Free Republic

A renowned zoologist has pleaded guilty to dozens of sickening charges including animal cruelty, bestiality and possession of child exploitation material. Darwin crocodile expert Adam Robert Corden Britton, 52, was unmasked as the serial animal abuser in the Northern Territory Supreme Court on Monday. His name had previously been suppressed from the public due to the depravity of his crimes, which threatened his right to a fair trial, the NT News reported. Britton pleaded guilty to 60 charges, including the torture, rape, and killing of at least 39 dogs. The court heard he referred to the animals as “f–k toys”,...

A trio of snow leopards at a Nebraska zoo died of COVID-19 one month after contracting the virus, zoo officials said Friday. The Lincoln Children's Zoo stated that Ranney, Everest, and Malaku all succumbed to COVID-19-related complications. The three snow leopards had first tested positive for COVID on October 13, along with a pair of Sumatran tigers who have since made a full recovery. Veterinarians attempted to treat the snow leopards with an aggressive regimen of steroids and antibiotics that ultimately proved unsuccessful... ...The virus has already been identified in cats, dogs, lions, otters, tigers, and gorillas, among others. The...

Researchers have discovered evidence to support the idea that Vikings settled on the Azores several hundred years before the Portuguese arrived in 1427. Evidence from animal remains has led ecologist Pedro Raposeiro and his team, of the University of the Azores, to believe the Vikings were there first.... ...Evolutionary biologist Dr Jeremy Searle of Cornell University has supported the conclusions by Mr Raposeiro. He has also argued that Vikings made it to the Azores - but his work is based on the mouse as his biological source....

The mummified remains of two cave lion cubs were discovered in Russia, and the recently unveiled specimens may be the best examples of cave lion mummies in the world. Boris, the male cub, was found in 2017 when Boris Berezhnev, a local resident and licensed mammoth tusk collector, was searching for mammoth tusks along the Semyuelyakh River in Siberia. The cub is around 43,448 years old. Just a year later in 2018, a female cub was found about 15 meters away. Researchers named her Sparta, and she is roughly 27,962 years old. Both cubs were discovered around 10 to 12...

Images of a romantic encounter between two male lions in Kenya's Masai Mara has upset the country's 'moral police' who has blamed gay men visiting the national park for 'influencing' the animals' behaviour. Dr Ezekiel Mutua, who is responsible for TV and film censorship in Kenya, has called for the two lions in question to be caught and kept in isolation until scientists can 'determine how they acquired homosexual behaviour'. Despite the fact that homosexuality among lions has been observed for decades, Dr Mutua is convinced that the lions would either have spotted gay men having sex in front of...

A new species of crustacean has been named in honour of Nelson Mandela. The squat lobster is related to hermit crabs and now has the Latin name Munidopsis mandelai in honour of the South African revolutionary. The sea creature was discovered in a relatively unexplored area of the Southwest Indian Ocean Ridge, off the coast of South Africa, in 2011.

A team of European scientists with way too much time on its hands has discovered that dogs tend to position themselves in alignment with the earth’s magnetic field before they take every big, steamy dump. The Czech and German researchers committed two years of their professional lives to the longitudinal study of canine crap, reports The Christian Science Monitor. The point was to determine magnetic sensitivity in dogs—at least when they poop. The proud scientists say the findings “open new horizons for biomagnetic research.” There were 37 dog owners in Germany and the Czech Republic involved in the study. There...

What Would Happen If a Lion Fought a Tiger? We've always been speculating about battles between superheroes. We know the outcome of octopus versus shark. At last we have an expert speculating on lion versus tiger. Which one would win? Since there's a good chance you've spent the weekend slowly tearing apart a ritualistically slaughtered bird, before going out and trampling your fellow citizens in arenas, you probably won't be too horrified by speculating on the outcome of animal fights. After all, the fights in question are, for the most part, in the past. Romans used to pit lions against...

Eagerly he collects wood from the ground, snaps the branches into small pieces and carefully balances them in a pile. Then, taking care not to burn himself, he gently strikes a match and gets ready for a fry-up. Like all red-blooded males, Kanzi loves messing around with a barbecue. But then, as these extraordinary pictures show, Kanzi is no man. He is a bonobo -pygmy chimpanzee -and his love of fire is challenging the way that we think about our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. For although bonobo apes and larger chimpanzees use twigs and leaves as tools, none...

Enlarge Image Safe haven. Bats harbor viruses both dangerous and benign for other animals. Credit: CSIRO When it comes to harboring viruses deadly to humans, bats are grand champions. The flying mammals are the reservoir for everything from rabies to Ebola. Now, scientists have found a new virus hosted by bats, one that doesn't seem to be able to cause disease in other animals. The discovery may provide clues to what enables some viruses to cause severe disease. The new Cedar virus is named after the town of Cedar Grove in Queensland, Australia, where it was found in 2009....

Adult Chimpanzee Fatally Mauls Baby Chimp at LA Zoo The unnamed infant was born March 6 to Gracie, who is being allowed to keep the infant overnight to grieve, zoo officials said. The first chimpanzee baby born at the LA Zoo in 13 years was mauled to death Tuesday by an adult chimp in front of a crowd of visitors, including children, zoo officials said. The unnamed infant was born March 6 to Gracie, who is being allowed to keep the infant overnight to grieve, zoo officials said. When the adult male chimp began attacking the infant, zoo staff were...

10 Weapons That Animals Use We've come a long way from thinking that what separates us from the animals is, say, using a rock to bash in the skull of our competitors. It turns out that there are a lot of creatures out that that re-purpose tools to make their personal world better and someone else's world a lot worse. Take a look at the world's craziest and most intimidating weapons wielded by animals. 10. The Herring Gull's Bread This bird has learned how to use bread to construct a trap. Herring gulls live in large colonies in the urban...

Stinking Up Wall Street: Protesters Accused Of Living In Filth As Shocking Pictures Show One Demonstrator Defecating On A POLICE CAR Bloomberg: 'Protesters are taking jobs away from the city' By HANNAH ROBERTS 8th October 2011 This are the shocking scenes that have led some people to accuse the Occupy Wall Street protesters living rough in New York's financial district of creating unsanitary and filthy conditions. Exclusive pictures obtained by Mail Online show one demonstrator relieving himself on a police car. Elsewhere we found piles of stinking refuse clogging Zucotti Park, despite the best efforts of many of the protestors...

Weekend Roundup --snip-- Picture Highlight: the new Herschel Space Telescope, is seeing first light and creating dramatic images of gas clouds in the Milky Way...

As gay couples celebrate their newfound right to marry in California and opposition groups rally to fight the ruling, many struggle with this question: Is homosexuality natural? On this issue, Nature has spoken: Same-sex lovin' is common in hundreds of species, scientists say. Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo, were a couple for about six years, during which they nurtured a fertilized egg together (given to them by a zookeeper) and raised the young chick that hatched. According to University of Oslo zoologist Petter Böckman, about 1,500 animal species are known to practice...

Female chimpanzees 'sell' sex for fruit By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent Last Updated: 4:01pm BST 11/09/2007 Female chimpanzees are "selling" sex to the males that gather the most fruit, according to new research. Behavioural psychologists found that female chimps mate with the males that give them the most fruit, while male chimps steal "desirable" fruits such as papaya from farms and orchards in a bid to woo potential mates. Oranges, pineapples and maize are among the most sought after crops, with bananas proving far less popular. The scientists also discovered that the chimp that gathered the most fruit in the...

SHREVEPORT, La. - In a mysterious bit of monkey business, a female at a chimpanzee sanctuary has given birth, despite the fact that the facility's entire male chimp population has had vasectomies. Now managers at Chimp Haven are planning a paternity test for the seven males who lived in a group with Teresa, a wild-born chimpanzee in her late 40s who had the baby girl last week. Workers have started collecting hair samples from the chimps for testing. Once they identify the father, it's back to the operating room for him. Chimp Haven managers said they knew something was up...

Zoologist Darren Naish has written a thoughtful essay on “Are Sumatran Rhinos Really Living Fossil?” His blog is in response to my comments on the “living fossil” issue, discussed here. I disagree with Naish’s restrictive parameters, of course, as I see this more an issue of educational semantics influenced by zoology, not ruled by it. Darren Naish’s approach is worthy of your attention and he has every right to his very informed point of view. Needless to say, in this case, I was employing the “living fossil” definition that this rhino species is “a living species/clade with many ‘primitive’ characteristics...

IQALUIT, Nunavut - Northern hunters, scientists and people with vivid imaginations have discussed the possibility for years. But Roger Kuptana, an Inuvialuit guide from Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, was the first to suspect it had actually happened when he proposed that a strange-looking bear shot last month by an American sports hunter might be half polar bear, half grizzly. Territorial officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid -...

It's splitsville for New York's favorite gay penguins — and one of the lover-birds has taken up with a fetching female. Now, the Central Park Zoo is dealing with a gay-straight love triangle Jerry Springer couldn't dream up. And nobody knows who will lay claim to the pair's adopted chick. The drama started when Silo left Roy, his mate of six years, for Scrappy, a female transplant from SeaWorld who'd never had chicks. "Silo and Roy stopped spending as much time together or building a nest," said John Rowden, the zoo's curator of animals. At first, Silo started hanging out...