A businessman from southern Thailand recently went viral for claiming that the secret to his good health is to drink crocodile blood mixed with alcohol twice a day.

Rojakorn Nanon, a 52-year-old man from Thailand’s Trang province, starts his day with a glass of crocodile mixed with a Thai spirit called lao khao, and has another such cocktail before bedtime. The businessman claims that he used to be physically weak and exhausted all the time, but ever since he started drinking crocodile blood, things took a massive turn for the better, and now he swears by the stuff. He believes the blood does wonders for several organs, for the blood, and for the nervous system.

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The black thighed falconet is no larger than a sparrow, but don’t let its size fool you, as this tiny bird is a ruthless predator capable of killing prey its own size.

Falconets are the smallest birds of prey in the world, with the black thighed falconet (Microhierax fringillarius) and the Bornean falconet (Microphierax latifrons) sharing the title of smallest bird of prey in the world. With bodies only 14 to 16 centimeters long, a wingspan of 27 to 32 cm, and only a few grams in weight, the black thighed falconet certainly doesn’t sound like the most efficient predator, but its cute appearance is even more deceiving. The parakeet-like bird is one of the most adorable you’ll ever see, but don’t let that fool you when it comes to hunting, this thing is a tiny killer.

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Sacculina carcini is a common species of barnacle that not only attaches itself to various species of crab, forcefully castrating males and turning them into females willing to care for and release their eggs.

Most barnacles spend their entire existence attaching themselves to underwater rocks or the bottoms of ships and just filtering food from water, but sacculina carcini has evolved into a parasite that seeks out unsuspecting crabs, usually green crabs, and becomes the bane of their existence. It all starts with a microscopic Sacculina larva that attaches itself to the most vulnerable part of the crab, the membrane at the base of one of its hairs, and injects a microscopic blob called ‘vermigon’ into the crustacean’s bloodstream. This blob then grows into a parasitic barnacle that uses its host both for protection and reproduction, often changing its sex to achieve its insidious goal.

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Raccoons are not native to Japan, yet in the last few decades, the furry critters have become naturalized in 44 of the country’s 47 prefectures, causing all sorts of problems for humans and other animal species. And to think it all started with a cute anime series…

In 1963, American writer Sterling North launched his most popular book, Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era. It told the story of a young boy called Sterling who went on adventures with his raccoon sidekick Rascal, and it became such a huge hit that Disney decided to turn it into a live-action movie. In Japan, Rascal’s adventures inspired a 52-episode anime series called Rascal the Raccoon (Araiguma Rasakaru), which ran for a year in 1977 and made raccoons the most sought-after pets in the country. There was just one problem – there were no raccoons in Japan, so people started importing them from the United States at a rate of about 1,500 raccoons per month.

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Vets in Plymouth, UK, scrambled to save the life of an alcoholic labrador retriever that had become addicted to booze because its late owner kept leaving his drinks outside overnight.

Coco, a two-year-old Labrador cross, almost lost his life and spent a month in intensive care after becoming addicted to alcohol. Staff at the Woodside Animal Welfare Trust in Plymouth, Devon, rescued Coco and another dog after their owner passed away, but they had no idea about the problems the two canines had. It turned out that they were both alcohol addicts, having gotten hooked on booze over years of enjoying open bottles that their late owner left out in the yard before going to sleep. The addiction was so bad that the other dog passed away during the withdrawal period and Coco himself had to be sedated for four weeks.

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Animal rescuers in Brittany, France were stunned by a wild duck that seemed to lead a perfectly normal life despite having a knife stuck in its neck.

Nicknamed Donald the Duck by the members of the Pinocchio et Sauvageons association, the mallard with a red knife handle sticking out of the left side of his neck had long attracted the attention of people in Saint-Nolff, north-western France. What really stunned those who saw the wild duck was how unaffected he seemed by the wound, swimming alongside other ducks, walking around on its webbed feet and being able to feed normally. However, animal rescuers at Pinocchio et Sauvageons worried that the knife could become a serious problem with time, so they decided to take it out.

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The capuchinbird, an exotic bird found in the jungles of South America, is famous for having one of the most bizarre-sounding mating songs in the entire animal kingdom.

Capuchinbirds have a rather peculiar look. They have light brown plumage that becomes bright orange on the belly, and a bald vulture-like head covered in blue skin. The contrast between its rich plumage and its bare head is striking and makes for an unusual appearance, but you’ll forget all about its weird look when you hear its mating song. Calling the sounds coming out of this bird’s beak during mating season a ‘song’ seems like a bit of a stretch, because it sounds nothing like the melodious chirping of a nightingale or a mockingbird.

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An Indian man has become somewhat of a celebrity in his home state of Uttar Pradesh thanks to his unusual best friend, a wild crane that follows him everywhere he goes.

30-year-old Mohammed Arif, a harvester operator from Mandka village, in Uttar Pradesh, was working in a field in February of last year, when he saw an injured sarus crane in dire need of help. It was bleeding from one leg and seemed in a lot of pain, so the young man picked it up and took it home where he started nursing it back to health. It took a while, but the red-necked crane made a full recovery. Only instead of flying away the moment it was set free, the majestic bird stuck by its benefactor, accompanying him everywhere.

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The Lingcod, a fish native to the North American west coast, usually has brown-red or even greyish skin and white flesh, but about 1 in 5 specimens are actually neon blue both inside and out, and no one really knows why.

Popular both among recreational fishermen and seafood lovers for its delicious meat, the lingcod is a bottom-dwelling fish that can grow up to a size of 152 centimeters. It’s a voracious predator that feeds on virtually anything that moves and fits into its large mouth and has only a couple of species of seals and human fishermen to worry about. The Lingcod is sometimes referred to as ‘smurf cod’ due to the fact that about 20 percent of specimens have neon blue flesh that looks either alien or affected by nuclear radiation. Interestingly, while scientists have theories about this bizarre coloration, we have yet to establish why some lingcod have blue flesh.

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With a nearly perfect 4.9/5.0 stars out of thousands of Google reviews, Gacek, an overweight black-and-white street cat, is the top-rated tourist attraction in the Polish city of Szczecin.

Szczecin, a medieval city in northwestern Poland, close to the border with Germany, has plenty to offer visitors. The Pomeranian Duke’s Castle and Kasprowicza Park are two of its most popular tourist attractions, but when it comes to online reviews, both pale in comparison with the city’s top-rated attraction, a fat cat named Gacek. The tuxedo cat rose to fame in 2020, after local news site wSzczecinie featured the feline in a video that subsequently went viral on social media, and people have been showering Gacek with positive reviews ever since.

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Police in the Chinese city of Chongqing has begun using specially-trained squirrels in their war against drug traffickers.

The Police Dog Brigade of the Criminal Police Detachment in Hechuan District, Chongqing has successfully bred the first batch of drug-sniffing squirrels in China. The breakthrough was part of the country’s national key research and development project, which sought, among others, the creation of new training methods for anti-drug animals. Apparently, scientists have been aware of squirrels’ keen sense of smell for a long time, but rodent training methods were apparently not advanced enough until now.

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A young dog believed to have been abandoned in the Nevada Desert as a puppy was recently rescued after spending at least six months as part of a coyote pack.

The people of Inspirada, a suburban neighborhood of Henderson, Nevada are used to seeing packs of coyotes running through the streets at night, but for the past couple of months, many of them have been reporting something strange. Apparently, a white dog was running with a pack of these wild predators, scavenging for food, playing in the moonlight and running away as soon as someone tried to approach him. Some called him the Coyote Dog, but he became more famous as Ghost, both for his white coat and his ability to disappear as soon as someone tried to catch him.

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A former zoo director in the Mexican city of Chilpancingo has been officially accused of a series of wrongdoings during his time in office, including cooking pigmy goats for a staff party.

José Rubén Nava Noriega is probably a prime candidate for the title of the world’s worst zoo director. During his time managing the local zoo in the city of Chilpancingo, Noriega allegedly sold animals illegally, failed to properly record animal births and deaths, somehow lost several animals, and, probably most shocking of all, he slaughtered and cooked four out of the zoo’s ten pigmy goats for a New Year’s staff feast.

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A California pest control company recently reported one of the most unusual cases it has ever worked on – a woodpecker filling the walls of a house with over 700 lbs (317 kg) of acorns.

Nick Castro of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control, a pest control company in California, thought he had seen it all in his 20+ years in the business, but even he was shocked by one of his most recent finds. Last month, Castro was commissioned by a California family to fix the “work” of a persistent woodpecker that kept pecking holes in the outer walls of their house and filling them with acorns. The woodpecker didn’t account for the empty space between the wall layers, so the acorns he kept bringing in didn’t stay put; instead, they fell to the bottom of the walls and eventually started coming out of various orifices inside. Nick knew he would find a few acorns if he searched well enough, but nowhere near the massive pile he ended up with…

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Bolivia’s state airline has become the target of ridicule after hiring an “interspecies communicator” to track down a passenger’s missing pet cat.

The disappearance of Tito the cat has been a matter of state business in Bolivia for about a month, ever since the feline was lost by staff of Bolivia’s state-owned airline. Tito’s owner, a woman working in Ireland, was taking the feline from Tarija to Santa Cruz to have it certified as a therapy animal, but was told that the cat had to go into the cargo hold. When the plane landed, she was shocked to see Tito’s cage empty. Airline staff admitted to losing Tito prior to takeoff and the cat’s disappearance became the number one news story in Bolivia. Recently, the Ministry of Justice even hired a self-proclaimed interspecies communicator in hopes of finding the cat.

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