🦔

Beasts

29 stories

Ohio Sheriff Warns Drivers to Beware of Loose Ostrich Running Alongside State Roads
🦔Beasts

Ohio Sheriff Warns Drivers to Beware of Loose Ostrich Running Alongside State Roads

An escaped ostrich turned a stretch of Ohio roadway into its personal runway last week, prompting the Madison County Sheriff's Office to issue a formal public advisory asking drivers to watch out for the large flightless bird roaming near local roads. The creature — which can sprint at 45 miles per hour and stands over six feet tall — posed a legitimate traffic hazard, though neither bird nor drivers were reported harmed. Exactly how it got loose remains the kind of question that presumably involves an embarrassed owner somewhere.

UPI·
🌀
7
Firefighters Use Spelunking Skills to Rescue Dog Trapped 40 Feet Underground in Kentucky Cave
🦔Beasts

Firefighters Use Spelunking Skills to Rescue Dog Trapped 40 Feet Underground in Kentucky Cave

When a dog fell into a cave on Handys Bend Road in Jessamine County, Kentucky, and ended up stranded roughly 35 to 40 feet underground, local firefighters discovered that their job description now apparently includes spelunking. Crews entered the narrow vertical cave opening on a rope system, located the dog deep inside, and hoisted both animal and rescuer safely back to the surface. The dog had no injuries — and presumably no plans to revisit the cave.

UPI·
🌀
7
California Driver Hears Mysterious Meowing Under Hood — Three Kittens Had Taken Up Residence in the Car Engine
🦔Beasts

California Driver Hears Mysterious Meowing Under Hood — Three Kittens Had Taken Up Residence in the Car Engine

A Southern California driver noticed mysterious meowing from under their hood and headed straight to the local animal care center — where officers extracted three kittens from the engine compartment, completely unharmed. The trio has since been placed in foster care and will eventually be available for adoption, presumably with a newfound appreciation for staying out of cars.

UPI·
🌀
7
Wild African Serval Spotted Roaming a Dutch Village — It Was Someone's Illegal Pet That Got Loose
🦔Beasts

Wild African Serval Spotted Roaming a Dutch Village — It Was Someone's Illegal Pet That Got Loose

A large spotted African cat — the kind that hunts by leaping two metres into the air — has been photographed wandering the streets of a Dutch village, wearing a collar and looking entirely unbothered. Dutch police believe it's someone's escaped pet, which is awkward because the Netherlands banned private serval ownership in 2024. Someone in Gelderland left a gate open.

UPI·
🌀
7
Capybara Named Samba Escapes English Zoo Just One Day After Arriving — Still at Large
🦔Beasts

Capybara Named Samba Escapes English Zoo Just One Day After Arriving — Still at Large

Marwell Zoo in Hampshire welcomed two capybaras on Monday. By Tuesday, both had escaped. One was recovered quickly — the other, Samba, decided she had better things to do and was last spotted in a nearby village. The zoo is still looking. Samba is not.

UPI·
🌀
7
Raccoon Gets Head Stuck in Peanut Butter Jar — Then Climbs 25 Feet Up a Tree
🦔Beasts

Raccoon Gets Head Stuck in Peanut Butter Jar — Then Climbs 25 Feet Up a Tree

A Vermont raccoon with a peanut butter jar wedged firmly over its head made a bad situation worse by climbing 25 feet up a tree, forcing the local fire department to deploy a ladder and a snare to resolve what is generously being called a rescue operation. The raccoon survived with its dignity only partially intact.

UPI·
🌀
7
Locals Mistake Mass of Coiled Giant Pythons Near Hindu Temple for Tree Roots — Until Someone Throws a Stone
🦔Beasts

Locals Mistake Mass of Coiled Giant Pythons Near Hindu Temple for Tree Roots — Until Someone Throws a Stone

Residents near a Hindu temple in Himachal Pradesh, India, wandered up to what they assumed was a tangle of tree roots — until someone lobbed a stone at it and the whole mass erupted into five or six enormous pythons heading in every direction. The forest department has been notified, which feels like closing the stable door after the horse-sized snakes have bolted.

NDTV·
🌀
7
Real Possum Infiltrates Australian Airport Gift Shop, Hides Perfectly Still Among Plush Toy Possums
🦔Beasts

Real Possum Infiltrates Australian Airport Gift Shop, Hides Perfectly Still Among Plush Toy Possums

A real live brushtail possum infiltrated Hobart Airport's gift shop and spent quality time nestled among the plush toy animals, looking, by all accounts, extremely comfortable. Staff discovered it sitting in the native plush section. Things got chaotic when it decided to take a stroll into the departure lounge and passengers lost their collective minds trying to film it.

ABC News Australia·
🌀
8
Wild Turkeys Delay Staten Island Trains Twice in Under Two Hours
🦔Beasts

Wild Turkeys Delay Staten Island Trains Twice in Under Two Hours

New York's Staten Island Railway had a fowl afternoon on March 18th, when wild turkeys brought the line to a halt twice within ninety minutes — once near Old Town station, once near St. George terminal. Each time, the MTA's solution was to blast the train horn repeatedly until the birds decided they were done. It worked both times, which is either reassuring or mildly embarrassing, depending on who you ask.

UPI·
🌀
7
Dog Named Dottie Stranded on Elevated Train Track Support Beam in Philadelphia — Rescued by Cherry Picker
🦔Beasts

Dog Named Dottie Stranded on Elevated Train Track Support Beam in Philadelphia — Rescued by Cherry Picker

A Shih Tzu mix was found perched, inexplicably, on top of a SEPTA elevated train track support pillar in West Philadelphia. Nobody knows how she got up there. Animal protection officers deployed a cherry picker to get her down. She was fine. She has been named Dottie. She is not talking.

UPI·
🌀
7
Bear Crashes Reporter's Live Broadcast — She Was Reporting About Bears at the Time
🦔Beasts

Bear Crashes Reporter's Live Broadcast — She Was Reporting About Bears at the Time

KTLA reporter Erin Myers was live on air in Monrovia, California, reporting on local bear encounters when a bear wandered into the camera frame behind her. This was the second time a bear has crashed one of her broadcasts. The bear, to no one's surprise, was not available for comment.

UPI·
🌀
8
Shenzhen Arcade Stuffs Live Hamsters Into Claw Machine as Prizes — Then Replaces Them With Fish and Turtles
🦔Beasts

Shenzhen Arcade Stuffs Live Hamsters Into Claw Machine as Prizes — Then Replaces Them With Fish and Turtles

A Shenzhen arcade thought it would be a fun twist to fill a claw machine with live hamsters instead of plush toys — and shockingly, the internet had thoughts. When police arrived, they discovered there's literally no law in Shenzhen against it, so the arcade simply swapped the hamsters for live fish and turtles, apparently treating the whole affair as a product refresh.

Oddity Central·
🌀
8
Raccoon Breaks Into Virginia Liquor Store, Downs Moonshine and Peanut Butter Whiskey, Passes Out in Bathroom
🦔Beasts

Raccoon Breaks Into Virginia Liquor Store, Downs Moonshine and Peanut Butter Whiskey, Passes Out in Bathroom

A Virginia liquor store got a very unexpected Black Friday visitor: a raccoon that crashed through the ceiling, toured the bottom shelf, sampled the moonshine, the peanut butter whiskey, the scotch, and the eggnog, then passed out in the bathroom between the toilet and the bin. Animal control gave it a few hours to sleep it off before releasing it back into the wild, presumably without a receipt.

BBC News·
🌀
9
Vet Has to 'Deflate' a Kitten After Rare Condition Fills Her Entire Body With Air
🦔Beasts

Vet Has to 'Deflate' a Kitten After Rare Condition Fills Her Entire Body With Air

A stray kitten arrived at the Palm Springs Animal Shelter looking less like a cat and more like a stress ball someone had squeezed too hard — air trapped under her skin had puffed her out to almost comical proportions. The fix was a needle and a steady hand, and now Zoe the "Puff Kitty" is two pounds of proof that sometimes medicine is just... letting the air out.

NBC Los Angeles·
🌀
8
Emu Named Mystery Escapes Kentucky Home After Storm Topples Her Fence
🦔Beasts

Emu Named Mystery Escapes Kentucky Home After Storm Topples Her Fence

When a line of Kentucky storms dismantled her fence and shelter last Sunday, Mystery the emu took the opportunity to go walkabout across Hardin County. Authorities asked residents not to chase her — because a frightened emu is, if anything, harder to deal with than a calm one — and by Monday she was safely back home, the exact circumstances of her return predictably unexplained.

UPI·
🌀
7
Florida Cat Gets Surgery After Secretly Swallowing 26 Hair Ties
🦔Beasts

Florida Cat Gets Surgery After Secretly Swallowing 26 Hair Ties

Mystery solved: the great hair tie vanishing act has a culprit, and her name is Midnite. A Florida rescue shelter took in the 6-year-old black cat after her owner surrendered her for euthanasia over a gut-wrenching intestinal blockage — and when surgeons went in, they found 26 hair ties making themselves at home in her stomach. She's recovering well, which is more than can be said for anyone's ponytail situation.

UPI·
🌀
7
Dog Wandered for Days With Bucket Stuck on Head — Volunteers Tracked Him Down and Cut Him Free
🦔Beasts

Dog Wandered for Days With Bucket Stuck on Head — Volunteers Tracked Him Down and Cut Him Free

A lab mix spent several agonising days wandering the Alabama countryside completely blind, because a bucket was stuck over his head — and photos of the walking disaster went viral on Facebook before anyone could catch him. Local residents rallied, animal trapper Kaleb Estill helped run him down, and a man named Eric Bowman arrived with a pair of snips to deliver the most satisfying rescue trim in recent memory. The dog, now named Buck, had one piece of good luck throughout the whole ordeal: a loyal Belgian Malinois who refused to leave his side for a single moment.

UPI·
🌀
7
Indian Farmers Are Dressing Up in Bear Costumes to Scare Monkeys Raiding Their Crops
🦔Beasts

Indian Farmers Are Dressing Up in Bear Costumes to Scare Monkeys Raiding Their Crops

Farmers in Firozpur village, Uttar Pradesh, are suiting up in full bear costumes every morning to patrol their fields and scare off a gang of over 100 crop-raiding monkeys. It is working — sort of. The monkeys just go bother someone else.

NDTV·
🌀
8
UK Zoo Celebrates Birth of First-Ever Elephant Shrews in Britain — Dubbed the "Snootlets," Each Weighed the Same as a Single AA Battery
🦔Beasts

UK Zoo Celebrates Birth of First-Ever Elephant Shrews in Britain — Dubbed the "Snootlets," Each Weighed the Same as a Single AA Battery

Two tiny creatures — the very first elephant shrew pups ever born in Britain — have arrived at Hertfordshire Zoo, and each one weighs roughly the same as a single AA battery. The babies, nicknamed the Snootlets, were born so quietly that keepers only found out by reviewing the overnight CCTV footage the next morning. Oh, and despite the name, elephant shrews are actually more closely related to elephants than to shrews — a fact that somehow makes them even more confusing.

UPI·
🌀
7
Canadian Tourist Kidnaps Vegas Flamingo Named Peachy, Takes It to Hotel Room on 14th Floor
🦔Beasts

Canadian Tourist Kidnaps Vegas Flamingo Named Peachy, Takes It to Hotel Room on 14th Floor

A Canadian tourist got the bright idea to steal a 27-year-old flamingo named Peachy from the Flamingo Las Vegas's wildlife habitat at 5 a.m., tuck her under his jacket, and take her up to his hotel room on the 14th floor. His defence? He was drunk, and he's a farm boy who knows how to fix wings. Peachy survived. He did not escape Vegas.

Fox News·
🌀
9
40 Cows Escape Onto Virginia Roads After Livestock Hauler Crashes in Frederick County
🦔Beasts

40 Cows Escape Onto Virginia Roads After Livestock Hauler Crashes in Frederick County

A livestock hauler carrying 110 cows overturned near Winchester, Virginia, and 40 of them immediately dispersed into the night — some toward Interstate 81, others into the woods. The road was shut down for nearly seven hours while emergency crews and animal control staged what can only be described as a very large, very bovine manhunt.

UPI·
🌀
7
Look: Escaped bull visits Kansas high school for an unscheduled field day
🦔Beasts

Look: Escaped bull visits Kansas high school for an unscheduled field day

An escaped bull turned up at Eudora High School in Kansas last Thursday, treating the athletic fields like a personal exercise yard before police and firefighters managed to coax it back into a trailer. Officers noted that 'livestock wrangling' wasn't in the academy curriculum — but teamwork prevailed, and the bull was duly charged with a 'moo-ving violation.'

UPI·
🌀
7
World's biggest puppy weighs 12st, stands 6ft tall and was bred to recreate an ancient extinct war dog
🦔Beasts

World's biggest puppy weighs 12st, stands 6ft tall and was bred to recreate an ancient extinct war dog

Euphrates is nine months old, weighs 168 pounds, stands six feet tall on her hind legs, and belongs to a new breed deliberately engineered to resurrect an ancient Mesopotamian war dog that went extinct around 5,000 BC. Her owner in Salt Lake City has contacted Guinness World Records after failing to find any other puppy on earth that comes close to her size. She is reportedly affectionate, but can take down a grown man with a careless tail wag.

The Mirror·
🌀
8
Texas Animal Control Seizes Illegal Siamese Spitting Cobra — First One Officer Had Seen in 9 Years on the Job
🦔Beasts

Texas Animal Control Seizes Illegal Siamese Spitting Cobra — First One Officer Had Seen in 9 Years on the Job

Animal control officers in Wichita Falls, Texas got more than they bargained for when they were called to assist police with an exotic animal violation — what they found was a Siamese spitting cobra coiled in a container, very much alive. For the shelter's animal care supervisor, it was a first in nine years on the job. The cobra has since been relocated to a licensed serpentarium, where it will join 200 of its scaly colleagues after a 90-day quarantine.

UPI·
🌀
7
Badger Found Hiding in California High School Storage Closet, Required State Wildlife Biologist to Remove
🦔Beasts

Badger Found Hiding in California High School Storage Closet, Required State Wildlife Biologist to Remove

A badger snuck into a California high school and made itself comfortable in a storage closet, triggering a multi-agency wildlife operation to get it out. Thanks to California's strict regulations around animal capture and relocation, the eviction required a state biologist — not just a broom. The badger was safely removed; questions about how it got in remain unanswered.

UPI·
🌀
7
Meet Merlin: The 4-Year-Old Pig with 1.1 Million Instagram Followers Who Just Got a Guinness World Record
🦔Beasts

Meet Merlin: The 4-Year-Old Pig with 1.1 Million Instagram Followers Who Just Got a Guinness World Record

Merlin the pig has 1.1 million Instagram followers and now holds an official Guinness World Record to prove it. The four-year-old California resident communicates with his owner via 30+ programmed buttons around the house — and apparently, the internet finds this irresistible.

UPI·
🌀
7
Red Fox Stows Away on Cargo Ship in England, Turns Up at Port of New York
🦔Beasts

Red Fox Stows Away on Cargo Ship in England, Turns Up at Port of New York

A red fox somehow survived a transatlantic voyage from Southampton, England to New York as a stowaway aboard a cargo ship — and is now living at the Bronx Zoo while customs officials try to figure out how this happened. The approximately 2-year-old male seems unbothered by the whole ordeal, which is more than you can say for the customs officers who found him.

UPI·
🌀
8
Man in Japan Falls Into a Hole and Discovers a Hibernating Bear Inside It
🦔Beasts

Man in Japan Falls Into a Hole and Discovers a Hibernating Bear Inside It

A 69-year-old hiker in Japan's Iwate Prefecture wandered off trail in snowy conditions, stepped into a hidden hole, and discovered it was occupied by a hibernating bear — which responded to the intrusion by biting his leg. The bear then followed him out of the hole and attempted to attack his companion before being chased off with hiking poles. Online commenters, with unusual unanimity, sided with the bear.

SoraNews24·
🌀
9
Two Marsupial Species Thought Extinct for 6,000 Years Found Alive in New Guinea Rainforest
🦔Beasts

Two Marsupial Species Thought Extinct for 6,000 Years Found Alive in New Guinea Rainforest

Two marsupial species — known only from fossils and presumed extinct for 6,000 years — have been found very much alive in the rainforests of West Papua, including one with a freakishly elongated finger and another so sacred that local Indigenous elders refuse to say its name aloud. Scientists made the discovery by working with clan communities who'd known about these animals all along. The animals, for their part, had no idea they were supposed to be extinct.

Live Science·
🌀
7