Horse boxing | Stallion horse | Wild horses

Horse boxing is the dramatic moment two proud stallions faced off in a bloody fight for dominance and mating rights in a herd of wild horses.

The Koniks, or Polish primitive horses, reared up on their hind legs with their teeth bared during the ferocious attack.

Photographer Henri Ton, 41, captured the fight over females at a nature reserve in Loevenstein, The Netherlands.

Stallions rear up on their hind legs as they fight for dominance in a herd of Koniks in The Netherlands

Fierce: One of the male horses lands a thudding blow with its hoof as the fight turns bloody

One stallion could be seen chasing a mare while others fought among themselves.

Mr Ton, who works as an electronic engineer, spends several hours a week observing the herd of 36 horses to better understand their behaviour.

He said: 'The Koniks were put in a nature reserve and left to fend for themselves.

'The public are told to keep their distance and not to feed them so they can remain wild.

'I go looking for them about once a week and have done for over a year now.

'I try to avoid attracting their attention so their behaviour in my pictures is as natural as possible.'

Dominance: Teeth bared, the two horses continue to fight as other members of the herd watch in the background

The battle among the Koniks, or Polish primitive horses, took place at a nature reserve in Loevenstein, The Netherlands


He said the herd is formed from a mix of bachelor groups - young stallions who have been abandoned or rejected and need to play to build up their strength before returning - and harem groups which feature one stallion, around six mares and foals.

There is one lead stallion horse in the herd, which is the only male allowed to breed.

'Fights with the lead stallion can be very rough and if he is injured the other stallions try to take over.

'Sometimes it is playful, almost like an act or dance, but it can also be very aggressive with bloody injuries.

'The Konik horse is one of the few types of horses able to survive in the wild. They are wild but they have never been aggressive towards me.'

Crocodile grabbed elephant | How the elephant got his trunk

How the elephant got his trunk......
This is the shocking moment a crocodile grabbed the trunk of a baby elephant, hoping to get lunch. The scene was captured by amateur photographer Johan Opperman while taking pictures of a family of African elephants grazing by a water hole in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Hearing the calf's distress calls, the herd of elephants immediately came to its rescue, scaring the croc off

A white elephant | Rare albino elephant

A white elephant



Rare albino elephant

Riana van sharing her bed with eleven big cats

Sharing your bed with common pets like cats or dogs is so last year. Right now it’s all about big cats, and lots of them.

Riana Van Nieuwenhuizen thought she should do her part in saving cheetahs from extinction, so she bought one back in 2006. The 46-year-old South African left her job at the department of justice and found some temporary employment on a game ranch, where she could raise Fiela.

Now, Riana runs Fiela Funds Cheetah Breeding Project, a non-profit that fights to ensure the survival of cheetahs in their own ecosystem. Along the way, she also took in another 10 big cats, with which she often shares her bed.

Her four cheetahs, five white lions and two tigers are a handful, but Riana loves every one of them and puts up with all their naughtiness. Her 2 dogs have also grown quite fond of the felines and don’t mind snuggling up to them.












Photos by John Liebenberg/BARCROFT MEDIA.

Tags: Big cat, Animal

Escaped Lion In Shuwaikh

Unbelievable!

Technicians at Shuwaikh car repair shops were having a normal day at work, when suddenly a nervous looking LION came out of no where...seemingly hungry because of how skinny his body looks


Workers freaked out, jumping over each other, some locking themselves up in cars, some in the offices, and some just ran away...but one brave guy took the picture of this Lion without making a sound....and there was the SHOCK when the Lion turned around...nobody could believe it


Turns out it's their Indian co-worker's dog. He shaved the dog in such a way to look like a Lion.... let's just say the Indian co-worker has gotten a bit more than a hard pat on the back ; ) hahaha

Tags: Lion, Animal

Stranger wild goat made my day

Stranger wild goat made my day the goat is among the cleanest of animals, and is a much more selective feeder than cows, sheep, chickens and even dogs. goats do eat many different species of plants, but do not want to eat food that has been contaminated or that has been on the floor or the ground.

Bird uses body as dam to stop drainpipe soaking nest

A bird used her body as a dam to stop overflowing drainpipe water from soaking her chicks.

The Mistle Thrush had built her nest on top of a downpipe, blocking the water's passage and causing the gutter to flood.

But desperate to protect her young, she puffed herself up to twice her size and sat in the drainpipe to stop the tide of rain water swamping the nest.
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She was so occupied with her task that her mate was left to feed her and their young.

The images were captured by amateur wildlife photographer Dennis Bright at a house in Fareham, Hampshire.

Mr Bright said he was astounded by the female bird's behaviour.

"The nest was tucked away from the weather in the shade of the roof but it was so close to the downpipe the gutter flooded when it rained.

"It was only a matter of seconds before the pipe flooded, and water cascaded over the sides."

Mr Bright said he was amazed by the bird's ingenuity.

"She had to come up with a solution so she puffed herself up so she was twice the size of her mate and used her body as a cork to stop the water - it was absolutely amazing.

"She was very dedicated, sitting there even when the rain was hammering down. Then every half an hour she would get out, dry herself off and come back.

"The male was doing most of the work - feeding her and the chicks when she was sitting in the pipe. I feel so lucky to have witnessed something so rare and unique."

Hester Phillips, from the RSPB, said she had never seen such a situation.

"We've heard of them nesting in some unusual sites before, namely on the top of traffic light, but we've certainly not come across anything like this before.

"Birds can be amazingly hardy creatures, their endurance is incredible - especially when protecting their young."

The female thrush's body is semi-submerged in the water of the gutter as she holds back the flow, protecting the nest and her chicks Photo: SOLENT

A hungry tiger has been capture in russia

A hungry tiger has been captured in Russia - after it was run over when it tried to pounce on a motorbike rider.

The big cat leapt at the biker as he drove along the road in Vyazemsk, Russia, but was hit in mid-air by a car.

'It just ran right in front of me - I hit it just as it was about to leap on the bike rider,' the driver of the car told local media.


The tiger on the road before being captured

Hungarian stork gets a new beak

Tamas Kothay made an artifical beak for the stork out of synthetic resin

A stork with a damaged beak has been given a new, artificial one thanks to experts at a bird hospital in Hungary.

The stork damaged its beak in an accident and was taken to the Hortobagy Birds' Hospital, 180km (111 miles) east of the capital Budapest.

The bird's lower beak was repaired in an operation and Tamas Kothay, a specialist in dental prostheses, built a new top beak out of synthetic resin.

If the bird makes a full recovery it will be released back into the wild.

Dr Deri Janos, who helped in the one-hour operation to fix the top beak, said the stork had probably broken its beak by flying into a wall.

They believe the bird is about three years old.


Without the operation it would have needed hand-feeding for the rest of its life and would have been unable to return to the wild.

The bird hospital has been in operation since 1991 and has returned about 40% of its patients back to the wild.

(BBC)

World’s ugliest animals | Bug | Fine Cuisine | Warthog

Close Encounter: A Bug’s Face
Aren’t you glad nobody puts your face under a microscope? The Dobsonfly was featured in the Oklahoma Microscopy Society’s “Ugly Bug Contest.” The picture submitted into the contest was processed using a scanning electron microscope, which magnifies the bug 10 to 500 times their original size, revealing the true features of the bug. Sometimes the truth is best left untold.

Fine Cuisine
So what if the monkfish has an extremely large tooth-filled mouth, a peculiar flattened body, and loose, slimy skin? Millions of people in Europe, Japan, and in the United States love to consume this large, ugly, bottom-dwelling fish. Just don’t look before you dine.

A Face Only a Mother Could Love
The Warthog definitely has ugly potential. These unusual pigs have a barrel-shaped body, a big, wide head ornamented with six facial warts, and huge curved canine tusks. The average height is 25-33 inches and they run 110-330 pounds.

Back from the dead…
The Almiqui was believed to be extinct for many years - until 2003, when the creature was found in the island’s eastern mountains. We celebrate it’s journey “back to life,” and intend on giving the creature proper recognition…that is, a place in our “Ugliest Animals” Hall of Fame.

If Looks Can Kill
The competition really heated up once this photo of a Matamata Turtle surfaced. Translated from Spanish, matamata means “I kill, I kill”. You surely are killing our eyes! Amongst the major standout features of this hideous creature, is the head and neck, which is large, flat and covered with numerous protuberances, warts, and ridges. It has an extremely wide mouth, and very small eyes, which is situated near its long snout. Sadly, the limbs of the Matamata Turtle are poorly developed…so is the face, the slimy body, etc…

Cloned camel unveiled in dubai | World’s first cloned camel

The ambitious desert emirate of Dubai has claimed another first, this time in the science of cloning camels.

Injaz, or Achievement, was unveiled to the world alongside her surrogate mother five days after being born at the city's Camel Reproduction Centre.

"This is the first time scientists have cloned a camel calf," the scientific director of the central veterinary research laboratory, Dr Ulrich Wernery, said. "She is a healthy female."

The project had the personal backing of Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, best known in Britain as one of the world's leading racehorse owners.

The Camel Reproduction Centre now hopes to use the technique on some of Dubai's leading racing camels to preserve elite bloodlines for the future.

Camel racing is a popular past-time in the Gulf region, though the traditional child riders have largely been replaced by robots due to humanitarian concerns.

"We are all very excited by the birth of Injaz," Dr Lulu Skidmore, the centre's scientific director, said. "This significant breakthrough in our research programme gives a means of preserving the valuable genetics of our elite racing and milk-producing camels in the future."

The scientists employed the standard animal cloning techniques first used in the case of Dolly the sheep in 1996 by scientists in Edinburgh.

Injaz is the clone of a camel slaughtered for its meat in 2005. The ovaries were removed and DNA extracted and placed in an egg taken from and re-implanted into the surrogate mother.

Tests since Injaz's birth have shown the camel's DNA to be a copy of the dead animal, not the mother.

The birth, after an "uncomplicated" gestation period of 378 days, followed a number of unsuccessful attempts at producing a clone.

The Camel Reproduction Centre previously produced the world's first "Cama", the first surviving hybrid of a camel and a guanaco, a type of llama.

Raccoon bites off man's penis | Man was trying to rape the animal

A FEISTY raccoon has bitten off a pervert’s PENIS as he was trying to rape the animal.

Alexander Kirilov, 44, was on a drunken weekend with pals when he leapt on the terrified – but toothy – fur ball.

�When I saw the raccoon I thought I’d have some fun,� he told stunned casualty surgeons in Moscow.

Now Russian plastic surgeons are trying to restore his mangled manhood.

�He’s been told they can get things working again but they can’t sew back on what the raccoon bit off," said a pal.

�That’s gone forever so there isn’t going to be much for them to work with."

Strange and stranger | World's most dangerous and controversial zoo

A controversial zoo in Argentina allows tourists to have extremely close encounters with some of the most dangerous predators in the world.

Here at the Lujan Zoo near Buenos Aires visitors can ride lions, cuddle bears, stroke tigers and feed cheetahs. Cages are accessible to everyone who paid $50 and signed the paper saying that if you are eaten, the Zoo is not responsible. Lujan Zoo is about 50 miles from from Buenos Aires, has an entrance fee of just £5.

Visitors can even pick up the smaller animals and manhandle them at risk to themselves and the creatures. Shockingly there doesn't appear to be much in the way of safety regulations to protect either humans or animals and Internet blogs are littered with pictures of tourists with the animals.

Even children are allowed to enter the lion's cage and fondle a range of animals that have the potential to kill or maim them.

Animal protection charity, The Born Free Foundation, has condemned the zoo and issued a statement to urge tourists not to visit it.
Will Travers, CEO of The Born Free Foundation said: 'Based on what I have seen displayed on the Lujan Zoo website, I am fearful that a terrible accident is going to happen.

'The zoo is, in my view, placing the lives of its visitors at great risk by encouraging them to have 'close encounters' with dangerous, potentially lethal, wild animals.

'Anyone who has any knowledge of big cats will understand that they are wild animals and, as such, as unpredictable.'