This may just be the cutest photograph ever taken, as two furry little friends develop a special bond.

The moment was captured at the Odessa Zoo, Ukraine, and stopped visitors in their tracks as they passed by the enclosure.

As the baby deer rested in the shade during a warm summers day the domestic zoo cat approached.

After a quick hello both decided a bit of sleep was in order and the ginger moggy nestled peacefully into the side of the deer.

Photographer Vitaly Ktach snapped the special moments and said everyone was watching on in amazement.

‘The affectionate behaviour of the cat towards the young deer had myself and other visitors watching in disbelief,’ explained Ktach.

‘The cat seemed to really taking its time to run its fur along the deer, which must have felt very nice.

‘It then sat down and they enjoyed gently rubbing their faces together. They looked in bliss!’ (Metro)

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Man’s best friend may well be man’s best accountant too after a 12-year-old labrador called Beau proved he is a dab hand when it comes to numbers.

Beau, a black lab from Montana, is on his way to becoming a star after showing off his math abilities.

He can add, subtract and do square roots and his owner, David Madsen, claims he has an incredible 85 per cent accuracy rate. ‘I’ve had dogs all my life, but this dog is different. He’s super smart,’ he said.

Beau’s gift was discovered after Mr Madsen laid out some dog biscuits and rewarded him when his barks corresponded to the number of treats. When the labrador began to show he was a natural, his training was upped and in no time he was able to count up to ten.

Now the canine number cruncher can answer questions about golf, football scores and can also read sums from pieces of paper. And Beau always lets you know he’s finished a question by shooting his ears up and locking them in position.

Beau has also shown he is not a fool when it comes to getting paid for his efforts. Mr Madsen added: ‘If I don’t have treats, he gets tired of it after two or three questions. He doesn’t work for free.’

At first some were suspicious of the clever mutt and suspected that the owner may be secretly signalling the dog – but Beau still manages to perform the calculations when his owner has left the room.

Mr Madsen’s son Matt said: ‘My dad had a buddy in Atlanta who was determined to prove we were signalling him somehow.

‘He took Beau out on the back deck by himself and drilled him one-on-one for 30 minutes, and when they came back in, all the guy said was, "You know what? That dog’s a genius".’

Mr Madsen, a retired AT&T executive, adopted Beau as a puppy from his daughter Melissa. (Metro)

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Three, two, one – woofee-doo! Meet Otis the skydiving pug, who loves to get airborne with his his thrill-seeking owner Will DaSilva.

The ten-year-old pooch is quite the veteran when it comes to jumping from planes.

The latest pictures see him posing, with ‘doggles’ and all, during his 64th tandem skydive.

Strapped into his custom-made harness, Otis will sit patiently on the lap of owner Will as their plane climbs toward altitude, but when the jumping light goes on he tucks in underneath and stretches his paws out like a bird.

According to Will, Otis has been living the life at the Lodi Parachute Centre in Acampo, Los Angles, since he was a pup and has become part of the family as he lazes around the company’s hanger.

His first jump was a quick five-second 3,000ft ‘hop and pop’ to see if he liked the experience and ever since then he’s been licking his lips at the prospect of getting up in the air.

‘Initially we just wanted to see how he liked it, but he seems to love it,’ Will told the Sacremento Bee.

‘He’s totally aware of what’s happening when he free falls and just like a first-time jumper he gets all excited about it and gets nervous at the door.

‘Once he’s out though he’s just having a ball like a dog with its head out of the car window.’

Otis’ popularity has also been quite a coup for the businesses owner Bill Dause, with people coming from across America to jump with the four-legged daredevil.

‘The intent was for a one-time novelty, but everyone else wanted to go along with Otis and see him jump,’ said Dause.

Will claims that despite the danger of skydiving Otis’ main concerns are his unhealthy eating habits, with his nickname being ‘Hoover’.

‘Otis is living the ultimate dream. He lounges around here all day, jumping for free and bumming food off the other divers,

‘He’s (probably) going to die of a food overdose, not from sky-diving,’ he said. (Metro)

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Meet Peep the goat, who loves nothing more than grabbing a brush and creating ‘abstract’ art.

At first, the animal produced only, erm, gruff drafts but now it has honed its skills enough to wow visitors at the zoo where it lives.

And it seems Peep is part of a new hoof movement in the art world, as its friends at McGovern Children’s Zoo in Houston, Texas, are also a dab hand with a brush.

The first goat at the US attraction to paint was two-year-old Domino.

But the real star, according to zoo keeper Amber Zelmer, is billy goat Trent.

‘He caught on really quickly so helping him to make the paintings a bit better wasn’t hard at all – it took less than a month,’ she said. ‘The first task was teaching the goats to touch the canvas with the paint brush once they had it held in their mouth.

‘Then we just added paint and we had goat art.’

The finished canvases have proved popular at zoo fundraising events.

In 2006, pictures by an elephant called Paya went on display at the Dundas Gallery in Edinburgh.

They included ‘self-portraits’ by the Thai pachyderm, said to be the only elephant to have mastered its own likeness. (Metro)

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A bilingual parrot has started speaking Urdu after learning Islamic phrases from growing up in Bradford.

Two-year-old African grey Mittu can say the traditional Muslim greeting ‘asalaam alaykum’ and speak other religious passages meaning ‘in the name of Allah’ as well as the more customary ‘who’s a pretty boy?’

His owner Ghaffar Ahmed, from Stourbridge, West Midlands, says his beloved bird can say ‘come here’, ‘hello, how are you?’ in Urdu along with other religious words.

The 36-year-old said: ‘He speaks Urdu and English – I don’t know how many bilingual birds there are in the UK but there can’t be many.

‘My in-laws live in Bradford and a family who they know were looking to re-home the parrot as he was becoming too much of a handful.

‘They wanted him to go to a home that spoke the same language, so we said we’d have him on board and ever since then he has become part of the family.

‘He says a few words including ‘’asalaam alaykum’’, ‘’bismillah’’, which means ‘’in the name of Allah’’ and ‘’shabaash’’ – which means ‘‘well done’’.

‘But he also barks like a dog and makes the noise of the refrigerator alarm, so he likes making all sorts of noises really.’

Mr Ahmed, who runs a car firm and accident management company, says he is refusing to take him out to the local mosque – after the parrot escaped recently from his workplace.

Mr Ahmed, his wife, Shabana, 31, and their three young daughters were ‘devastated’ when he disappeared.

But tears turned to joy when the bird turned up four days later having flown four miles away.

Susan Lane, from Halesowen, West Midlands, found the Mittu in her Holly tree and found Mr Ahmed online.

‘As soon as we were reunited he came and kissed my face,’ Mr Ahmed added.

‘We were delighted to have him back, it was like losing one of the family when he flew off.

‘So I’m not letting him go out any more, I’m keeping a close eye on him from now on.’ (Daily Mail)

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Ants turn all colours of the rainbow in these amazing photos, taken as they eat specially dyed sugar drops.

Dr Mohamed Babu set up the shots after his wife Shameem noticed that ants turned white when they sipped spilled milk.

The scientist mixed sugar drops with edible colours red, green, blue and yellow and placed them in his garden to attract the insects.

As the eager ants scoffed the sweet treats the colour of the sugar they had chosen could be seen in their transparent abdomens. Some varied their choice, creating different colour combinations inside them.

Dad-of-three Dr Babu, 53, said in Mysore, southern India: "The ants gain the colours as they sip the liquid. The secret is a paraffin base, which prevents the drops collapsing.

"Curiously, they preferred light colours, yellow and green. Dark colours had no takers until there was no room left beside the lighter ones." (The Sun)

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Vampire bats know just where to bite for maximum effect by using in-built infrared technology.

Just as heat-seeking missiles home in on targets, so the bats are able to identify the hotspots on warm-blooded prey.

But precisely how the bats sense infrared has not been understood until now.

Scientists in the US discovered the secret after studying vampire bats in South America. They found that nerve endings in three ‘leaf pits’ around the bat’s nose are coated with a sensitive heat-detecting molecule called TRPV1.

Similar molecules on pain-sensing nerve fibres in the tongues, skin and eyes of humans react to the burning chemical capsaicin in chilli peppers.

In vampire bats, evolution has turned the pain sensor into a sophisticated heat-seeking device. Their detectors guide them to the best spot to bite, and their teeth can pierce through the hide of a sleeping animal – normally a cow or goat – without waking it.

Anticoagulant chemicals in the bat’s saliva keep the blood seeping through the open wound as they lap it up. (Metro)

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They are humans’ closest relative, sharing a similar genetic make-up and displaying behaviour not unlike our own.

Now this little chimpanzee is showing off a motherly instinct to rival even the most maternal of mankind.

These adorable images reveal the close bond that has formed between a two-year-old chimpanzee called Do Do and a two-month-old tiger cub called Aorn.

Completely at ease in each other’s company, the ape’s motherly instincts take over as she attentively bottle feeds the baby tiger.

Aorn gratefully laps up the milk as Do Do tenderly holds the tiger in her arms.

At one point, Do Do puts the bottle in her own mouth – almost mimicking the actions of a human mother checking to see if the milk is suitable for her offspring to consume.

For some unexplained reason Do Do is wearing a pair of denim shorts – perhaps to protect her thighs from Aorn’s claws.

They were photographed at Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm and Zoo on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand.

The crocodile farm, used as a tourist attraction, houses some 80,000 crocodiles and is the largest in Thailand.

Its owners claim to hold the largest captive crocodile, measuring an astonishing six metres long and weighing 2,465lbs.

Regular crocodile shows are staged during which zookeepers place their heads inside the reptiles’ mouths.

However, the farm doesn’t just contain crocodiles.

As you’d expect from these pictures, monkeys and tigers also live there, alongside elephants, lions, horses and hippopotamuses. (Daily Mail)

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This paw kitten is struggling to find a home — because she looks like Adolf Hitler.

The abandoned six-week-old puss has been nicknamed Kitler because black markings in her fur resemble the Nazi leader’s black moustache and hairline.

The cuddly creature even appears to give a little Nazi salute, like her evil namesake.

Staff at the animal shelter where Kitler is being looked after say hundreds of visitors have ignored her and chosen more conventional looking kittens instead.

Spokeswoman Tara Dundon from Wood Green animal shelter in Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire, said: "Kitler is an adorable little girl who will make a wonderful addition to the right family. She is really playful and a typical sweet kitten.

"We rehome five and a half thousand animals every year but we cannot find a loving owner for Kitler. We think her unusual markings are putting people off.

"Sadly, Kitler is just one of hundreds of stray cats we take in every year. Last year we took in 1,294 cats and kittens, of which 422 were strays."

Kitler was found alone and close to death at the side of the A421 near Kempston, Bedfordshire — but staff from Wood Green revived her with food and TLC. (The Sun)

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He’s named after one of Santa’s flying reindeer – and Blitzen the collie is certainly living up to his billing.

Putting a new spin on ‘walkies’, the four-year-old rescue dog appears to be soaring through the air as he leaps and twists athletically in the water.

Owner Stacy Clark, 44, says he reaches 6ft – topping the 5ft 8in world record for a canine jump.

‘He hasn’t been trained to do it,’ said the mother of two, of Marykirk in Aberdeenshire. ‘It’s entirely his thing.

‘The children splash water in the air and he just loves to try to catch it.

‘We call it his dancing. People will stop and stare when he’s doing his leaps. It’s what he does all day long, he loves water and he loves playing with the kids.

‘We would be amazed if he had broken a record. To us, he’s just a lovely dog and very much part of the family now.’

These amazing pictures were taken yesterday as the family enjoyed a holiday at Loch Morlich in the Cairngorms.

The Guinness World Record for the highest dog jump is 5.8 feet, achieved by a greyhound in 2006.

The dog, named Cinderella May a Holly Grey, made his great leap at the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge National Finals in Missouri, USA.

Guinness World Records said Blitzen would need to repeat his feat before an adjudicator to earn the world record.

But for now, he is enjoying his month-long holiday in Loch Morlich with Mrs Clark and her husband Austin, 44, from Marykirk in Aberdeenshire, and their children, Mitchell, 11, and Kendra, 9.

Blitzen was adopted by the family after being rescued from a life on the streets with a homeless man, who was no longer able to care for him. (Mail Online)

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