(AP) -- Even as a youngster, Rollie looked older and wiser than his years. His white mustache sprouted longer by the month, until it flamed from his cheeks like a German kaiser's. Sometimes, it all but hid his mouth.
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Elderly turtle pair fails to produce offspring
(AP) -- She's around 80 years old. He's 100. Breathless scientists watched as the world's most endangered turtles successfully mated.
Elephant legs are much bendier than Shakespeare thought
Throughout history, elephants have been thought of as 'different'. Shakespeare, and even Aristotle, described them as walking on inflexible column-like legs. And this myth persists even today. Which made John Hutchinson from The Royal Veterinary College, London, want to find out more about elephants and the way they move. Are they really that different from other, more fleet-footed species? Are their legs as rigid and 'columnar' as people had thought? Traveling to Thailand and several UK zoos, Hutchinson and his team investigated how Asian Elephants move their legs as they walk and run and publishes his results in
The Journal of Experimental Biology.
Rare North Island brown kiwi hatches at the Smithsonian's National Zoo
Early Friday morning, March 7, one of the world’s most endangered species—a North Island brown kiwi—hatched at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo Bird House. Keepers had been incubating the egg for five weeks, following a month long incubation by the chick’s father, carefully monitoring it for signs of pipping: the process in which the chick starts to break through the shell. The chick remained in an isolet for four days and is now in a specially designed brooding box.
Accident kills giraffe at Ill. zoo
Dusti, an 11-year-old male giraffe, was found dead at the Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago, after his neck got caught in a rope.
Zoo polar bear cubs left to nature's fate
Three polar bear cubs at a German zoo were at risk of starvation after being rejected by their mother.
Endangered Miss. frogs get a break in the weather
(AP) -- Pick up a Mississippi gopher frog and it covers its eyes with its forefeet, like someone afraid to see what's coming next. And for at least a decade, it's had a good reason not to look.
Moose killing riles Michigan town
Some residents of the town of Ishpeming, Mich., are furious at police officers and a state biologist who killed a female moose that wandered into town, leaving its twin calves to fend for themselves during the winter.
Black-footed ferrets sired by males that died 8 years ago
Two black-footed ferrets at the Smithsonian's National Zoo have each given birth to a kit that was sired by males who died in 1999 and 2000. These endangered ferrets—part of a multi-institutional breeding and reintroduction program—were artificially inseminated in May with frozen semen from the two deceased males, each giving birth to a kit on June 20 and 21 respectively.