All in Animals

Human Teaches Ape to Breastfeed

Zoe, a new-mom orangutan at the Metro Richmond Zoo in Virginia, didn’t know how to breastfeed her newborn. A lactating human zookeeper showed her how. The zookeepers knew Zoe was not was not up to this basic task in 2021 when her first child was born, a baby boy that Zoe would hold at arm’s length, not close enough to feed or bond with. Because Zoe’s own mother had died unexpectedly when she was just nine months old, she never learned these essential skill sets.

The Very Cold, Very Dark & Very Deep Home of the Mysterious Snailfish

Researchers from the University of Western Australia and Japan have plumbed the depths – five miles of depth – to spot and film the deepest fish ever seen. Using a remotely operated submersible in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench not far from Japan, the scientists spied a snailfish at a record-breaking 27,349 feet deep. The species is unknown, but it likely belongs to the genus Pseudoliparis.

What Child Is This?

It’s a girl. The Metro Richmond Zoo in Moseley, Virginia received a delightful early Christmas present this year: 16 pounds of pygmy hippopotamus. That’s what she weighed at her first neonatal exam, three days after she came into the world on December 6, to Iris and Corwin. The zoo issued the birth announcement on the 22nd and has yet to name the baby girl.

Funny Raccoon Waves at Florida Man

Winners of this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are in and we think they are in fact funny. The comic possibilities of wildlife tend to fall into set categories. There are the photos of slapstick in progress – a 3-month-old lion cub falling out of a tree, for example, which happens to be this year’s overall winner. “It was probably his first time in a tree and his descent didn't go so well,” said photographer Jennifer Hadley. 

Lady Gaga, Queen, Mozart Get Rats Bopping to the Beat

Turns out humans aren’t the only animals who like to bop to a beat. Researchers in Japan played some jams for rats and found that they too like to groove when the song is right. “Rats displayed innate — that is, without any training or prior exposure to music — beat synchronization most distinctly within 120-140 bpm (beats per minute), to which humans also exhibit the clearest beat synchronization,” explained Hirokazu Takahashi from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology.