For over a century, animal experts have known that a certain variety of rabbits move exclusively on their front legs when trying to move fast, but they’ve only recently learned why that is.

The Sauteur d’Alfort, also known as the Alfort jumping rabbit have baffled scientists for more than a decade. Unlike other rabbit varieties, the sauteur d-Alfort have a uniquely acrobatic way of moving. Over short distances, when moving slowly, they walk on all four limbs, but their hind legs hit the floor one after another, rather than at the same time. But the truly remarkable thing happens when it needs to move faster. Rather than hopping, it quickly lifts its hind legs above its head and starts moving on its front legs alone. Experiments done decades ago showed that the sauteur was incapable of hopping, but thanks to modern technology, scientists know exactly why that is.

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A number of black bear cubs in California have been exhibiting unusually friendly, dog-like behavior around humans, and scientists believe a brain illness may be to blame.

Last month, California Department of Fish and Wildlife picked up a bear cub from a residential backyard. The animal had simply moved in there and didn’t seem to be intimidated by people at all. She picked up apples and ate them in front of the humans on the patio, and at one point jumped into a housekeeper’s open car trunk. This was not normal behavior for a brown bear cub, but the most concerning thing was that veterinarians in California had seen it before…

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The South American Leaf Fish is a remarkable predator that relies on almost perfect camouflage and patience to both ambush unsuspecting prey, and escape larger predators.

Native to the Amazon basin in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, the aptly-named leaf fish does a great job of imitating a dead leaf floating near the bottom of the river. Not only has it evolved to resemble a dead leaf almost perfectly, down to tiny details like the filament at the tip of the lower jaw that resembles a leaf stalk, but it also behaves like a leaf. The leaf fish bends and sways, but rarely moves upright, just as a floating leaf would not, and often angle themselves facing downwards, so that it looks like a dead leaf floating in the water.

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The regent honeyeater is already one of the world’s rarest birds, but experts are worried that it could soon go extinct, because they have forgotten how to sing.

Flocks of hundreds of regent honeyeaters could once be spotted all over south-eastern Australia on a regular basis, but today the species is critically endangered, with only 300 specimens believed to exist in the entire world. They were also known for the complexity of their mating songs, but as their numbers started dwindling, ornithologists started noticing this complexity diminishing, to the point where male regent honeyeaters didn’t even sound like their species anymore. Today, there is ample evidence that regent honeyeaters have forgotten how to sing, which could render the entire species extinct.

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Echo, a two-year-old Harlequin Dane, has been turning heads everywhere she goes after her owner dyed her coat purple, blue, pink and turquoise.

Sierra Schoon, a 22-year-old woman from Grand Junction in Colorado, has been coloring her psychiatric service dog, Echo, using pet-safe dye, ever since the dog was about six-months old. The young dog groomer said that she uses vegetable-based Arctic Fox hair dye, and that Echo loves to just sit there and be pampered for three or four hours, while she applies the dye. Apparently, the dog also loves the attention she gets when they go out for walks, as people tend to get very confused by her unusual look.

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The Malayan leaf frog, a.k.a long-nosed horned frog, is one of the most remarkable creatures on Earth, at least in terms of natural camouflage.

We’ve featured some truly impressive masters of camouflage in the past, from the dead leaf butterfly to a plant that evolved to mimic the rocky terrain it grows on, but the Malayan leaf frog is definitely up there with the best of them. As an ambush hunter that waits for unsuspecting prey to cross its path, this amphibian needs to remain unnoticed for as long as possible, and what better way to do that than blend into the leaf-covered forest floor it calls home? Its unique physical features make it almost impossible to visually detect in its natural habitat, and looking at the photos below, it’s easy to see why.

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Ever seen a tortoise the size of a fly? How about a golden one that can actually fly? Well, today’s your lucky day, as you get to discover one of nature’s shiny treasures – the golden tortoise beetle.

Before you open a fresh tab to search if these adorable critters are real or just the result of digital editing, make sure you use the species scientific name, aspidimorpha sanctaecrucis, as “golden tortoise beetle” is a really common name shared by a number of beetles, like charidotella sexpunctata, among others. What makes this species of beetle special is that the gold pattern on their transparent protective carapace actually makes them look like tiny tortoises.

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The Polar Bear Hotel, part of the Harbin Polarland theme park in Heilongjiang, China, opened its gates this week to full bookings and criticism from animal lovers, after it was reported that all the rooms offer guests round the clock viewing of a polar bear enclosure.

Marketed as the world’s first “polar bear hotel”, the newest attraction at Harbin Polarland was jointly designed by famous Russian designer Kozylenko Natalia Yefremovna and Japanese theme park designer Shuji Miyajima. It’s built around a small polar bear enclosure, allowing guests to look at two captive polar bears both from the ground floor and from any of the 21 rooms available. The concept has attracted a lot of attention, both from people willing to pay a premium to book a room, and from animal activists who accused the establishment of profiting from the animal’s misery.

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Japanese researchers recently the incredible ability of a sea slug to basically sever its own head and simply grow a new body, complete with fresh vital organs.

Autotomy, the behavior whereby an animal sheds or discards one or more of its own appendages, usually as self-defense mechanism, only to grow them back later, is well documented in the animal world. However, autotomy usually involves limbs or tails, appendages that don’t feature vital organs, whish is why a sea slug that can apparently sever its own head and then grow a new body complete with these vital organs has stunned scientists.

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A zoo in Xianning, Central China, has sparked outrage on social media after it was revealed that it had tried to pass off a Rottweiler as a wolf.

Footage showing a visitor to the Xiangwushan Zoo in Xianning, Hubei province, visiting the wolf enclosure only to find a Rottweiler resting inside went viral on Chinese social media last week. The man who recorded the video, a certain Mr. Xu, can be heard saying “Woof! Are you a wolf?” to the dog, which doesn’t seem to concerned with the fact that it looks nothing like a wolf. Xu later told Chinese journalists that he asked the zoo staff about the animal, and they told him that they used to have an actual age, but it died of old age.

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The world is full of pampered pets, but while some depend on their owners wealth, a lucky few have their own fortunes. And no animal is as wealthy as Gunther IV, a beautiful German shepherd and member of the world’s richest dog dynasty.

It’s hard to imagine any animal being the beneficiary of a fortune of nearly $400 million, but such a lucky pet actually exists. Gunther IV, a descendant of Gunther II, the original world’s wealthiest animal, is worth a reported $375 million. He lives in a multi-million-dollar mansion in Miami, has a full staff looking after him, included his own maid and butler, spends his days playing and swimming, and eats only the finest food money can buy, including caviar and truffles. Gunther also has his own corporation, whose employees manage his assets and make sure the dynasty’s fortune keeps growing.

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The marbled crayfish or marmokreb, a mutant species that didn’t exist 25 years ago, is considered one of the most invasive freshwater creatures in the world, and it’s all due to its remarkable capacity to clone itself.

The rise of the the marbled crayfish as an internationally recognized invasive species can be traced back to the mid 1990s, when German aquarium hobbyist whom experts prefer not to identify, for privacy reasons, bought a large crayfish described to him as a “Texas crayfish”. The man was immediately stunned by its size and the enormous batches of eggs it could lay. He started bragging about it to his friends, and giving away specimens. Marmokreb-mania was in its infant stages, but as marbled crayfish started appearing in pet shops, aquarium hobbyists started noticing something peculiar…

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An Australian woman recently took to Facebook to share photos of a giant moth she stumbled across in outside of Brisbane.

Pam Taylor posted the first photos of the frighteningly large insect on the Amateur Entomology Australia group, on February 23. The pics showed a huge grey moth clinging to a tree branch. To show just how large the moth really was, the woman also photographed it next to her open palm. Obviously, the photos got a lot of attention from the other amateur entomologists, many of whom recognized the insect as a specimen of Endoxyla Cinereus, or the Giant Wood Moth.

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Sheep need to be shared annually, otherwise their wool continues to grow to the point where it’s hard to tell they are still ship. That’s what happened to this poor ship in Australia, whose wool hadn’t been sheared in 5 years.

Photos of a “wild” sheep found in a forest in Australia went viral this week, because of the unusual coat the animal sported. Named Baarack by his rescuers at Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary near Lancefield, Victoria, the ovine is believed to have once been owned by a farm, but his ear tags were ripped out by the thick layer of matted wool on its face. At the time of his rescue, Baarack looked almost nothing like a sheep, his slender frame hidden under a mass of wool and dirt that weighed a whopping 35 kilograms.

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A retired postman from Turkey and a beautiful white swan have been inseparable for nearly four decades, and the story of their amazing friendship has melted the hearts of millions.

When Recep Mirzan spotted a wounded swan in a filed in Turkey’s Edirne province, in 1984, he had no idea that he was about to meet his best friend. He was in a car with a group of friends, when he spotted a swan that appeared to have a broken wing in an empty field. Mirzan quickly realized that leaving the bird there was the same as signing its death sentence, as predators would have most likely eaten it, so he stopped the car and took the bird with him. He kept in the car until evening, when he took it home and started nursing it back to health.

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