Animals In News

A brown hare (Lepus europaeus) pricks up its ears in a field in Hegyeshalom, west of Budapest, Hungary (Does he know that it is Easter?)

  

Einstein, the world's smallest horse, visits Good Morning America in Times Square, New York, with owner Charlie Cantrell and Dr Rachel Wagner

  

Elephants are trying their trunks at painting. Part of the Perth Zoo's April school holiday programme includes an art demonstration with a difference using elephants as artists. Using their trunks, the spraypainting pachyderms create unique works from vegetable and water-based paint.

                

A confiscated smuggled baby pangolin looks out from a cage after it was born shortly prior a press conference in Bangkok. Thai customs seized 173 pangolins, which are listed as endangered species in CITES

A white tiger cub playfully attacks a photographer at a zoo in Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock, Germany

        

A crocodile emerges from the water and ambushes a herd of wildebeest as they venture into the stream in their search for new pastures. Photographer Paolo Torchio captured the attack while on safari in Maasai Mara national park, Kenya...

  

...The migration is a famous annual event in which the wildebeest also have to contend with lions waiting for them on the other side. On this occasion it was the scaly predator who claimed victory over the wildebeest, killing four of them.

Augo the polar bear playing with his blue bucket at Aalborg Zoo, Denmark. The four-month-old cub has taken to wearing the plastic pail as a hat in his enclosure. He pokes his head in the container and attempts to stand on two legs, before, inevitably, falling over, all with caring mother Malik looking on.

A water vole jumps from a rock into the water. Photographer Terry Whittaker has documented water voles for nine years. Conservationists are trying to boost their numbers in the British countryside.

A trainer plays with a female orca named Wikie and her one-month-old calf at Marineland in the French Riviera city of Antibes

A group of pelicans battle for the fish during feeding time at the zoo in Mannheim, Germany.

A newly born pigmy hippopotamus calf lies under its mother at the National Zoological Gardens at Dehiwala outside Colombo, Sri Lanka

Elephants cool off in the hot weather at Chester Zoo.

Nonja the artistic orangutan has been given oversized Lego blocks by her keepers to help her get over a creative block. The talented ape - who celebrated her 35th birthday this week at Austria's Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna - has tried painting and photography in the past. "Now we are trying to get her to think in three dimensions and this giant Lego is an introduction to sculpture," explained one keeper. Zoo director Dagmar Schratter added: "They were an early birthday present and she's having lots of fun with them." Previously Nonja has tried her hand at painting with her canvases fetching nearly £2,000 at auction.

A rare black rhino confronts park rangers at the Nairobi National Park by ramming their 4x4 jeep. Photographer Paolo Torchio witnessed the incident from a safe distance. The injured animal charged at the jeep just as the vet managed to shoot a dart at the animal before leaving the scene. The rangers later returned to the sedated animal where it was treated.

Four white Bengal tiger cubs are held by zoo keepers at the Safari-Park Stukenbrock in Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock, Germany. The rare cubs were born on Valentine's day.

Police found six two-week-old raccoons in a fireplace in a house in Frankfurt, Germany. The baby raccoons are pictured at a breeding station in Frankfurt.

Three newly-born Siberian tigers crawl near their mother in the zoo in Skopje, Macedonia. One of baby tigers has been named Putin.

A three-day-old white lion cub sleeps in Belgrade Zoo, Serbia.

Polar bear twins Aleut and Gregor are fed by their mother Vera at the animal park in Nuremberg, Germany

Staff at a nature reserve in China are hand-rearing two newborn black bear cubs after they were abandoned by their mother. Director Yang Jingyuan said: "Mother bears usually have a strong protection sense and they don't abandon their babies. It's possible that the mother bear was scared away or abandoned the two cubs as they are too weak."

Two birds fight near the village of Jelawar in the Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar, Afghanistan

Two bald eagles fight over territory where salmon spawn at the Nooksack River in Washington. Photographer Ray Morris has captured the stunning aerobatic manoeuvres of the birds of prey tussling over salmon-rich territory. His amazing shots show eagles being almost forced onto their backs as attackers gain an aerial advantage...

Ray says: "I am lucky because the Nooksack is a river local to me. A run of chum salmon come to spawn and eagles feed on the spawned out salmon, which makes for an amazing spectacle. When the eagles come to feed it can be a very frenzied scene. They will fight with the other birds, feed, take off and then return for more. It can be very hard to keep up with the action."

A newborn confiscated baby pangolin clings onto its mother inside a cage during a press conference in Bangkok

A lion managed to go hungry after the waterbuck it had cornered managed to give it the slip. The missed opportunity can be blamed on the lion's scaredy-cat attitude. After stumbling across the male waterbuck knee-deep in a lake in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, the lion spent a few perplexed moments studying its potential prey. Finally deciding to make a move, the lion extended a tentative paw towards the large horned creature...

...The waterbuck responded by lowering its horns and waving them menacingly in front of the startled big cat. Just to make sure it had got the message, the waterbuck then charged the lion headfirst. With the fearsome horns coming towards it the lion clearly decided it wasn't that hungry, and bolted.