Animals In News

Two rival male lions fight over a female in front a group of tourists travelling in the Masai Mara national park in Kenya. Photographer Olga Kirillova captured the drama on camera. The picture was taken at the Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna by Romashchenko Elena, a maths teacher. She said: "I noticed how a little monkey was sat on the goat's back and was surprised the goat wasn't annoyed. The monkey started looking through the goat's fur with its hands. I presume it was eating any sort of ticks or fleas. Perhaps that's why the goat was happy to have the monkey on its back." A man bathes his performing monkey in a water sprinkler of a roadside garden in Chennai, India Amateur photographer Vedran Vidak has captured the fighting stallions of the Cincar mountains in Bosnia. They spend the winters hidden in the mountain valleys only reappearing again in the spring to fight for ascendancy on the grassy plains. Vedran has spent days tracking the beautiful stallions over the last few years to photograph them fighting for control of the herd. Spring has sprung: John the baby goat makes friends with Charlie the chick at Reddish Vale School Farm near Stockport This newborn chick, who is just a few weeks old, has apparently struck up an unlikely friendship with a kitten who helps protect her from pesky vermin. Sergey Dmitriev, from Barnaul, Russia, said: "We want to help restore the ancient Pavlovskaya hens because they are a very rare breed. Sometimes they can get attacked by rats and mice who get into the coops and kill them. We usually have to protect them like they are our own children - but recently our pet cat Mikeal has protected them for us. He will follow them everywhere they go whenever we let them out to make sure they are safe." A harvest mouse seems to be enjoying the sunshine as it clambers up a daffodil. The picture was taken by amateur photographer Matt Binstead in Lingfield, Surrey. A meerkat investigates a daffodil at at Knowsley Safari Park, in Merseyside, Liverpool Wallaby joey Pip plays amongst the daffodils at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, Dunstable, Bedfordshire. The orphaned wallaby is being hand-reared by a zoo keeper after being abandoned by her mother. A giant panda cub plays with the boots of her feeder at the enclosure at the Giant Panda Research and Conservation Centre in Chengdu, in southwest China's Sichuan province Alison MacLean of the Edinburgh Zoo meets a young Giant Panda at the Bifengxia Panda Centre near the city of Ya'an in Sichuan Province, China. A breeding pair of pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, are being loaned to Edinburgh Zoo in an historic agreement between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and the Chinese Wildlife Conservation Society. The breeding pair will be the first Giant Pandas in the UK for 17 years and Alison will be their keeper. It is hoped that the pair will mate during the ten years they spend at Edinburgh. If they mate successfully, the cub will be returned to China once it reaches two years old. The panda in this picture is about 18 months old. Tian Tian translates as 'Sweet Honey' and Yang Guang as 'Sunshine'. One of two polar bear cubs, namd Gregor and Aleut, licks its mother Vera at the Tiergarten zoo in Nuremberg, southern Germany... Two polar bear cubs Gregor and Aleut play at the Tiergarten zoo in Nuremberg Einstein, the world's smallest stallion, stands next to Playboy the horse in Barnstead, New Hampshire, USA. Standing only 20 inches tall, Einstein will mark his first birthday with a book, 'A Friend for Einstein' An elephant rears up on her hind legs to pluck some fruit from a tall tree. British photographer Stephen Blake captured the scene in Zambia. An employee bottle-feeds a one-week-old meerkat cub at the Royev Ruchey zoo in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The cub is one of a litter of three being hand-reared after they were rejected by their mother. A new arrival at Busch Gardens Tampa - a baby cheetah - is pictured at the attraction in Florida, USA Two 13-week-old lion cubs sit with their mother Shiva at Bristol Zoo Gardens A bottlenose dolphin leaps for the first time in many months, welcoming spring to Tobermory Bay on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland An inquisitive beluga whale ends up with a squashed nose as it tries to get closer to visitors at an aquarium. The curious creature swam straight at the glass when he spotted people watching him from the other side, flattening his nose and chin as he struggled to get a better look. The sight was captured by photographer Nicole Perkins at an aquarium in Connecticut, USA. A tiger shark with a satellite tag on its dorsal fin swims in the Caribbean. Shark researcher Dr Neil Hammerschlag and his team are able to carry out this delicate work in just five minutes to ensure safety for his team and the shark. Since May last year they have tagged and tracked a total of 25 tiger sharks and 25 other sharks, including the endangered hammerhead and bull sharks at a cost of $200,000 (122,000). Their research will provide a greater understanding of shark migration, breeding and conservation. Senior Technician Carly Daniels studies a three-month-old lobster that is ready for release. A new scheme to repopulate the seas of Britain with thousands of young lobsters has put out an appeal for divers to come forward to help release the tiny creatures. Senior Technician Carly Daniels holds a female lobster carrying thousands of eggs A stork flips a fish around in its beak to make it easier to swallow. Bruce Robinson photographed the bird feeding in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Cape Canaveral, Florida. Not quite old enough to have shed the feathers of his youth, the one brown-headed bald eagle stands out among his family. The juvenile bird looks the odd-one-out as he nestles among the group. Photographer Pam Mullins snapped this shot near her home in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada. Three stork nests are pictured on the church tower in Kandern-Holzen, Germany Steven Sykes feeds an 18-month-old Yemen Chameleon called Karma, the latest arrival at the Kirkley Hall zoological gardens in Northumberland, which will open to the public for the first time this May