The Blijdorp zoo in Rotterdam announced the birth of a rare mouse-like creature last Thursday, a Black and rufous elephant shrew.
These critters originally come from East Africa and have a conservation status of ‘vulnerable’. They are rarely born in captivity, in fact before this birth there was only one other instance known in Europe (a child of the same mother). The zoo calls it fortunate that father Gambit and mother Gloria even hit it off (it would be, considering the father was flown in to breed).
The zoo isn’t entirely sure when the young elephant shrew was born, in fact it was first discovered by a visitor. Despite being unsure of its sex, people have already named it Guusje.
(Photo of a shrew held in the US by Joey Makalintal, some rights reserved)
In 1962 Dutch cinema’s golden child Bert Haanstra visited the zoo of Amsterdam, Artis, during a sun-filled period and filmed the visitors as they were laughing, yawning, scratching themselves, chatting and taking naps. Then he filmed animals doing the same thing and edited the result to contrast the two groups and perhaps to say “we are not that different, you and I”.
The video shows that Vicks was simply playing with the stone and was not attacking the window deliberately. Shortly after 9 am Rob van der Horst (together with Ari Stolk) was unsuspectingly just shooting a film in he polar bear exhibit.
In 2010 a German octopus called Paul made worldwide headlines by correctly ‘predicting’ the results of South African football World Cup matches.
Ouwehands Dierenpark, a zoo in Rhenen near Wageningen, has successfully managed to lure reporters to its new orangutan enclosure with a story about behavioural conditioning. 