In an attempt to reduce cows’ anxiety and hopefully increase their dairy production, a cattle farm in Moscow’s Ramensky district has equipped its herd with specially-designed virtual reality headsets.

Research has shown that there is a link between a cow’s emotional state and it’s daily milk yield. In the past, we’ve heard of dairy farms playing soothing classical music for their cows in order to lower their stress level and increase productivity, but as technology advances, new mood-altering solutions are introduced. For example, the RusMoloko farm in Moscow recently equipped its cattle with VR systems adapted for the “structural features of cow heads”.

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He may not have Ace Ventura’s charm or his iconic hairdo, but Sun Jinren is a real-life pet detective in all the ways that matter. When he takes on a lost pet case, he pours all his effort as well as thousands of dollars in expensive equipment in order to find them.

Dubbed China’s first pet detective by the country’s media, Sun Jinren launched his business seven years ago and has since reunited about 1,000 lost pets with their owners. He has a success rate of around 70%, and despite charging a whopping 8,000 yuan ($1,130) per case, clients know his services are worth it. He now has an entire team working for his company and uses all sorts of high-tech gadgets to increase his chances of finding lost pets, including heat detectors, thermal imaging cameras and even an endoscope.

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Betty, a five-month-old puppy found on the outskirts of Bratsk, in Russia, and placed in the care of a local shelter, was initially rejected by families looking to adopt a dog, because of her unusual look.

When caretakers at the Dobrie Ruki (Kind Hands) shelter, in the Russian city of Bratsk, saw Betty’s black eyebrows for the first time they were convinced that someone had played a cruel joke on the poor animal and painted them on. They gave her a good wash, but the eyebrows didn’t go anywhere, and they realized that the white pooch had been born with them. It was a case of natural pigmentation, but a really unique one.

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Kallima inachus, a species of nymphalid butterfly found in India and Japan, is known as the orange oakleaf or dead leaf butterfly for a very good reason – with its wings closed, this butterfly closely resembles a dried tree leaf.

It’s been said that the kallima inachus butterfly mimics a dead leaf better than an actual dead leaf, and as crazy as that sounds, it actually makes some sense. Somehow, this tiny creatures managed to raise its camouflage to such an extreme level that its wings feature a pointed leaf apex at the front tip, and a leaf stalk on the hindside, as well as a characteristic vein pattern, multiple shades of brown and orange, and even tiny imperfections like black spots or small tears. It’s a perfect camouflage artist.

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Mac’s Mission, a Missouri-based dog rescue, is used to taking in special dogs, but even for the staff here a puppy with a tail growing from his forehead was a pretty unusual sight.

Named Narwhal, in honor of his unusual appendage, the 10-week-old pup has become an internet sensation ever since photos of him were first posted on social media. He was brought in to the rescue because of his unusual look, as Mac’s Mission is known for taking in canines in need of special attention, such as blind and deaf dogs, dogs with three or five limbs, as well as dogs with cleft palates. The staff here thought they had seen it all, and then Narwhal came in and their jaws fell to the floor.

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Chinese researchers have come under fire for using live, immature pigs as test dummies in high-speed crash simulations that killed seven of them immediately.

Animal rights activists around the world accused the researchers of unnecessary cruelty, after it was reported that they had used fifteen live pigs as crash test dummies for a study. The animals were allegedly denied food 24 hours before the gruesome tests, then strapped in for high-speed simulations that caused them various injuries, including bleeding, laceration, fractures, abrasions and internal bruising. Seven of the pigs were killed instantly, while the rest survived for another six hours. Scientists then carried out meticulous autopsies to find out how the pigs were injured and killed.

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When Sasha Pesic rescued a litter of abandoned puppies in 2008, he had no idea that in little over a decade he would have rescued about 1,200 canines and still be caring for over 750 of them.

Sasha Pesic became known to the world in 2015, when a video of him acrobatically dropping down to the foot of a bridge to rescue a stranded puppy went viral on social media, getting over 63 million views on Facebook alone. No one outside of Serbia, or more precisely outside his home city of Nis, really knew who he was, or that he had hundreds of dogs in his care. Ever since rescuing a few abandoned puppies more than a decade ago, Pesic has dedicated his life to taking in abandoned dogs and looking after them. He has taken around 1,200 canines off the streets of Nis, over 400 of which have been adopted by people all over the world, but he still has over 750 of them in his care, and he needs all the help he can get.

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A 650-kilogram bull that managed to escape from a Croatian slaughterhouse last Friday managed to get the attention and support of an entire nation as he continues to elude his owner, police and veterinarians.

The elusive animal, nicknamed Jerry, after the famous mouse in the “Tom&Jerry” cartoon, has been evading his would-be captors and roaming the Croatian coast, outside the town of Split, since last Friday. His owner had sold him to a slaughterhouse, but shortly before being put down, Jerry managed to escape a corral where cattle intended for slaughter were kept and vanish into the nearby woods. Slaughterhouse staff can’t explain exactly how Jerry escaped, but apparently this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.

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They say crows have great memory and never forget those who have wronged them, and the story of an Indian tractor driver who claims to have been constantly attacked by crows ever since they saw him pick up some of their hatchlings, a year and a half ago.

Mohanan, a tractor driver from Ambalavayal, a town in India’s Kerala state, has been carrying a stick and an umbrella to work every day, for over a year. It’s not that he fears getting attacked by dogs or that he hates rain, but that he needs to defend himself against the crows that always attack him whenever he approaches a bus station where he once picked up two crow hatchlings from under his tractor and placed them on the side of the road. As Mohan recalls, the following day, he and his colleagues found a small puppy covered in tar and washed it clean with kerosene, and he assumes the crow must have seen him and confused the puppy for the hatchlings that he had handled the previous day. The crows have been on his case ever since, harassing and attacking him whenever they see him.

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The mud flats of Japan’s Ariake Sea are home to a creature that is reportedly as delicious as it is disgusting-looking. Introducing the “Warasubo”, an eel-like fish that for obvious reasons is known as the “Alien of Ariake Sea”.

If you’re familiar with H.R. Giger’s Xenomorph (the extraterrestrial creature featured in the ‘Alien’ movies), more specifically its iconic “inner mouth”, one look at the warasubo fish is enough to explain its comparison to the fictional alien. It literally looks like the piston-like appendage that Giger’s ferocious predator uses to pierce its victim’s bodies and even metal. The warasubo is a terrifying-looking thing, especially in dried form, which only makes its use as an ingredient for ramen and other Japanese foods that much stranger.

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Cocker Spaniels are known for having long, beautiful eyelashes, but canine pair Cloe and Nena’s lashes are unusually long even for their breed, and they’ve turned the two pooches into overnight Instagram sensations.

If there was such a thing as a canine beauty influencer, Cocker Spaniel twins Cloe and Nena would most certainly fit the bill perfectly. Not only do they sport luscious eyelashes measuring a whopping 6-cm-long, but they also appear to love getting groomed by their owner, 22-year-old Vittoria Di Castri, including having mascara applied on their lashes to highlight their main features. Some people have a hard time believing the two pooches’ eyelashes aren’t fake, but Di Castri insists they are all natural.

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The male white bellbird, a 250-gram-heavy bird native to South America, produces the world’s loudest bird sound, according to a new scientific study.

Biologist Jeff Podos at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mario Cohn-Haft of Brazil’s Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia recorded the mating call of the male white bellbird, aka Procnias albus, and concluded that it was a good nine decibels louder than the sound of the previous holder of the title “world’s loudest bird”, the screaming piha, also a species native to the Amazon rain forest. Peak sound levels recorded during the bird’s mating call reached a whopping 125.4 decibels, way above the human pain threshold and equivalent to the sound made by a pile driver.

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A mischievous horse has gained legions of fans online thanks to his ingenious way of avoiding being ridden – he drops to the ground in a very dramatic way and plays dead until the would-be rider walks away.

It’s unclear whether Jingang, “the world’s most melodramatic horse” was trained to play dead to amuse tourists, or if he just developed this talent himself, but one thing is for sure – he is really good at it. As soon as someone tries to ride him, Jingang’s legs buckle and he drops to the ground. Sometimes he even closes his eyes, leaving just his flaring nostrils as proof that he’s only playing around. Not even a tasty carrot will make Jingang break character, as demonstrated by his trainer in on e of the several videos of his antics doing the rounds online these days.

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Harlso, a five-year-old dachshund from Belfast, Northern Ireland, has risen to internet stardom thanks to one impressive talent – balancing things on his head while standing really, really still.

From glasses filled with water, to donuts and squeaky toys, there’s nothing that Harlso the “King of Balancing” can’t balance on his tiny head. It all started three years ago, when his owner, Paul Lavery, jokingly placed a squeaky toy on his head and was surprised to see the tiny canine sit as still as a statue, while trying to look up the object. Up to that point, Paul and his partner, Jen Scott, had tried teaching Harlso the usual tricks, like ‘sit’, ‘lie down’, ‘roll over’, but he just wasn’t interested. The first time he saw his pup balancing that squeaky toy in his head, Paul remembers calling his girlfriend: “Jen! Harlso has a hidden talent!”

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Staff at a popular zoo in Guanxi, China, have been accused of animal cruelty and trying to swindle visitors, after it was revealed that they had glued a basket to the carapace of a large tortoise so superstitious people could throw coins in it.

Throwing coins at specific objects, from temple bells and statues to airplane engines before a flight, is believed to bring good luck, but this superstition sometimes crosses certain boundaries. Case in point, this African spurred tortoise at Nanning Zoo, in the provincial capital of Guangxi, that had a straw basket glued to its carapace for people to throw coins into. Photos of the animal crawling around in its enclosure with the basket sticking up went viral on Chinese social media and attracted criticism both from animal lovers and those who saw the gimmick as a way to swindle zoo visitors.

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