Cobra's Albino From India

This rare albino cobra may look beautiful, but it is just as deadly as the rest of its species.
The three-and-a-half foot reptile was the only one of his albino siblings to survive, and is now kept on his own in a specially constructed enclosure.

Called Goya, he spends most of its day indoors due to his sensitivity to light, only venturing outside for his daily meal of five live rats.

Visitors flock to the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust in the Indian city of Chennai because of Goya's remarkable beauty, according to the trust's curator.

"We explain to them that Goya is actually lucky to be here because he would not survive for long in the wild as he has virtually no camouflage," Nikhil Whitaker said.

"Cobras in India are revered amongst the Hindu population, so you can imagine the interest a specimen such as this creates," he added.

"We sometimes think that he knows that he receives special attention and plays up to that."

Goya, who is a milky colour with shades of pink, was a gift from Dehiwala Zoo in Sri Lanka where they specially breed albino snakes.

Cobra bites can be fatal because of their deadly venom, but they only attack humans if they believe their survival is threatened.

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The Leopard sharks With Swimmer in California

Paddling into the crystal clear waters she had no idea she was walking into every swimmer's nightmare -dozens of sharks collecting off the coast of Marina Del Rey, near Los Angeles, California.

Before she knew it, she was surrounded by dozens of Leopard sharks - and had to make a dash for the shore.

The dramatic episode was captured on film by a traffic helicopter from a local news show last month.

The KTLA helicopter had been in the skies following news stories and providing traffic updates for the Los Angeles television station.

In almost comic scenes, it catches the moments she suddenly spots the array of fins and realising her predicament she sprints for the beach.

Distinctively marked with dark brown spots on a silvery grey background, they are known to grow up to seven feet in length.

In hindsight the swimmer can reassure herself that the leopard sharks posed little danger to humans.

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The Hedgehog Blonde Found in Gobowen, Shropshire.

Staff at wildlife centre are nursing back to health an extremely rare but prickly character.

A blonde hedgehog, which was found weak and struggling in Gobowen, Shropshire, has been taken to the Stapeley Grange Centre in Cheshire.

A spokesman said they had never had a blonde hedgehog before.

The hedgehog, thought to be a few months old, will stay at the centre until she reaches a satisfactory weight and will then be released.

Recessive gene

Dr Andrew Kelly said the centre receives about 600 hedgehogs a year but has never received a blonde one.

"They are extremely rare so it's a delight to have one in our care," he said.

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Mr. Drew Hammonds Snapping Turtle At Earlswood Lake Near Birmingham

When fisherman Drew Hammonds saw a spiky armour-plated creature at the end of his line, he made a snap decision.
He dropped his rod and started to run. But after a quick look back he realised he had landed a snapping turtle.
And being so far from its native U.S., it was very snappy indeed.
Mr Hammonds, 37, caught the turtle early last Tuesday while fishing with friends at Earlswood Lake near Birmingham.

‘I only went fishing for carp,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d caught a big one when my rod started to bend. ‘Then I spotted a big shell coming out of the water, with spikes on its back.

‘It was hissing and spitting when we caught it - it was really vicious. You couldn’t go anywhere near it without it going for you.

‘It ripped through my net and my friend’s net.’ Worried that the turtle was hurt, the men tried to remove the hook in its mouth before putting it back in the water.

‘It kept snapping at me so I had to be careful. In the end I used metal forceps to cut through the hook. I had to do it quickly, because it was going for my hand.’

Turtle specialist Paul Eversfield identified the creature as an alligator snapping turtle (macroclemys temminckii). Mr Eversfield, from the British Chelonia Society, said the turtles were native to the southern states of the U.S.

‘They are potentially the largest freshwater turtles in the world with record size of over 100kg,’ he said.
‘As such, they represent the top predator in their natural environment and are capable of eating large fish and water fowl. Their natural diet is fish, crayfish, and smaller turtles.

‘Having been around, largely unchanged for nearly 200 million years, their survival strategy obviously works very well.

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Mysterious Object Human Skull Found In The Red Planet Mars

Believe it or not, human skull found in the Red Planet Mars, these pictures taken by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Here's the pictures (click the image for full size) :

Rare Blue Lobster Found in The Isle of Man Island, England

Pulled from the ocean to be served in a posh restaurant, this lobster could be forgiven for feeling a little blue.
But his unusual colour has proved a lifesaver for the unusual 5lb crustacean as he has been deemed too interesting to eat.
Saved from the the boiling pot, Blue - as he has naturally been christened - was caught off the coast of the Isle of Man by three stunned lobsters potters.
Scientists say just one lobster in two million is blue - the result of a genetic defect that causes them to produce an excessive amount of protein.
He was caught by John Williams, Bev Cregeen and Wayne Pearson who were pulling lobster pots on to their boat, Whisky Galore, when they spotted Blue sitting forlornly in one of the pots.
Miss Cregreen said: 'He was a different colour from the rest of them, but it was only when we looked it up on the internet we realised how rare blue lobsters are.

'We don't know what to do with him. It would be nice to put him somewhere for people to see. He's too good to be eaten.'
And because of his different colour, Blue, cannot be released back into the wild as his colour makes him a target for other lobsters.
Until a suitable home can be found Blue is being kept in a stock box where he is safe from the snapping pincers of other jealous lobsters.
A research study conducted by Professor Ronald Christensen, at the University of Connecticut, USA, found that excessive levels of a protein combines with a red caratenoid molecule known as astaxanthin, forming a blue complex known as crustacyanin. It is this that makes the lobster blue.
In 2006 lobsterman David Percy caught a yellow lobster near Whaleback Island in the US at the mouth of the Kennebec River. The odds of finding a yellow lobster are approximately 1 in 30 million.
It is estimated that only about one in 100 million lobsters are albino - lacking in coloured pigments. They are known as 'white' or 'crystal' lobsters.

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Algeripithecus was not a Human Ancestor

A creature that could fit in your hand has long been seen as the strongest evidence that humans and apes originated in Africa. But now scientists say 50-million-year-old Algeripithecus was not an ape or human ancestor and was more like today's lemurs, after all.

What's more, a new study of the 3-ounce (85-gram) fossil species could add weight to the idea that our earliest ancestors arose not in Africa but in Asia. Discovered in 1992 in what is now northern Africa, Algeripithecus is considered to be the oldest known ape ancestor on that continent. But the new analysis suggests the creature belonged to another ancient primate group, the crown strepsirhines. Crown strepsirhines, which are not in the human ancestry, gave rise to modern-day lemurs, galagos, and lorises (see a loris picture).

Oldest Human Ancestors From Asia?

Asia is the only other known region where ape ancestors have been found. Whether apes arose there or in Africa is a "hotly contested issue" in the study of ancient primates, the study says.
The Africa theory rests heavily on Algeripithecus, now apparently exposed as a non-ape ancestor. Other than Africa, Asia is the most logical ape-ancestor "birthplace," study leader Rodolphe Tabuce, of France's University of Montpellier, said in an email. But evolutionary anthropologist Blythe Williams said "absence of evidence" is not enough to lend credence to an out-of-Asia theory.

After all, no one knows what evidence may still linger beneath African ground.
"It's quite possible that we haven't looked in the right places or that the sediments that would have preserved that portion of the fossil record no longer exist," said Williams, of Duke University, who was not involved in the study. But she does agree that Tabuce and colleagues' research weakens the case for an African origin.

Toothcomb Technicality

Algeripithecus fossils were first found in 1992 by researchers from France's University of Montpellier at the Glib Zegdou site in northeastern Algeria. The French team has continued to unearth new, and more Algeripithecus fossils, notably skull fragments and jawbones, some nearly complete.
The jaw and skull of Algeripithecus lack classic features of anthropoids, which include monkeys, apes, and humans, according to the study, published in the September 9 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Instead, Algeripithecus's jawbone has a long, thin formation, which the study says is "entirely compatible" with a "toothcomb," comblike lower front teeth used for grooming—common in strepsirhines, including modern lemurs.
Despite the new evidence, Algeripithecus is still a crucial figure in early primate evolution—but instead as one of the oldest known examples of a crown strepsirhine, the study says. Duke's Williams said the study's findings are helpful for scientists tracing how apes became human. The new study, she added, does "focus our attention on Asia"—though it's impossible to say yet if apes originated there.

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