#forest-elephants

#forest-elephants

"If you would ask a regular person, do you think fish can climb falls, most of them will tell you: you are crazy. Well, it exists, it is out there."

Both species are under threat. But while African savanna elephants are endangered, forest elephants are critically endangered. They're also highly elusive. Living in dense tropical rainforests in central Africa and parts of West Africa they're very hard to find and study.

The House of Elements, set to become the crown jewel of Orientarium Zoo in Łódź, Poland, takes the classical elements (earth, ice, water, fire, and air) and transforms them into a 6,000-square-meter narrative experience. Rather than designing a building where you walk from exhibit to exhibit, VMA created a continuous downward-then-upward journey that mirrors the evolution of life itself. Designer: VMA Design Studio for Orientarium Zoo

I get there, I look and here's this little crocodile swimming around in the water. The sighting occurred at Federal Park in Wallsend, close to a local pool and primary school. Kirsop said she was met with initial disbelief when she contacted the wildlife rescue group Wires, and the Australian Reptile Park.

In Texas, the Houston Zoo has prepared its buildings and barns with heaters designed to withstand extreme conditions, the zoo said in a blog post on Friday. Animals will have access to extra hay and bedding, and food was stocked in advance. Across the Zoo, sensitive plants are being protected with coverings, and generators are positioned to provide backup power if needed, the blog post said.

An elephant's trunk is a marvelous thing, flexible enough to bend and stretch as it forages for food, but also stiff enough to grasp and maneuver even delicate objects like peanuts or a tortilla chip. That's because the trunk is highly sensitive when it comes to sensing touch. Scientists have determined that the whiskers lining the trunk are crucial for that sensitivity thanks to their unique structure, amounting to a kind of innate "material intelligence, according to a new paper published in the journal Science.

The list of feats Andrew Schulz has witnessed an elephant perform with its trunk is as long as, well, an elephant's trunk. These powerful proboscises are strong enough to push over 900 pound trees and gentle enough to pick up a tortilla chip without breaking it. They can snuffle along the ground to sense vibrations from far-off herd movements. They can be used to solve puzzles, peel bananas, craft tools, console a fellow pachyderm or a human friend.

A long, winding path takes guests around and under felled trees. Aged gray tree hunks form arches, for instance, over bridges that tower over clay-colored paths with hoof prints. The design is meant to reorient us, to take us on a trail walked not by humans but traversed and carved by elephants, a creature still misunderstood, vilified and hunted for its cataclysmic-like ability to reshape land, and sometimes communities.

Demand for safari holidays is growing, so how can you do it without harming animals, people or the landscape? Last summer, images were shared of a scene in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park - a large group of jeeps and dozens of tourists standing outside taking pictures of 'The Great Migration' and blocking wildebeests' traditional crossing point. Jeep traffic jams have also been widely reported in other parks, including Sri Lanka's Yala, known for its high density of leopards.

On French Island in Victoria's Western Port Bay, koalas are dropping from trees. Eucalypts have been eaten bare by the marsupials, with local reports of some found starving and dead. Multiple koalas usually solitary animals can often be seen on a single gum. Koalas were first introduced to French Island from the mainland in the 1880s, a move that protected the species from extinction in the decades they were extensively hunted for their pelts.