A Curious Elephant

A Curious Elephant

Funny little hedgehog

Gunther von Hagens’s Plastinated Animal Exhibition

Plastination is a technique of preserving bodies or body parts by replacing the water and fat components by certain plastics, thereby yielding specimens that can be touched, do not smell or decay, and even retain most properties of the original sample. Plastination was invented by the German anatomist Gunther von Hagens in 1977, and later he founded the Institute of Plastination in Heidelberg in 1993. Dr von Hagens plastinated animals are now on display at an exhibition called “Body Worlds of Animals” at the Cologne Zoo.

Preserved camels are shown during the opening of the exhibition
Plastination was initially used to preserve small specimens for medical study. It was not until the early nineties that the equipment was developed to make it possible to plastinate whole body specimens. The first exhibition of whole bodies was held in Japan in 1995. Over the next two years, Von Hagens developed the Body Worlds exhibition, showing whole bodies plastinated in lifelike poses and dissected to show various structures and systems of human anatomy, which has since met with public interest and controversy in more than 50 cities around the world.
Plastination is a laborious process with each specimen taking up to 1,500 man hours to prepare. A giraffe took three years to complete; an elephant took 64,000 hours. Dr von Hagens plastinated human bodies too, which is the source of all controversy.
A collection of 20 animals are currently on display at the Cologne Zoo. The exhibition starts today, April 15, 2011, and will run till the end of September 2011.

A plastinated bull during an exhibition preview

A preserved gorilla is shown during the opening of the exhibition.

A preserved brown bear at the opening of the exhibition

Angelina Walley, wife of German anatomist Gunther von Hagens looks at a plastinate shark during the exhibition preview.

Dr Gunther von Hagens and his wife in front of a plastinated 3.2 tonne elephant at last year’s exhibition.

A plastinated horse at Body Worlds of Animals exhibition held in Melbourne in June 2010.

A visitor inspects a plastinated dog at the Melbourne exhibition in 2010.

Photo Courtesy: Associated Press, Reuters, Getty Images

Chinese Animal Lover Adopts 140 Stray Dogs

Chinese Animal Lover Adopts 140 Stray Dogs

REUTERS Photo

Li Zongwen, a former chef from Wuhan, has made online headlines after Chinese media discovered he has taken in 140 stray dogs from the outskirts of the city. More images after the break...

 

Read Full Article Here...

The Rare 'Spirit Bear'

Take a good look, because it's likely you'll never see one for yourself. The Kermode Bear is a rare offshoot of the American Black Bear living in the central coast of British Columbia, and just 1/10 of them have a recessive gene that gives them their white color. They're not related to Polar Bears nor are they albino.

This one was photographed recently by wildlife photographer Steve Kozlowski:

"I set out to travel to the last area where a small population of spirit bears is known to exist near Princess Royal Island on the British Columbia coastline. I emerged from my tent and was confronted with a spirit bear. The bear was startled and it charged at me over a log, its hair up, ears back, snapping its jaws. I slowly backed away from the bear and it eventually left. I built a camera blind and kept hidden so that the bear became more comfortable with me as I kept a safe distance. To observe the bear in the wild was a pleasure."

A couple clips on the 'spirit bear', AFTER THE JUMP...

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Sniffer Rats Detect Landmines and Tuberculosis in Mozambique

Mozambique is still littered with land mines from the country's civil war that ended in 1992. According to Handicap International, an estimated 20 people step on landmines every month in Mozambique. In addition to claiming the lives of about 60 percent of those who step on them, those land mines eat up land that could be used for farming, etc.
So Mozambique is turning to trained rats to de-mine the country. The rats have an acute sense of smell and are small enough not to detonate the mines. Every time they detect explosive, they make a clicking sound and receive a bit of banana as a reward. Rats trained under the scheme have already helped clear large swathes of land in mine-infested Mozambique.

It takes nine months of painstaking on-and-off field training for a rat to be deployed for mine detection, but they much better job than dogs or humans. A team of two rats can clear a 200 sq mt minefield in two hours rather than the day it takes humans.

The brain behind the project named APOPO (a Dutch acronym meaning Anti-Personnel Land Mines Detection Product Development) is Bart Weetjens, a 33 years old Buddhist monk who trains HeroRats – the rodents that has helped sniff out not only landmines but also tuberculosis infection. In 2008 and 2009, about 30 state-accredited HeroRats, scampered across more than a million square meters of Mozambican land, ferreting out almost 400 mines and other ordnance. The U.N. says 9.6 million square meters still needed to be cleared in 2009
You can read more about HeroRats at Time.











Photos: YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP / Getty Images

Lion with a Soft Side

An amazing position to be in, and come out of it alive!

Acrobatics on horses (10 photos)

I really like acrobatics and all sorts of tricks, but here's a horse never had to look at is probably very difficult, because the work with animals can turn into anything you like.

White Elephants

White Elephants

Rare albino Elephants. More images after the break...

Animals Perform Tricks for Halloween

Zoos around Europe put carved pumpkins in animal enclosures to see what would happen. Here is what happened.

Siberian tiger Ingrid and her four-month-old cubs, Rosa (left) and Zaria, investigate a pumpkin at Port Lympne wild animal park in Kent


Rosa pounces on the pumpkin

Chimpanzee Blossom eyes up a pumpkin in her enclosure at Blair Drummond safari park in Scotland

Foufou, a western lowland gorilla, with her two-year-old baby Louna, plays with a pumpkin at Port Lympne wild animal park

A ring-tailed lemur inspects a pumpkin at the Bioparco zoo in Rome, Italy

A northern plains grey langur plays with a carved pumpkin at Nyiregyhaza animal park in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary

A Japanese macaque plays with a pumpkin at the Bioparco zoo

Japanese macaques sit above a pumpkin at the Bioparco zoo

An orangutan nibbles a pumpkin at the Tierpark Hagenbeck in Hamburg, Germany

A red-crowned crane, also called a Japanese crane or Manchurian crane, takes a bite from a Halloween pumpkin at Nyiregyhaza animal park

An orangutan eats a pumkin in her enclosure in the Tierpark Hagenbeck

Two orangutans share a pumkin in their enclosure in the Tierpark Hagenbeck
[via The Guardian]