Offbeat: Turtle riding alligator, hairiest man and smiley dinosaur

Little turtle is one hitchhiker, who wasn’t afraid to take risk, after he demanded lift across pond from an alligator.

Turtle has a new ride…an alligator!

This little turtle is one hitchhiker, who wasn’t afraid to take a risk, after he demanded a lift across the pond from an alligator.

Hopping on the back of his reptilian friend, the red-eared slider turtle looks as though he’s on a mission to get somewhere quick — commandeering his 5feet makeshift craft across the water.

The turtle, it seems, was taking on a new, more sinister angle to Aesop’s fable ‘The Tortoise and The Hare’, where a rabbit challenges a shelled opponent to a race but is too cocky, takes it too easy, and loses.

Minus the hare though — which would surely be dinner for the alligator — both the creatures in this photo share the same enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in America.

According to staff who look after the animals, it’s quite normal to see the turtle riding the endangered Chinese alligator.

SOURCE: metro.co.uk

‘Eary’ or eerie?

Harbor the hound has received an earful of praise after earning the Guinness World Record for having the longest ears of any living dog.

The black and tan Coonhound lives in Boulder, Colorado, in the US, and at first his giant ears caused quite the headache as a small puppy.

Harbor’s owner Jenifer Wert said he would often trip over his floppy ears and slide down the family home stairs.

Now eight years old and fully grown, Harbour is able to walk around without much fuss — except when he goes for a walk in the park.

“Cars will literally stop on the street to take a closer look and get a picture,” exclaimed Jenifer.

SOURCE: metro.co.uk

Hairiest man becomes a celebrity

The world’s hairiest man has discovered his animal magnetism, after being signed up to promote a dating agency.

Yu Zhenhuan — declared the hairiest man on the planet by the Guinness records — was besieged by young nurses at the launch party for the agency in Hunan, southern China.

Since deciding to cash in on his genetic condition. Yu, 33, has become a nationwide celebrity in the country promoting everything from hair removal cream to Planet of the Apes movies.

But he was dumped by his long term girlfriend because she couldn’t stand his showbiz lifestyle.

“I’ve never really thought of myself as attractive but I’m knocked out by the response I’ve had today,” he said after a clinch with nurse Xiaowei Wu.

“He’s very manly and I love his singing and acting,” she said.

SOURCE: ORANGE.co.uk

An ‘it’ model

One of the favourites to win a reality TV show aimed at finding a top model has revealed her big secret — she used to be a man.

Michalina Manios, 22 — a contestant in Poland’s Top Model show — was born with both male and female genitalia.

She was officially a man until four years ago when she underwent transgender surgery.

“I was born a hermaphrodite and when the doctors first saw me they assumed I was a boy as I had male genitalia,” Michalina told the show’s judges before they voted her through to the next round.

“But I grew up feeling more feminine than male and so four years ago I had an operation to remove the male bits and changed my name,” she added.

At school Michalina said she had always felt miserable living as a boy but that doctors had told her she couldn’t have an operation until she was 18.

“When it finally happened I was so happy. I can now pursue my dream of becoming a model,” she said.

Michalina from Lodz in Poland, studied linguistics before moving to Paris. She is fluent in six languages including English, French, Swedish and Russian.

SOURCE: ORANGE.co.uk

Smiley dinosaur compensates customer

A disgruntled Marks and Spencer customer was surprised when a customer service adviser complied with his cheeky request for a drawing of a ‘smiley dinosaur’.

Bill Bennett had written to M&S asking for a refund after he was mistakenly charged £3.00 (Rs415) for a £1.90 (Rs262) salmon sandwich at a store in Taunton, Somerset.

He received a reply offering him a gift card, but a few weeks later it had still not arrived, so he wrote again — asking for a ‘hand-drawn picture of a smiley dinosaur’ to compensate ‘for the inconvenience’.

He expected his request to be ignored but he reckoned without Steve Jones, a customer adviser who seemed to share Mr Bennett’s sense of humour and sent him a £5 (Rs691) gift card and a sketch.

Mr Jones enclosed a note reading: “Please also find a picture of a smiling dinosaur, hand drawn. Unfortunately art was never my strong point, but I hope you will appreciate it.”

Now a delighted Mr Bennett is showing off his prize on the internet, where it has gone viral.

SOURCE: ORANGE.co.uk

Tourists miss hotel — by 12,000 miles

A South African couple couldn’t find the hotel they had booked in Eastbourne — because they were on the wrong side of the world.

Michael and Sunette Adendorff booked a room in the £90 (Rs12455)-a-night Majestic Hotel which promised “splendid views” of the Sussex seaside town’s pier.

However, the only trouble was that they were in Eastbourne, New Zealand, which doesn’t even have a hotel.

Mr and Mrs Adendorff thought something was wrong with their hire car’s GPS as they drove around in circles in the Wellington suburb.

When they pulled into the local chemist’s shop to ask directions, they were shocked to discover where they had gone wrong.

Shop assistant Linda Burke said: “They just walked in and asked me where Royal Parade was, with the Majestic Hotel.”

“I said: Oh no, there’s no hotel here. I looked at it and said: That’s in the UK, that’s in England.”

Ms Burke rang around but discovered all the local bed and breakfast places were full, so she offered them a room for the night in her house.

The couple, who were exploring New Zealand while visiting the country to watch South Africa play in the Rugby World Cup, had mistakenly booked into the hotel in Eastbourne, Sussex, on the internet.

“I booked into the right hotel, just in the wrong country,” said Mr Adendorff.

SOURCE: ORANGE.co.uk

Bearded tit does the splits!

A wildlife photographer has captured an amazingly flexible little bird using grass stems like stilts to help catch dinner.

Dutch snapper Edwin Kats spent four months in Holland and the UK documenting the bearded tit in glorious natural environments.

Patience was a virtue for Kats, who eventually managed to observe this amazing bird doing the splits while looking for dinner in a stream.

The bird balanced itself perfectly on two reeds and, when a cranefly landed in the water below, it dipped down its beak and gobbled it up.

According to Kats, the moment was one swift simple move.

The clever technique employed by the tit is actually a common trait among the species.

“Reedbeds in Holland and in the UK are a natural habitat for these birds,” explained Kats.

“These images were shot in a beautiful natural area of the Netherlands called The Veluwe.”

“I’ve been working with these birds for about four months, and it took lots of effort to finally get the image which was already in my head long before the start of this project.”

SOURCE: METRO.co.uk

Croc on the loose

A saltwater crocodile who was paddling around among oblivious bathers was spotted and rescued by a lifeguard at a public swimming pool in Australia

Brave lifeguard Tim Dupe, 54, fished out the crocodile from the shallow end at the Parap swimming pool in Darwin.

He said the pool was holding a swimming boot-camp at the time but luckily the reptile ‘had a lane to itself’.

Fortunately for swimmers, the croc was just a baby and only 50cm long.

Ranger Tommy Nichols thinks it was put in the pool as a joke and added that it was the third crocodile to turn up in a public pool in the past few years.

He said: “They didn’t get there by themselves. It’s just a stupid thing to do.”

“Certainly, a croc this size isn’t going to hurt anyone, but if it was bigger it could have ended badly.”

The crocodile has since been released into the wild by rangers at a secret spot in the nearby area.

SOURCE: metro.co.uk

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th, 2011.