Last month, one of his caretakers at World Bird Sanctuary (WBS) noticed something odd. Keeper Kerstin saw Murphy the eagle protecting a large depression in the ground. 

The spot was sparsely but carefully decorated with leaves and branches, and featured a simple rock right in the center. World Bird Sanctuary / Facebook
Later that day, Keeper Kerstin saw Murphy sitting on the rock as if it were an egg, and he continued to do so day after day. Male bald eagles take an equal part in raising young, so this is very natural behavior for a male. 

"Every so often he rearranges the sticks in his nest, and cackles at any other eagles that come too close. We wish Murphy all the luck in the world, but we're not telling him the reality of the situation," the nonprofit wrote on Facebook. "We have yet to see a rock hatch!"

The rock / World Bird Sanctuary / Facebook
Many viewers have assumed that Murphy is lonely and needs a mate, but the sanctuary keepers insist he is choosing to do this on his own. "Murphy is not lonely! He is housed with 4 other bald eagles - 2 males and 2 females," WBS said. 

"He is not welcoming help with his nest, nor is he seeking it! He has not chosen a mate, so he very clearly wants to do this on his own. He does not want anything (real eggs) but his rock. Eventually he will get bored and abandon it, but we love watching him care for it now. No need to feel bad for him! He is perfectly content, and very spoiled!" 

Last week, an eagle nest containing two chicks near Ste. Genevieve, Missouri was blown down by very high winds. One chick perished in the fall, but the other was found and rescued by a faithful nest watcher who brought the chick to World Bird Sanctuary's Wildlife Hospital. The staff decided to give Murphy a chance at fostering a real baby. 

However, at 31 years old, Murphy had never raised a chick before. It was definitely a gamble, but also the chick's best chance at survival. "BabyRock" was removed, and the chick was introduced to his enclosure. It took Murphy about an hour to approach the eaglet to examine it. Murphy was definitely curious. But he didn't feed him. The next day, the eaglet left the nest to go be closer to Murphy — and this is when the magic happened. 

"IT'S HAPPENING!!!!" WBS said in an update. "MURPHY FED THE BABY!!!!" WBS posted a photo of Murphy with the baby and said they will be "as hands off as possible" to allow maximum bonding between Murphy and the baby. If you would like to help feed Murphy and his baby, consider donating to the World Bird Sanctuary.
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When an elephant was injured on one occasion, people immediately called Mana Srivate. He has helped many animals by giving them CPR, but this is the first time it was about an elephant. While the others were helping the motorcyclist involved in the accident, Mana was trying to save Ellie the elephant. 

Considering that this is the first time he is helping an elephant, he was very nervous and confused. Mana didn’t have much time, but fortunately he was successful. Ellie was saved, and Mana’s face was almost flooded with tears. 

After that, they took Ellie for additional treatment, so that she could return to the other elephants as soon as possible. Thanks to this man, the elephant got a second chance at life.
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They are among the largest bats, with a wingspan of 1.5–1.7 m (4 ft 10 in–5 ft 7 in) and weighing 0.7–1.2 kg (1.5–2.6 lb). The only other bats with comparable measurements are a few species of Pteropus. No, these photos are not photoshopped. I can still tell you someone in the comments is going to be like, “NO WAY THAT’S REAL, BRO!” But those are my favorite types of animals to share with you all; ones that cannot possibly exist on Earth but do! The Giant Golden-crowned Flying Fox (Acerodon jubatus) is a prime example of one of those such animals. 

These massive and rare bats are named after the golden fur that lays atop their head which sharply contrasts against its large, dark body. Giant Golden-crowed Flying Foxes have an astonishing wingspan between 4’10″ to 5’7″. They weigh from 1.5–2.6 lb. 

With such long wings, they have to wrap them around their entire body while sleeping making it look like their draped in a long black cape. Now that my friends, is how you know you have a big bat. Little is known about the behavior of these impressive bats because the area they inhabit is so remote. They have been recorded at elevations from sea level to 1,100 m (3,600 ft). 

They make crazy journeys to find food (their favorite being figs) and will fly 25 miles or more in ONE NIGHT to fill their bellies. Another hard reason to find these guys is that they don’t put up with any humans (could you blame them?) and in a study conducted in 2005 NO bats were found living in inhabited areas. Another study found them to be forest obligate species, meaning that they stay hidden in the forest a majority of their time. 

Unfortunately, this incredible species is under threat from deforestation as well as hunting. However, there are a couple of agencies working to preserve the future of the weird and wonderful Golden-crowed Flying Fox. The local government of Maitum, Sarangani in the Philippines has organized a campaign to save the species from extinction. The Subic Bay region of the Philippines plays host to a lot of the research on this species. 

Subic Bay is a 14,000-acre (57 km2) protection area that is managed by individuals who want to preserve the species. Bat Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the World Wildlife fund, Lubee Foundation are among the other groups helping to save this species. They provide research funding and education worldwide as well as locally. 

Check them out to see how you can help! The megabat, contrary to its name, is not always large: the smallest species is 6 cm (2.4 in) long and thus smaller than some microbats. The largest attain a wingspan of 1.7 m (5.6 ft), weighing in at up to 1.6 kg (3.5 lb). Most fruit bats have large eyes, allowing them to orient themselves visually in twilight and inside caves and forests. 

Their sense of smell is excellent. In contrast to the microbats, the fruit bats do not use echolocation (with one exception, the Egyptian fruit bat Rousettus egyptiacus, which uses high-pitched tongue clicks to navigate in caves). Megabats make up the only family (Pteropodidae) in order Chiroptera that is not capable of laryngeal echolocation. Echolocation and flight evolved early in the lineage of Chiropterans and echolocation was later lost in family Pteropodidae. 

Both echolocation and flight are energetically expensive processes for bats. The nature of the flight and echolocation mechanism of bats allows for creation of echolocation pulses with minimal energy use. Energetic coupling of these two processes is thought to have allowed for both energetically expensive processes to evolve in bats. 

It is hypothesized that the loss of echolocation is due to the uncoupling of flight and echolocation in megabats. 

The larger average body size of megabats compared to echolocating bats suggests that a larger body size disrupts the flight-echolocation coupling and made echolocation too energetically expensive to be conserved in megabats.

  The Eurasian eagle owl, the biggest owl in the world, has made a home in Jos Baart’s high-rise apartment complex. 

The mommy owl and three young owls seemed to be very curious about everything around them. Baart initially thought they were annoying, but soon they seemed to be friends!  The owls have no reservations about this gracious host. And you can see the giant, fluffy chicks standing in quick succession, peering over Baart’s shoulder at the television screen. 

Perhaps they are eagerly awaiting to be invited into the house! Their less friendly mother frequently watches over her cubs from behind a bush, apparently suspicious of Baart and her children’s television habits. 

But she couldn’t stop the baby owls’ curiosity. With a wingspan of more than 1.5 meters, these owls, also known as Bubo owls, have been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest owls. 

They are not natural carnivores and have a wild lifespan of 20 years, but can live in captivity for up to 60 years. They usually nest on cliffs and ledges, but they will also take over abandoned golden eagle nests. That must be an unforgettable experience.

Watch the video bellow:

  During Saturday’s game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Kansas City Royals, Dodgers prospect Michael Busch hit a home run in the 7th inning, according to MLB.com. 

As the ball soared over the left field wall into the stands, fans jumped up and scrambled to grab it — but in the end one fan proved triumphant:

A dog catching a home run ball is an all-time wholesome moment pic.twitter.com/u3UXeH0T2c

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) March 25, 2023

Yes, in an adorable moment that proved to be a highlight of the game, a lucky dog stole the show by catching the home run ball in its mouth. 

“Did the dog catch that? Yeah, how about that!” the sports commentators say. The dog hung on tight to his souvenir but ultimately gave it up to his owner, dressed in a K-9 Dodgers jersey, who held up the ball for the cameras. It’s many baseball fans’ dream to catch a home run ball, and this lucky dog was certainly the envy of the crowd — even though to him, he was just catching a ball like dogs often do. 

It was an unusual sight that delighted the crowd, but it’s not the first time a dog has caught a home run ball: in October, a dog caught a home run ball hit by the New York Mets’ Francisco Lindor. 

“It’s a chew toy now,” the commentator said.

A doggo is going home with Francisco Lindor's home run ball tonight 🐶 pic.twitter.com/MJqcAE8G1Z

— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) October 5, 2022

Good boy! Congrats to this dog on living the dream and catching a home run ball! What an incredible thing to see.
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  Shutterstock It’s always an inspiring sight when a baby bald eagle hatches, bringing another one of these beautiful birds into the world. But it was especially good news for one pair of Minnesota bald eagles, who hatched a newborn eaglet weeks after tragically losing one of their eggs. 

Those who tuned in to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ EagleCam this season got to witness plenty of ups and downs as a male and female eagle prepared to hatch their eggs in their nest.

  The couple spent weeks preparing their nest with soft grasses and leaves. The female has been laying eggs in the same nest for four years, the department says. 

In mid February, she successfully laid two eggs, three days apart. On February 23, the nest was hit by a heavy snowstorm that piled up 13.4 inches of snow. 

Footage showed the eagle mom still in her nest keeping the eggs safe even as snow piles up on her:

  Sadly, on February 28, the couple lost one of their eggs. The DNR wrote that while the male and female were switching incubation duties, “the male rose with one egg stuck to his brood patch.” It’s not clear if the egg was already broken when the male stood up for if it happened earlier. 

“In the 10 years we’ve been watching this nest, we have never seen this occur,” the agency said, according to the Kansas City Star. However, the couple continued to incubate their other egg, and experts said its chances of survival actually improved. 

“The survival rate of bald eagle chicks to fledging (successful flight) is 50%,” Minnesota DNR explained. “It is sad and unfortunate to lose an egg, but since there will only be one chick to care for, the survival chances increase dramatically!” 

 Thankfully, the remaining egg hatched successfully on March 26.

  The department said the chick was “being fiercely protected by both adults.” “This single chick will be one well cared-for eaglet,” they wrote. The newborn eagle’s arrival was captured on the EagleCam, and viewers can continue to follow the hatchling’s progress. 

The department writes that the newborn is in the “cutest phase of development” which they call the “bobble-head” stage.

  We’re so glad these two bald eagles successfully hatched their baby, weeks after unfortunately losing one of their eggs. We know this adorable little hatchling will be very well taken care of!
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  An absolute unit of a woolly rhino on display at the Weston Park Museum, Sheffield, UK. The new specimen discovered is a juvenile. Image credit: Chemical Engineer
It is the best preserved juvenile woolly rhino ever found, with a lot of its internal organs – including its hazel-colored hair, intestines, lumps of fat and tissues – kept intact for thousands of years by permafrost. 

The Ice Age creature was discovered in the thawing permafrost in the Yakutia region in Russia’s extreme north in August. It is thought to be the best-preserved woolly rhino found there yet. “The young rhino was between three and four years old and lived separately from its mother when it died, most likely by drowning,” Dr Valery Plotnikov from the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), who made the first description of the find, told the Siberian Times. 

The perfectly preserved rhino was discovered not far from another recent significant find: Sasha, the world’s only baby woolly rhino ever found, discovered in 2014. Sasha, which has striking strawberry blond fur, has been dated to 34,000 years old. 

According to Dr Plotnikov, the newly found specimen has a “very thick short underfur”. Sasha had helped scientists prove that woolly rhinoceroses were covered in thick hair – something only suggested by cave paintings before. 

The new find has added to evidence that woolly rhinos were fully adapted to the cold climate at a young age. Sasha the baby woolly rhino found in 2014 in Yakutia lived 34,000 years ago. Image credit: Albert Protopopov, 

The Siberian Times Currently, the Ice Age relic is still in Yakutia, as ice roads have to be formed before it can be transferred to the region’s capital, Yakutsk, to be studied by scientists.
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These dormice are usually known for their period of hibernation as they can hibernate for ages. By appetite, they reside in trees, bushes, rock walls, and nests of plant materials. They usually consume fruit, nuts, birds’ eggs, and some insects and small animals. 

These species sleep for long periods, particularly during the winter season. The largest species, known as the edible dormouse, is gray in color and has a maximum length of 8cm for its tail. On the other hand, ‘the laughing dormouse’, was selected as the Winner of the land category in 2017, Comedy Wildlife Awards. It was captured by Andrea Zampatti and it depicts the subtle nature of the dormouse as its best. 

Zampatti, the talented photographer, always managed to capture her shots based on the aura of wildlife. Here are some of the other images captured by the photographer.
It’s time to love for the beautiful Great-crested grebe!
The mighty European Bison or Wisent (Bison bonasus) looking at me in a beautiful birchwood in Bialowieza National Park, Poland.
Proud Member of the deep forest.
He is just posing for the image.
The amazing grace of the Arctic Tern. Image Credit & More Info; Andrea Zampatti/Instagram | facebook
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At 512 years, that would make this ancient shark the oldest living vertebrate in the world. Even though over half a millennium seems like a crazy amount of time, Greenland sharks actually tend to outlive most other animals because they are a very slow-growing species. 

These sharks generally reach a mature age at 150 years old, and some reports have shown that some sharks have lived for almost 400 years. This new discovery of a 512-year-old definitely breaks a record. 512 years would put the birth date of this shark at 1505, older than Shakespeare. 

The discovery was detailed in a research study published in the journal Science. Marine biologist Julius Nielsen and his team used a technique to measure the amount of radiocarbon in the eye lenses of Greenland sharks, revealing the possible age of this senior animal. “It definitely tells us that this creature is extraordinary and it should be considered among the absolute oldest animals in the world,” the biologist told. Previously, scientists used the size of the animal to determine their length. Sharks of the same ‘Somniosidae’ family, usually grow about 0.4 inches per year. 

While this method can give a rough estimate of a shark’s age, it’s by no means scientifically accurate, especially once a certain maturity has been reached. “Fish biologists have tried to determine the age and longevity of Greenland sharks for decades, but without success. Given that this shark is the apex predator (king of the food chain) in Arctic waters, it is almost unbelievable that we didn’t know whether the shark lives for 20 years, or for 1,000 years,” expert Steven Campana from the University of Iceland stated. 

Nielsen has been doing research on Greenland sharks for almost his entire academic career. The animals are known to eat rotting polar bear carcasses, of which the scientist shared a picture earlier. He also says that the species very frequently have to deal with pesky parasites that latch to their eyes, which is why the eyes usually don’t look that healthy. 

Because these sharks tend to live hundreds of years, they usually don’t stick around in the same spot forever. Sharks from all over the world were studied, but genetic results of practically all of them were similar, suggesting they all originated from one place and then migrated. 

The reproduction of Greenland sharks is still somewhat of a mystery, although the scientists do know that the cold water of the Arctic is a preferred place for them stay. This research suggests that Greenland sharks can live much longer than professors and scientists initially thought. No less than 28 Greenland sharks were studied and analyzed for this research paper. 

The new age determination method for these sharks definitely brings some much-needed accuracy to the field, as older methods have proven to be very unreliable. In further research, scientists now want to uncover why the Greenland shark lives so much longer than other vertebrates. They hope that they can discover more about the shark’s long-life genes and will also try to make the link with life expectancy in several different species. 

“This is the longest living vertebrate on the planet,” he said. “Together with colleagues in Denmark, Greenland, USA, and China, we are currently sequencing its whole nuclear genome which will help us discover why the Greenland shark not only lives longer than other shark species but other vertebrates.”

When the research scientist was asked how in the world this shark could possibly reach the age of over 500 years old, he guessed that the cold water combined with a slow metabolism would be responsible. 

He does admit right after, however, that further research is still needed and that this explanation is just a theory.

 

“The answer likely has to do with a very slow metabolism and the cold waters that they inhabit. I’m just the messenger on this. I have no idea.”
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This is a wonderful and inspiring friendship story. This deer was discovered alone, completely weak, and on the verge of death without his mother. So they decided to ask the poor creature who shared their home. A new life at a human home is a strange experience for the baby deer; he is not used to such a life, but thankfully, there is one person who can help him integrate faster: the chubby tabby cat! The cat took over almost all of the deer’s care, treating it as if it were its own child. 

They now stick together whenever and wherever the cats go, and the deer is especially pleased and takes care of both his feline companion wherever he goes. The baby deer is now completely integrated into this family and happier than ever! 

People frequently see this couple cuddling and licking each other’s faces and hands like a genuine sister and brother; it is clear that they feel especially calm and safe when they are together. whole. They have a great time playing together! 

This house cat and abandoned deer have become incredible companions, and they still have a long way to go! It’s incredible how animals adapt and bond with friends of other species. They could teach us a lot!  

Watch the full adorable video here:

 
May God bless both of their hearts ❤️ And Best wishes to this adorable couple!
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What makes Enzo the golden retriever different from other golden retrievers is his extraordinary birthmark. Enzo is a cute little cuddly and adorable doggo who was fortunate enough to find his forever home when he was just 2 years old. 

This doggo is also very friendly. Enzo suffers from a rare genetic mutation that highlights his presence and makes him stand out from the rest of the dogs. This genetic mutation has caused a huge black splotch around his eye area. Even though purebred golden retrievers generally have a single bright golden coat, this purebred has a birthmark that covers the left side of his face. 

This birthmark definitely adds to his beauty. Golden retrievers are normally born with a base black coat. It is the modifier gene in their body that gives them the golden color. Almost every golden retriever has this modifier gene. But in Enzo’s case, he had a slight stumble in his DNA and this erased the modifier gene on that left eye area of his face. 

This condition is rather rare and is known as pigmented somatic cell mutation. Nevertheless, this birthmark has made Enzo famous. 

He is an Instagram celebrity with around 195K followers. Although the doggo has no idea of how unique he is, he continues to live as any ordinary golden retriever would. People are fascinated with this dog and his interesting birthmark. Meanwhile, Enzo is on a mission to befriend the whole world. 

At times people confuse his breed and assume that he is a mutt because golden retrievers are solid-colored. Another unique fact about this doggo is that he is extremely big for his age. 

Follow him on Instagram to enjoy more of his pictures. His username is mister.enzoviola. Image Credit & More Info; mister.enzoviola
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Fighting for animals rights is his first priority. A truly conservationist, Dolph is constantly raising awareness for endangered species. He spends his savings and his holidays working as a volunteer at the Cheetah Experience in South Africa. 

Over the years, the bighearted man made some great efforts to protect and conserve this species. By the time, these huge wild cats learned to love and respect Dolph. During one his trips, he was tired after a long day in the sun, so he decided to take a nap under a tree. 

That’s when a cheetah named Eden spotted Dolph. She walked up to him, sniffed him, and decided to cuddle with the harmless human. To say Dolph was surprised to find Eden when he woke up would be an understatement. And that was the beginning of their friendship. 

A beautiful, amazing, fascinating friendship. Eden looks at Dolph as if he belongs to the same species as her. She cuddles him, nibbles him, purrs and snuggles with him. The bond could not had been more adorable. In fact, Dolph is now being called “The Cheetah Whisperer” since he spends most of his time in cheetah’s company. This is the sweetest thing we’ve seen in a while. 

Take a peek:

 
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