Wonderful Photos of Albino Animals

Albino animals are rare in nature but the truth is that they exist and seeing them gives us a new wonder about the wonderdul and complex world that we live in.

Below are some rare photos of albino animals in nature:

Albino Hedgehog

Albino Koala

Albino Penguin

Albino Whitetail Deers

"Snowflake"the Albino Gorilla

Python

Albino Humpback Whale

"White Diamond" the albino Alligator

The Nomadic Hyena Handlers of Nigeria

The following are the accounts of photographer Pieter Hugo on his trip to Nigeria to investigate the Hyena Handlers.

The Naraative and pictures are from his book The Hyena and Other Men.

It all started with the picture above. A friend had emailed photographer Pieter Hugo this bizarre image taken on a cellphone in Lagos, Nigeria. The caption read, ‘The Streets of Lagos’, and a newspaper publishing the photo reported that the men were bank robbers, body guards, drug dealers and debt collectors.

The image went viral online and the myth of these street toughs in Nigeria with Hyenas grew. Pieter was captivated and knew he had to learn more.

Through a journalist friend, Hugo tracked down a Nigerian reporter, Adetokunbo Abiola, who said that he knew the Gadawan Kura as they are known in Hausa (a rough translation: ‘hyena handlers/guides’). A few weeks later, Pieter was on a plane to Lagos.

Abiola met me at the airport and together we took a bus to Benin City where the ‘hyena men’ had agreed to meet us. However, when we got there they had already departed for Abuja.

In Abuja we found them living on the periphery of the city in a shantytown – a group of men, a little girl, three hyenas, four monkeys and a few rock pythons. It turned out that they were a group of itinerant minstrels, performers who used the animals to entertain crowds and sell traditional medicines. The animal handlers were all related to each other and were practising a tradition passed down from generation to generation. I spent eight days travelling with them.

The spectacle caused by this group walking down busy market streets was overwhelming. I tried photographing this but failed, perhaps because I wasn’t interested in their performances. I realised that what I found fascinating was the hybridisation of the urban and the wild, and the paradoxical relationship that the handlers have with their animals – sometimes doting and affectionate, sometimes brutal and cruel.

I started looking for situations where these contrasting elements became apparent. I decided to concentrate on portraits. I would go for a walk with one of the performers, often just in the city streets, and, if opportunity presented itself, take a photograph. We travelled around from city to city, often chartering public mini-buses. 

I agreed to travel with the animal wranglers to Kano in the northern part of the country. One of them set out to negotiate a fare with a taxi driver; everyone else, including myself and the hyenas, monkeys and rock pythons, hid in the bushes. When their companion signalled that he had agreed on a fare, the motley troupe of humans and animals leapt out from behind the bushes and jumped into the vehicle.

The taxi driver was completely horrified. I sat upfront with a monkey and the driver. He drove like an absolute maniac. At one stage the monkey was terrified by his driving. It grabbed hold of my leg and stared into my eyes. I could see its fear. 

Two years later I decided to go back to Nigeria. The project felt unresolved and I was ready to engage with the group again. I look back at the notebooks I had kept while with them. The words ‘dominance’, ‘codependence’ and ‘submission’ kept appearing. These pictures depict much more than an exotic group of travelling performers in West Africa. The motifs that linger are the fraught relationships we have with ourselves, with animals and with nature.

The second trip was very different. By this stage there was a stronger personal relationship between myself and the group. We had remained in contact and they were keen to be photographed again. The images from this journey are less formal and more intimate.

The first series of pictures had caused varying reactions from people – inquisitiveness, disbelief and repulsion. People were fascinated by them, just as I had been by that first cellphone photograph. A director of a large security company in the USA contacted me, asking how to get in touch with the ‘hyena group’. He saw marketing potential: surely these men must use some type of herb to protect themselves against hyenas, baboons, dogs and snakes? He thought that security guards, soldiers and his own pocket could benefit from this medicine.

Many animal-rights groups also contacted me, wanting to intervene (however, the keepers have permits from the Nigerian government). When I asked Nigerians, “How do you feel about the way they treat animals”, the question confused people. Their responses always involved issues of economic survival.

Seldom did anyone express strong concern for the well-being of the creatures. Europeans invariably only ask about the welfare of the animals but this question misses the point. Instead, perhaps, we could ask why these performers need to catch wild animals to make a living. Or why they are economically marginalised. Or why Nigeria, the world’s sixth largest exporter of oil, is in such a state of disarray.

Pictures Of Animal Bridges And Crossings Across The World

Also known as ecoducts, animal bridges are constructed to allow animals to cross safely across man-made structures or barriers like highways.

These wild life crossings may include any of the following: Underpass tunnels, Viaducts, Overpasses, Bridges, Fish ladders etc.

Below are pictures of some such crossings from around the world:

Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Near Keechelus Lake, Washington, USA.

Interstate 78, Wachtung, Reservation, New Jersey, USA.

The Borkeld, Netherlands.

Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana,USA.

Highway A50 in The Netherlands.

E314 Belgium.

Scotch Plains, New Jersey, USA.

B38-Birkenau, Germany.

The Netherlands.

Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. 

Unusual and Amazing Animal Friendships

This cat and fox were spotted and photographed by fishermen on the shores of Lake Van in Turkey. No one knows much about their story except that they are a very playful pair.

Kasi and Tani were raised together and became good friends. However when the Cheetah became bigger he became more interested in the female Cheetahs nearby, but both dog and cheetah are still very good friends.

Anjana the Chimpanze became a surogate mother and caretaker for two White Tiger cubs who have become seperated from their mother.

This wild Maquee male monkey was seen taking excellent care of a deserted orange kitty cat at Monkey Forest, Bali, Indonesia.

Bonedigger the lion has been the best of friends with these Daschunds(four of them) ever since they were puppies and he a little cub.

This cat helped raise four hedgehogs when their mother died. The cat took them in and raised them as her own.

Tigers, Bears and Lions are ordinarily not friends in the wild but the trio of Baloo the Bear, Leo the Lion and Shere Khan the Tiger have been living as close friends ever since they were taken at a house by police during a drug raid in 2001.

Rosco, the blue tick hound, made a lasting friendship with Suryia, the Orangutang when both of them met at a reserve for endangered animals in South Carolina. They have since garnered World Wide attention including featuring in National Geographic and on Oprah Winfrey.

These Lion cubs were abandoned by their mother and they found another mother in this dog who cared for them and nurtured them.

This lamb was rejected by it's mother and some Australian dog breeders took in the spoted lamb. It was soon adopted by their Dalmatian, Zoe who probably thought it was a Dalmatian puppy.

Koko the Gorilla adopted several kittens during her lifetime and cared for them as a parent would. When her first kitten was killed by a car, Koko expressed her sadness by sign language.

Kate, the Great Dane adopted Pippin the Deer when she was a baby. When Pippin matured she moved into the forest to start a family of her own. But she still comes to visit Kate and her owner Isobel.

Interesting Facts About Bats

1. The largest known bat colony in the world is the Bracken Bat Cave in Texas, it has more than 30 million bats which eats more than 250 tons of insects every single night.

Bracken Cave Bats

When the bats leave the cave they form a large group which looks like a huge storm on radar.

2. In order to prolong copulation female Short-Nosed Fruit Bats actually perform oral sex (fellatio) on the males.

3. Some bats can fly up to 400 km in one single night, reach speeds of up to 100 km/h and fly as high as 3,000 meters.

4. A single bat can eat up to 600 insects in one hour.

5. The giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox is the largest bat in the world with a wingspan of about six feet.

Golden Crowned Flying Fox Bat

6. There are more than 1,200 species of bats in the world and only 3 species are Vampire bats.

7. Bats play a very major role in spreading millions of seeds every year from the ripe fruit that they eat, infact some seeds will not sprout unless they have passed through the digestive tracts of a bat.

It is estimated that up to 95% of reforestation in the tropical rainforest is a result of seed dispersal from bats.

8. Contrary to popular belief, Vampire bats do not actually "suck" blood. What they do is that they "lap" the blood with their tongues very similar to the way dogs drink water.

Vampire Bat

9. A Vampire bat will rarely bite a human being and when it does it usually comes back the following night to feed from the same person. Vampire bats can tell people apart from the way they breath.

10. Bats are broadly classified into two groups: Megabats (Megachiroptera) which are mainly fruit-eating bats and Microbats (Microchiroptera) which are smaller and generally eats insects.

11. Bats are the only mammals in the world that can fly.

12. Bats can be found in every country on every continent in the world except Antarctica. Bats even live in the Arctic North Pole.

13. Some bats can live up to 40 years before they die. The Little Brown Bat is a very good example.

14. About 20% of all mammals in the world are bats.

15. About 70% of all bats eat insects, the remaining 30% eat fruits.

16. Vampire bats can move very well on the ground, infact they are the only bat species that can move well on the ground.

17. Most bats open their mouths when they call out their echo location signals, but some can emit this signal through their nose.

18. In Asia, especially China and Japan, bats are symbols of happiness and good fortune while in North America and Europe they are often associated with witchcraft and black magic.

19. Contrary to popular belief bats are not actually blind and they can see quite well, some species can even detect ultra-violet light.

20. The Tube-Lipped Nectar Bat (Anoura fistulata) boasts of the longest tongue, relative to body lenght, of any mammal in the world. The tongue is so long (about one and a half times it's body lenght) that the bat retracts it into it's rib cage when it's not in use.

Tube-Lipped Nectar Bat

21. Some female bats can control when they give birth by storing the male's sperms inside their body, some can even slow the development of the embryo inside them.

22. The smallest bat in the world is the Bumblebee Bat (Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bat) it is about the size of the bumblebee and can be found in Thailand. It is currently a critically endangered specie.

Bumblebee Bat

23. Bats that feed on frogs can accurately tell the difference between the poisonous and the edible frogs by listening to the call of the male frogs.

24. All the female bats in most bat colonies give birth to their babies at the same time.

25. Most female bats will give bat to only a single baby once in a year making them the slowest reproducing mammals in the world for their size. This also makes them vulnerable to extinction.

26. The Pallid Bat of North America feeds on scorpions and centipedes and is totally immune to their stings.

27. Female Mexican Free-Tailed bats can easily find their babies even in huge colonies where many millions of puppies cluster at up to 500 per feet.

28. The tiny Wooly Bats of West Africa live in the large webs of Colonial Spiders.