The Columbia Basin Pigmy Rabbit is the smallest and perhaps the rarest rabbit breed in the world. It is native to just one part of the Washington State Area, and weighs under 500 grams.

There are plenty of tiny domestic rabbit breeds to choose from if you’re looking for an adorable pet rabbit, but the tiniest of them all is actually a wild breed that doesn’t make a great pet. The Columbia Basin Pigmy Rabbit is skittish and nervous, but the main reason why you’ll most likely never own one is its critically endangered status. The breed was declared extinct in the wild in 2001, when the last 14 specimens were scooped up from their native habitat and put into a captive breeding program.

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What looked like a growing oil spill in Michigan’s Mackinac Straits area turned out to be a massive gathering of tens of thousands of ducks and other aquatic birds.

On December 21 of last year, the Mackinac Bridge Authority started receiving calls from concerned divers regarding a possible oil spill in the area. With each passing day, the number of calls regarding the oil spill kept growing, which makes sense, considering that the black mass that had formed on the water appeared to be growing. However, it wasn’t oil, but a record-setting gathering of Redhead ducks. In the beginning, authorities counted around 7,000 of them gathered together under and around Mackinac Bridge. Their number has grown since then, and there are now several tens of thousands of birds making up the “oil spill”.

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Gregorio Romero, an 84-year-old man from Mexico’s Sonora state, owes his life to his pet dog, El Palomo, who led rescuers to him after becoming lost in the desert for a week.

On November 27, Gregorio Romero left his home in Moctezuma to go for a walk, but he didn’t come back. His family wasn’t concerned at first, as the octogenarian sometimes used to visit nearby villages in the area and return a few days later. However, after four days, the man’s niece, Ramona, alerted the authorities about his disappearance, and a search party was put together. They searched the area around Romero’s home, but a week after his disappearance, the octogenarian was nowhere to be found. In the end, it was the man’s faithful pet dog that saved the day.

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A Japanese man reportedly spent a whopping 3 million yen ($23,000) on a handmade wolf costume to fulfill his dream of becoming a wolf.

Zeppet, a Japanese company specializing in special effects and special modeling, made international news headlines last year, when it revealed that it had created a special dog suit for a client who had always wanted to live like a dog. The high-quality rough collie dog costume, which Zeppet claims was designed to adapt human anatomy to that of a canine, got a lot of attention after going viral on Twitter. Recently, that same company announced that they had received an even more challenging order from a person who wanted to live out their fantasy of becoming a wolf.

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Cheetahs are famous for their speed, but they don’t even come close to the world’s faster animal, a falcon that swoops on its unsuspecting prey at speeds of over 300 km per hour.

The peregrine falcon is one of the most efficient predators on Earth, and it owes much of that efficiency to its unrivaled speed. During its characteristic dive, this majestic creature reaches an average speed of 320 km/h, but the highest measured speed of a peregrine falcon is actually 389 km/h (242 mph), which makes it faster than the vast majority of commercially available cars. And it’s obviously much faster than the cheetah’s 64 mph record.

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A Vietnamese man has become famous in his home province of An Giang for taking care of thousands of wild river fish who visit his house every day for food.

Muoi Phuc’s house in Long Kien, Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, is a popular attraction for both locals and tourists. People routinely stop by to watch the man feed a school of wild fish that visits him daily. When the 52-year-old man started feeding the fish, it was just a handful of pangasius, but over the last two years, their number grew at a steady pace, and now thousands of fish stop by his riverside home every day for a bite to eat. The fish are free to come and go as they please, and others have tried attracting them by throwing food into the river, but for some reason, they only stop at Muoi Phuc’s house.

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A 26-year-old animal lover from China has been taking care of over 300 wolves at a wildlife rescue station in the country’s Inner Mongolia region.

Ever since he was a child, Wang Nan was fascinated by the unity and bonds of wolves as a species, so when he got a chance to work with his favorite animals as an adult, he jumped at the opportunity. In 2015, he started working at an animal rescue reserve in Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia, taking care of injured wild wolves, feeding them, breeding them, and slowly earning their trust. Over the years, his pack of wolves grew to around 320 animals, including young pups, who seem to consider him their friend.

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Honeypot Ants, or honey ants, are specialized workers of several species of ants whose sole job is to gorge on nectar until they become living honey-storage.

Did you know that honeybees aren’t the only insects capable of producing the sweet, viscous, and brown-to-golden-colored natural product we know as honey? Several other species of bees, as well as bumblebees and even wasps are known to produce the sugary treat, but perhaps the most unusual insect able to convert nectar into honey is the honeypot ant. Belonging to a number of ant species, the most common of which is Camponotus inflatus, honeypot ants are specialized workers that act as living storage for their colonies when food is scarce.

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A five-month-old bar-tailed godwit recently smashed the record for long-distance migration after flying 13,560 kilometers non-stop over a period of 11 days.

Every autumn, millions of migratory birds take to the sky for a long and perilous journey to escape the coming cold, feed and breed for the next few months. Many of them cover impressive distances of over 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), but this year, one small bird surpassed all expectations regarding long-distance flying, traveling a whopping 13,560 kilometers (8,425 miles) without stopping, and setting a new Guinness record in the process. And it was all because of an unusual detour that could have cost the bird its life, considering that the non-stop journey pushed its flight capacity to the limit.

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A herd of sheep in China has been walking in a circle for almost two weeks now, and no one seems to really know why.

The bizarre behavior was captured on surveillance video at a sheep farm in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region. In a video released on Wednesday by Chinese state-run news outlet People’s Daily, dozens of shep can be seen walking clockwise in a large circle, as other animals stare from outside the circle or at times stand motionless in the middle of it. Although it has been reported that the sheep appear to be perfectly healthy, it’s unclear if the animals ever stop to eat and drink, and if others take their place in the circle when that happens.

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Often weighing in at more than 10 kilograms (22 lbs), the Flemish Giant is by far the largest rabbit breed in the world. They are also extremely docile creatures and make great pets.

Originally a utility breed raised in Flanders, Belgium for its fur and meat, the Flemish Giant eventually became a show breed, due to its high bone-to-meat ratio. Today, they are considered one of the most docile and tolerant rabbit breeds in the world and can make great pets, if raised correctly. According to breed standards, a well-developed Flemish Giant has a large head, long, erect ears, a long and powerful body, and a nicely rounded rump. Unsurprisingly, the world’s largest rabbit is a Flemish Giant rabbit that weighs 49 lb (22 kg) and measures 1.3 m (4 ft 3 in).

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Japanese clothing and housewares company Nissen recently launched its most intriguing product yet – a line of bed linens and blankets that try to mimic cat fur.

Studies have shown that petting a cat for just 10 minutes reduces the levels of stress hormones, and any cat lover will tell you just how relaxing the experience can be. But what about people who would love to have a pet cat, but are living in rented apartments that don’t allow pets? Or how about people who are allergic to cats, what are they supposed to do to relax? Well, that’s where the new Neko Feel (“Cat Feel”) material developed by Nissen comes into play. The Japanese company just launched a line of bed Neko Feel linens that it claims mimics the feel of cat fur.

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Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome (LPS) is a seasonal disease that occurs every year between October and June, causing lorikeets to drop out of the sky and become unable to move.

Ornithologists and veterinarians have known about Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome for many years now, but despite their best efforts, the cause of the disease has remained a mystery. That is particularly alarming because the disease affects thousands of birds every year, and proves fatal to many of them, rendering them unable to feed or escape predators. Cases of LPS have been reported in Australia since 1970, and although scientists have been able to eliminate some probable causes, they still don’t know what causes it.

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An 18-year-old lioness has baffled staff at a zoo in Kansas after growing an “awkward teenage mane” after the pride’s last male lion passed away.

Looking at Zuri, you’d think she was a young lion growing his mane for the first time, but she is actually an 18-year-old female. That makes the mane around her neck pretty unusual, with only a handful of similar cases reported in the past. The lioness reportedly started growing a mane soon after the last male lion at Topeka Zoo in Kansas passed away in October of 2020. Although zookeepers don’t believe there is any connection between the lack of a male lion and Zuri’s mane, they do admit that the lioness has gotten feistier since growing the new fur, growling, snarling, and roaring more often than before.

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A 33-year-old gorilla who has spent most of her life alone inside a metal cage on the seventh floor of a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, has been dubbed the world’s loneliest gorilla.

Bua Noi was only one when she was put into the cage that would become her permanent home for more than three decades. She was one of the main attractions of a bizarre zoo – if one could even call it that – inside Bangkok’s oldest shopping mall, Pata Pinklao Department Store, and owners refused to relocate her to a more suitable location, despite numerous requests from animal rights activists and the Thai Government. Even today, Bua Noi’s owners refuse to let her live out the rest of her days in a sanctuary, with other members of her species.

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