continues to film, seemingly unaware of the danger he is in. The video cuts off with Iriskulov screaming as one of the lions attacks him.

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Pet vending machines have been sparking heated online debates in China for months, but this controversial “unmanned economy” model seems to have an even darker side than meets the eye.

We first featured China’s live pet vending machines back in May of this year when they were spotted in busy cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Back then, people were furious about having cats displayed in transparent containers barely large enough for them to turn around in, but according to recent reports by several Chinese news outlets, this business model has an even darker side. It’s hard to resist an adorable kitten meowing at you from inside one of these vending machines like it’s begging you to take it home, but it’s even harder when doing so costs nothing. That’s right, the cats in these ‘adoption boxes’ are free, even specimens of coveted breeds that would otherwise cost a few hundred dollars. But there’s a catch!

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China’s Guangzhou Zoo Has come under fire after videos of a shockingly thin crocodile housed there went viral online.

Photos and videos of a crocodile so skinny that you can literally see its spine and count its ribs have been doing the rounds on Chinese social media and sparking a heated debate around the treatment of animals. Reportedly located at Guangzhou Zoo, the reptile looks more like a fossil than a living animal, but one clip shows it moving slowly in its enclosure. The person who shot the video and posted it online expressed concern for the crocodile and many have accused the zoo of animal cruelty for either starving it or just ignoring its condition.

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A middle-aged Russian man suffering from diabetes and poor blood clotting tragically lost his life after being scratched on the leg by his pet cat.

On November 22, Dmitry Ukhin, a 55-year-old man from the Kirishi district, in Russia’s Leningrad region, went looking for his pet cat Styopka around the neighborhood. The feline had an independent streak and liked nothing more than to walk around the neighborhood freely. Eyewitnesses later told police that Ukhin found his beloved pet and took it home with him, but couldn’t really explain why or how the cat scratched his leg so badly that he bled to death in a matter of minutes.

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A fluffy Pomeranian is lucky to be alive after miraculously serving a fall from the 12th floor of an apartment building in Cali, Colombia, onto the roof of an adjacent three-storey building.

On November 19, a Colombian family experienced moments of terror after realizing that their pet Pomeranian was nowhere to be found in their 12th-floor apartment in the city of Cali. They looked everywhere for him, and when it became clear that he was not in the house, they decided to check the windows, and that’s when they spotted a small hole in the roof of an adjacent building, three floors below. Using a pair of binoculars, the desperate dog’s owners could spot their beloved Paris through the small hole. The floor that Paris had been spotted on was locked, so his owners immediately called the local fire department to have the pooch rescued. Miraculously, he was found alive and well, with not so much as a scratch on him.

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The owners Ricco, a Bantam rooster from Bourgoin-Jallieu in France’s Isère department, are scheduled to show up in Court following a neighbor’s complaint regarding the bird’s loud crowing.

“Difficulty concentrating, sleep deprivation, hearing fatigue,” these are just some of the symptoms cited by the plaintiff who summoned Ricco’s owners to Court in January of next year. The person, who prefers to remain anonymous, is one of the owners’ neighbors and they claim that the rooster’s crowing is unbearable both at night and during the day. However, the owners of the 5-year-old bird have always disputed these claims, insisting that the door to Ricco’s chicken coup is operated by an automated system programmed to open the door only at 8:30 am during the winter and at 9:00 am in summer. They insist that the rooster crows about fifteen times in a quarter of an hour in the morning, and then a few more times during the day.

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A man flying a paramotor over the Giza Pyramid Complex on the outskirts of Cairo spotted a stray dog barking at birds from atop the 138.5-meter-tall Great Pyramid of Giza.

Marshall Mosher, a “pro adventure athlete” who travels around the world,  was flying his paramotor over the pyramids of Giza on October 14 when he came across a very peculiar sight – a lone canine chilling on top of the Great Pyramid, seemingly barking at the birds flying overhead. Not exactly the kind of thing you expect to see while flying over one of the Seven Wonders of the World, so it’s no wonder that the clip he posted on his Instagram went viral almost instantly. Some users of the popular social network joked that the pooch must have been the Egyptian God Anubis, while others were worried about its well-being.

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