The chief mouse in the Cabinet of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Larry the cat, protects his possessions from uninvited guests.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS
WHEN FOOD BECOMES A FRIEND
The friendship between the Amur tiger and Timur the goat has turned into an exciting world-class reality show. Everyone wondered if the one with the fangs would eat his horned partner or not. Their friendship began in 2015, when a young Amur tiger was brought a mongrel goat for dinner. But the predator did not even touch Timur, and the goat showed character, sticking out its horns. The fact that tigers are well-fed in such zoos also played a role, so they are too lazy to pretend to be hunters, Far East Safari Park employees explained. So Timur the goat remained in the tiger’s enclosure as a roommate. Although she eventually began to claim the title of full owner, displaying true goat character, she seized Cupid’s couch and drove him out of his resting place.
An Amur tiger named Amur and a goat named Timur in Primorsky Safari Park, 2015. Photo: Yuri Smityuk / TASS
The news about the friendship of the tiger and the goat spread all over the world. Throngs of visitors flocked to the Seaside Safari Park. One fine day, the goat became so impudent and she got tired of Amur with her bullying that she clung to Timur and began to ruffle his hair. The friends resettled, but the proximity of the enclosures allowed them to see each other from afar. In November 2019, Timur died, a monument was erected in the park in memory of him.
CAT CASES
“The king asked me to be prime minister because this nonsense has been going on for far too long,” was the peremptory statement of the main occupant of 10 Downing Street last October, as English prime ministers followed one another in quick succession. Chiefs of Staff can change in residence, but Larry the cat, never. Under him, the fifth Chief of Staff entered Downing Street.
The first years of Harry’s service in Downing Street’s most famous building were not without instruction.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS
For the first time, Larry crossed the threshold of a house in central London on February 15, 2011, having received a responsible post of chief mouse in the British government. The residence of the English Prime Minister was infested with mice and rats, so a real professional was required: Larry, who had previously lived in an animal shelter, immediately got down to business.
Despite the fact that Larry does not have blue blood, he played a significant role in David Cameron’s ratings decline. The Prime Minister tried to remove the cat from the residence, saying that he was not doing his duty well, and even took a new cat, with whom Larry did not have a good relationship. The British did not forgive the politician for such disrespect for everyone’s favorite – Cameron’s rating dropped sharply.
Larry is quite friendly with the police who guard the residence of the British Prime Minister.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS
In 2016, Larry’s competitor, a diplomatic cat, appeared in the British Foreign Office. But a poll on the mouse-catchers’ chief Twitter page showed that the British are loyal to Larry. The cat is already 15 years old, has social networks and millions of fans.
fluffy saboteur
Paratroopers as elite troops, and the talisman must be appropriate. During the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, a large-scale evacuation of not only local residents, but also zoo animals was carried out. Some of them took refuge in the Crimea. But our paratroopers were able to save the raccoon, who was given the nickname Kherson.
The raccoon immediately fell in love with users of social networks, it became the character of numerous memes. Kherson has its own telegram channel.
The raccoon’s fellow soldiers said that Kherson is with them at the front, lives with the paratroopers in the trenches and sometimes behaves badly.
A raccoon from the Kherson Zoo was evacuated in November by Russian paratroopers from the right bank of the Dnieper. Photo: Andrei Rubtsov/TASS
“He loves to play tricks, a fluffy little saboteur. Night sabotage happens very often. I wake up somehow in the morning and we have all the bungalows destroyed. Garbage bags, all torn. The other way around,” said the Russian military officer in charge of the animal.
Faced with reproaches from Ukrainian netizens that the Russians allegedly stole the raccoon, our paratroopers said that they had saved the abandoned animal and would not return it to Kherson.
NOSTRADAMUS UNDERWATER
He was loved and hated, they promised to kill him and crumble him into a salad. The predictions of the most famous octopus-fortune teller Paul, which he gave on the eve of the matches of the World and European Football Championships, were more interesting than the predictions of eminent sports experts.
Paul’s fate is lost in the depths of the ocean. It seems that he was born in 2008 in a marine animal park in British Dorset, and then moved to the aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany. According to other sources, he was captured by a German octopus hunter and taken to Oberhausen. There began Pablo’s career as a fortune teller. For the first time, his services were used in the summer of 2008 during the Eurocup. The Germans were worried about the fate of the German national team. Two feeders with country flags in the aquarium were lowered to Paul, whose feeder the octopus opens first, he wins. As a result, Paul correctly predicted the results of 4 out of 6 matches for the German national team. For two years, before the world championship in South Africa, the octopus was thoroughly trained in predictions and was able to guess the outcome of all matches, including the victory of the Spanish in the final and the Germans in the match for third place. For this, Paul was presented with a copy of the World Cup.
Soccer predictions guru octopus Paul.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS
Many wondered how the octopus correctly determines the winners. Scientists have argued that this is pure luck. Others said that Paul most often chose the feeder with the flag that had the most yellow. It is possible that an oceanarium employee lowering the feeder also played a role.
After the triumph of the octopus at the European Championships and the World Cup, the zoo management announced that Paul would no longer give predictions, and in the fall Paul died.
SPACE PATROL
Few people know, but in addition to dogs, monkeys, cats, turtles, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and mice, hamsters, geckos, frogs, quail and even some types of fish have also been in space. Most of the dog research in the mid-20th century was done by the Soviet Union. The future cosmonauts were simple mongrels, who were caught on the streets of Moscow. They underwent special training and training, during which the guard dogs got used to tight spaces.
The first test riders were Dezik and Gypsy. The dogs successfully reached the upper atmosphere in the summer of 1951. Almost 10 years later, Belka and Strelka were able to make their first orbital flight, which lasted 25 hours, and return safely. After this flight, Strelka gave birth to six pups, one of which was given to Jacqueline Kennedy.
The dogs Belka and Strelka, who made the first orbital flight with a successful return to Earth aboard the Sputnik-5 spacecraft on August 19, 1960. Photo: Sergei Preobrazhensky, Nikolai Sitnikov/TASS
Designer Sergei Korolev, famous for his great love for dogs, always cared about four-legged testers and took incidents that happened to them very seriously. The personal drama for him was the death of Laika, which entered orbit in 1957. Although the spacecraft reached orbit, it was unable to return to Earth. And Laika died in 5-7 hours from overheating. Korolev was very worried about the death of his beloved Chanterelle, who went into space after Laika along with Chaika. “I really want you to come back,” the designer told the dog before the flight, but due to the destruction of one of the blocks, the rocket crashed to the ground almost immediately after launch.
And if in almost 15 years the USSR launched 48 dogs on rockets, then only one cat went into space. His flight was organized by the French in 1963. Felicette climbed to a height of more than 100 km and returned. There is a legend that the French cat Felix visited space, but there is no documentary evidence of this.
LIKE TWO DROPS
The birth of Dolly the sheep on July 5, 1996 turned upside down not only the world of genetics, but also biology and medicine. Scientists Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell were the first to successfully clone a mammal. After that, all discussions on the topic ended: is it possible to clone such complex living things? Genetic copies of mice, cats, dogs, horses, deer, camels, and bulls have been created in recent decades. However, only one question remained: will scientists learn to clone people? But politicians around the world after the appearance of Dolly the sheep banned such experiments.
Dolly turned out to have three “mothers” and not a single “father”. Her entire life was spent under the scrutiny of a journalist. During this time she brought six lambs, already conceived naturally. Dolly lived for 6.5 years. In 2003, she was euthanized, the sheep suffering from lung disease, and her stuffed animal was put on display at the Royal Museum of Scotland.
