Animals are Magical

[mountain_jim]

https://x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status...170421930?s=20

“Are you alright buddy”

Surfer saves a Baby Kangaroo in Australia - what a Legend.

[rgray222]

Do you think that's funny? Am I a joke to you?

[rgray222]

Craig, one of Africa’s last remaining super tuskers, died on January 3, 2026, at the age of 54 in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. His death marks a significant loss for elephant conservation, as super tuskers—defined by tusks weighing over 45 kilograms each—are now extremely rare due to decades of poaching and habitat loss.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by mountain_jim (here)
https://x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status...170421930?s=20

“Are you alright buddy?”

Surfer saves a Baby Kangaroo in Australia - what a Legend.

So great to see. (trivia: it seems to have been a wallaby, which is a kind of small kangaroo — scientifically a slightly different species, but of course very closely related. And whether it was a wallaby or a baby kangaroo, it was extremely cold, way too far from the shore, and would probably have drowned within half an hour.)

A different kind of rescue was posted by Isserley on the Humans Are Amazing thread. I'm not ashamed to say it brought a few tears to my eyes and absolutely made my whole day. You gotta read this.



~~~



"She had saved $5,000 for a luxury trip to Thailand. But she didn't spend it on hotels.

While walking past a trekking camp, Sarah saw ""Nala,"" an elderly elephant chained to a concrete post. Nala was swaying back and forth—a sign of extreme distress. Her eyes looked dead. She had been carrying tourists on her back for 40 years.

Sarah locked eyes with the giant animal and started crying.

She found the owner and made an offer. She emptied her entire savings account right there in the dirt.

""I'm not renting her,"" Sarah said. ""I'm buying her retirement.""

A friend snapped a photo of the moment the heavy chains were finally unlocked. Nala touched Sarah's face with her trunk, letting out a low rumble that vibrated through the ground.

She now lives in a sanctuary, and Sarah went home broke, but richer than ever.

Freedom is the only souvenir worth buying. 🐘❤️"

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BrGk3ikJm

[Isserley]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I'm not ashamed to say it brought a few tears to my eyes and absolutely made my whole day.

I'm glad for that. The story had a similar effect on me but I have to go a bit off topic now ->
The only concern or reality check is whether it's an authentic story or an AI fabrication, because unfortunately for the purpose of clicks, there are more and more of those and it's getting harder to tell. I want to believe that it's authentic because of the emotional impact it makes.
On the other hand, if it's not, it can still encourage people to be more empathetic.

[Johnnycomelately]

This one is pretty wild, but I’ve seen and heard Paul Barton play piano for wild elephants since years.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BrY51Pm73kw

[grapevine]

Won't take no for an answer

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=01CBuK81DM4

[petra]

Posted by Johnnycomelately (here)
This one is pretty wild, but I’ve seen and heard Paul Barton play piano for wild elephants since years.

Well, that one didn't last long

[rgray222]

Wonderful video of the rarely seen snow leopard.

[Ewan]

Posted by rgray222 (here)
Wonderful video of the rarely seen snow leopard.

Shots 2 & 3 look like an animal in captivity. (2. Background logs / 3. The appearance of a concrete floor).
Quite how the rest was filmed is beyond my understanding, particularly the walking through a snow covered woodland. Also the jump down the mountainside, the animal is staring straight ahead - at no point does it look where it is landing.

Lovely little film though.

[Johnnycomelately]

Two rhinoceros stories, fully magical.

Where I found them (this weekend’s TWZ Bunker Talk), a comment about this first one remarked how special touch can be to critters, and how their eyes can be so expressive.

A Powerful & Emotional Reunion Between Adine & Rewilded Rhino Orphan, Gertjie

HERD Elephant Orphanage South Africa
390K subscribers

Nov 18, 2024

Adine bravely reunites with Gertjie the rewilded rhino orphan on foot and helps treat a small injury 💚 🦏

It’s a powerful and emotional moment between the two.

You might not know it, but before rehabilitating elephant orphans, HERD Founder, Adine Roode dedicated her services to rhino orphans. Adine ran the rhino rehabilitation programme at HESC (Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre) for many years and was part of the rhinos’ rehabilitative journey up until HERD elephant orphanage was built, and shortly after a few of the rhino orphans were released. Adine formed a beautiful bond with friendly rhino bull, Gertjie and still has a soft spot for this survivor all these years later.

In May 2014, Gertjie, only three months old, was found next to his mother’s dead body. The Provet Wildlife Services team brought him into the care of HESC where he slowly recuperated and recovered. In November 2014, Matimba, another orphaned white rhino calf, about one month old, was rescued, having suffered the same devastating fate as Gertjie. It was evident that his mother and he were enjoying a mud bath together when the attack occurred. Gertjie and Matimba were introduced in December that year and a beautiful brotherhood began! The two rhinos become constant companions, along with their trusted sidekick, Lammie, whom you may know as Khanyisa’s companion now at HERD elephant orphanage.

After five years of rehabilitation and various stages of reintegration, Gertjie and Matimba were successfully released into the wild in July 2019, with an APU unit providing state of the art anti-poaching protection. Rehabilitated, healthy, confident and strong, the two rhino bulls were finally able to sustain themselves and experience life as nature intended.

In the wild, rehabilitated rhinos’ chance of procreation is far greater so this always remains the ideal, for the survival of the species. Along with Gertjie and Matimba, an additional four rhinos who were victims of poaching were taken into the care of HESC, after having had their horns hacked off and being left to die. Adine had an incredible team by her side and was instrumental in rehabilitating these rhino poaching survivors.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iYJkADIMOJs

Vid of a rhino horsing around with a much smaller critter (some kind of Asian deer, please see description), at a zoo in Poland.

Watch: 13kg deer takes on 1.7-tonne rhino in extraordinary interaction

The Independent
1.2M subscribers

Jan 9, 2026

A 13kg deer decided to take on a 1.7-tonne rhinoceros in a curious confrontation at Wroclaw Zoo in Poland on Friday (9 January).

The Chinese Muntjac, a small deer species native to Asia, fearlessly engaged with its huge opponent.

Despite the substantial size difference, the small creature repeatedly approached the much larger mammal, which appeared to respond playfully.

Wroclaw Zoo wrote on Facebook: “His partner is in heat, and the bachelor is pumping with testosterone. He needs to release his energy and show who's boss - even if his sparring partner weighs 1.7 tonnes.

“Who would have thought that such a warrior could be hidden in that tiny body?”

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IpBrqPzyLds

[Agape]

I feel compelled to post this link though it's a sad news and it will disappoint animal lovers worldwide but to whomever wants to recalculate their assets ( tongue in cheek ),
the fastest calculating primate living in Japan, chimpanzee Ay died at age 49, in captivity.

Ai, Japanese chimpanzee who counted and painted, dies at 49



There are others.

☃️

[Ravenlocke]

🍉シナモン🇵🇸

·
Jan 11
Translated from Japanese
Wanko is Aloca-chan, which apparently means "light." When she was a stray dog in India, she started following these monks, and they've been together ever since. This time, she's been given lots of clothes as presents from people along the roadside, and she's also receiving support from a veterinarian, and she's working hard to complete the 3700 km journey.

https://x.com/cassiuscanelo/status/2010377909593350654

https://x.com/PK76349649/status/2010710051825033493

Massimo

·
Jan 11
Meet Aloka, the stray dog who chose peace.

He has walked 2,300 miles with Buddhist monks across the US, eating, sleeping and praying with them.

https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2010349663447367975

[Bluegreen]

Thank you for posting, Ravenlocke. Peace be with all.

[Bluegreen]

The Deceivers

Meet The Spider With The Ultimate Anti-Predator Trick. Hint: Body Double

Survival demands remarkable strategies in the understory of tropical forests, where the threat of being eaten is constant. Among the tiny creatures that make their living in these realms is an unassuming genus of spider: Cyclosa. Although these spiders are barely a few millimeters long, they have mastered one of nature’s most imaginative defensive tactics.

Rather than fleeing or biting back, this spider relies on weaving illusions into its webs — illusions so effective that researchers only formally documented this behavior for the first time in 2025, in a study published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.




(A) The “spider-like decoy” stabilimentum of the first individual Cyclosa sp. observed in the Philippines. (B) The Cyclosa sp. observed resting within the stabilimentum illustrated in Figure 1A. (C) The first Cyclosa individual found exhibiting a spider-like stabilimentum in Madre de Dios, Peru. (D) The stabilimentum and spider of the Peruvian Cyclosa sp. showing the spider's position above the stabilimentum. (E) The Peruvian Cyclosa species that builds stabilimentum. (F) A similar stabilimentum, built by an unknown spider taxon, found and photographed in the Torotorofotsy-Ihofa forest, Madagascar by H. Cordey.


What makes this discovery genuinely novel isn’t just that Cyclosa fashions decorations in its webs; many orb-weaving spiders do that. Rather, it’s that some species in the genus have been shown to arrange that debris into decoys that misdirect would-be predators.

As the 2025 study notes, these decoy structures — referred to scientifically as a form of stabilimentum — aren’t just random clumps of silk and trash, which just so happen to resemble spiders. Instead, the evidence suggests that Cyclosa arranges the debris intentionally to bear a striking silhouette.

Looking at the decoys, the resemblance is more than uncanny. Each consistently features a central mass that mimics a spider’s cephalothorax and abdomen, and is always flanked by eight “leg”-like radiations of debris.





Published 3rd January 2026 by Scott Travers – Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scotttr...oys-of-itself/


Posterior Disguises Help Blowflies Blend In





This blowfly larva breathes through holes that closely resemble termite eyes, helping the impostor blend in inside a termite nest


A study of blowflies gives new meaning to the term “butthead.”

When lifting a stone during an expedition in the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco, researchers came across an unusual sight: three blowfly larvae living inside a termite nest, known to never tolerate unwelcome guests.

“I immediately thought ‘Wow, this is something cool,’ because I’ve never seen anything like that,” says entomologist Roger Vila of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona.

Vila and colleagues brought the larvae and some termites to the lab, hoping to understand how the interlopers manage to get by unnoticed among harvester termites (Anacanthotermes ochraceus), who brutally kill any intruders that enter their nests. The team examined the insects under the microscope, documented how the two species interacted and performed a number of experiments.

The blowfly larvae bodies have evolved to closely resemble those of the termites, the researchers report February 10 in Current Biology. Inside the nest, termites recognize each other through touch, so having a termite-shaped body is crucial for larvae survival.

On their rears, the larvae have features that resemble a termite’s antennae, eyes and other small structures, creating a false termite head. And tentacles around the body imitate termite antennae — allowing the larvae to deceive termites coming from all sides.




The larva also has tentacles around its body that mimic termite antennae, allowing the blowfly to trick termites it encounters at any side.

Published 21st February 2025 by Gennaro Tomma – Science News
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...-termite-faces

[Bluegreen]

I Don't Like Spiders & Snakes

A 70's love story. Wonder if Jimmy Savile likes spiders and snakes?

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_TRJUAaQ2WU