Villagers were shocked after a monkey-like piglet was born in China.

Curious locals flocked to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township.

"It’s hideous. No one will be willing to buy it, and it scares the family to even look at it!" Feng told Oriental Today.

He says the piglet looks just like a monkey, with two thin lips, a small nose and two big eyes. Its rear legs are also much longer than its forelegs, causing it to jump instead of walk.

Feng’s wife said the monkey-faced piglet was one of five newborns of a sow which the family had raised for nine years.

"My God, it was so scary. I didn’t known what it was. I was really frightened," she said.

"But our son likes to play with it, and he stopped us from getting rid of it. He even feeds it milk."

Neighbours have suggested the couple keep the piglet to see how it looks as it matures. (Oriental Today)

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Is it a fish? Or perhaps it’s a crocodile? This odd looking critter (which has the mouth of a crocodile and the body of an arowana fish) was found – almost dead – by an Indian during the recent floods. An eyewitness took a photo of it and then spread the picture using his cell phone. Some people say that it’s a saltwater fish. (Sin Chew Daily)

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A male swan shunned by females for his deformed neck may finally have found a girlfriend after seven years.

Crinkly the ugly swan has become well-known at a Gloucester bird sanctuary, after flying in from Russia every winter since 2001.

But conservation workers have watched with dismay as Crinkly failed miserably to attract the opposite sex.

"We were worried about Crinkly because he is such a strange-looking bird," said Jools Mackin, spokesperson for Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

Until now, none the females at the trust was prepared to mate with him but conservation workers say they can see signs of a budding romance.

"We are delighted because we think Crinkly has finally found a girlfriend," said Ms Mackin.

"He appears to be loosely associating with another Slimbridge Bewick’s swan called Taciturn.

"It is too early to say whether or not they are mates, but we’ll be monitoring them over the next few days to see. At the moment they are associating on Swan Lake.

"They are flying in and out together and we do hope they will become mates."

Experts at Slimbridge were amazed when Crinkly first arrived as a cygnet with parents Lucius and Coletta, with a strangely deformed neck probably caused by a birth defect. (Ananova.com)

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British Alexandra Stevens, 29, of Haultwick, Herts, grows this cute duck-shaped ucumber. She revealed it has become an office mascot since she took it into work at the ccounty council.

She said: "It is a favourite. Everyone wants to have a look." Guess that makes it a peeking duck… (The Sun)

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The 2-month-old turtle, known as a red-eared slider, is a rare example (one-in-a-million freaks of nature) of a conjoined-twin birth. It has two heads sticking out from opposite ends of its shell, along with a pair of front feet on each side. But there is just one set of back feet and one tail.

The extreme rare two-headed turtle which was bought from a collector in Fort Lauderdale of Flarida, would have likely died in the wild because it swims awkwardly and would be an easy target for predators, according to Jay Jacoby, manager of Big Al’s Aquarium Supercenter in East Norriton, Pennsylvania.

The video of David Letterman’s Late Night Show below featured the unique conjoined two-head turtle. Take a look!(Random Citations)

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A yellow three-legged duckling at a duck farm in Tancheng County, East China’s Shandong Province on September 4, 2007. Although it is reportedly eating well and quacking all day long, a rare mutation has left the male duckling with an extra leg dragging behind him.(China Daily)

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Explorer’s tale

Explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell has had close encounters with vampire bats and angry bees, but his latest brush has been with a rather odd dog.

He spotted a rare breed of Double-Nosed Andean tiger hound, which has two noses, on a recent trip to Bolivia.

The chairman of the Scientific Exploration Society said the dog, named Xingu, was "not terribly handsome".

He said: "This breed could be used for sniffing out mines or narcotics because they have an enhanced sense of smell."

Colonel Blashford-Snell first encountered a Double-Nosed Andean tiger hound called Bella in 2005 when he was carrying out reconnaissance for this year’s expedition in the area near Ojaki.

He told Radio 4′s Today programme: "While we were there, sitting by the fire one night, I saw an extraordinary-looking dog that appeared to have two noses.

"I was sober at the time, and then I remembered the story that the legendary explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett came back with in 1913 of seeing such strange dogs in the Amazon jungle.

"Nobody believed him, they laughed him out of court."

"He’s very intelligent and with a wonderful sense of smell, as you might think," John Blashford-Snell.

The dog seen two years ago was Bella, and on a second trip to the area, which began in May and has just ended, the explorer discovered her son Xingu in the village of Ojaki.

He had just produced a litter of puppies with a bitch that had a single nose.

Two of their offspring had double noses, and two had the normal quantity, but the double-nosed pups died after three days.

A veterinary expert with the group examined Xingu to see if he had a cleft palate, but this was not the case.

"There is a chance that these dogs came from a breed with double noses that’s known in Spain as Pachon Navarro, which were hunting dogs at the time of the Conquistadors," said Colonel Blashford-Snell.

"I think it’s highly likely some of these were taken to South America and they continued to breed. They’re good hunting dogs."

He added that Xingu was "quite an aggressive little chap" who stood about 16 inches in height and loved salt biscuits but "wasn’t a terribly handsome dog".

Xingu’s best friend is apparently a wild pig called Gregory, and the two animals "rule the roost" in their village.

"Other dogs snarl at Xingu, because they can sense he’s different. He’s the smallest dog there but he sees the other dogs off," Colonel Blashford-Snell said.

"He’s very intelligent and with a wonderful sense of smell, as you might think.

"The Bolivian Army came and took DNA samples because they’re interested in the breed. He’s not the only dog like this, there are others in the area."

The Scientific Exploration Society was in Bolivia to investigate a shallow crater about five miles in width.

According to Colonel Blashford-Snell, he has now found evidence that this was caused by a giant meteorite, which struck the Bolivian Amazon Basin up to 30,000 years ago.

He says he has found evidence of human habitation within 50 miles of the blast zone, and believes these people were wiped out as a result of the meteor’s impact.

The explorers also carried with them a church organ from Dorset as a gift to local Bolivians in order to secure their help with finding the meteorite. (BBC)

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A watermelon breeder, Che Yonggao, known as the Watermelon King in his native village near Fuzhou in east China’s Jiangxi Province, holds a 10 kilo conjoined watermelon, which he has inadvertently bred, on Monday, August 13, 2007.

A watermelon breeder, Che Yonggao, known as the Watermelon King in his native village, near Fuzhou in east China’s Jiangxi Province, accidentally picked-up a conjoined watermelon, which weighs more than 10 kilos, in his field on Monday.

This is a first for the prolific watermelon breeder, who has grown melons for more than 10 years. Usually, one pistil could only bear one melon, reports jxnews.com.cn.

Che has decided to send the watermelon to his local agricultural departments for research, though some melon sellers have offered him several hundred yuan to buy it. (CRIEnglish)

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