Animal lovers are angry after a designer created a piggy bank from a real piglet.

The Piglet Bank is advertised as being made from a taxidermied young pig, complete with "a coin storage unit and a cork plug".

Belfast-based designer Colin Hart, who says: "We are now getting death threats if we don’t stop producing these things."

Advertised as the ‘piggy bank of all piggy banks’, the moneybox is said to take up to 12 months to produce from the time of order.

Colin explains: "Just so you know that we don’t actually kill the Piglets, they die of natural causes and these are the ones that we use.

"We have had three people interested in buying one so far."

The Piglet Bank costs about £2,500 with "half expected up front and the rest payable on delivery". (wrapup)

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Police arresting a man for allegedly soliciting prostitution in Miami earlier this month ran into a bit of difficulty when they got him back to the station.

It was not a matter of him resisting arrest or being uncooperative. Nor did it have anything to do with his identification – he provided his name and other personal details, and submitted to fingerprinting and a mugshot.

The trouble started when they got to the part in the paperwork that requires them to note ‘unique physical features’.

The suspect had a unique physical feature alright… no forehead!

The mugshots, especially the one of the suspect in profile, shows why the arresting officers were left scratching their normal heads for a proper description.

After an unspecified period of time, the police clearly gave up, as the charge sheet merely states ‘half a head’ – hardly the medical term for it.

The release of the highly individual mugshot online caused a flurry of conjecture over whether the photos were faked.

But a spokeswoman from the Miami-Dade County Pre-Trial Detention Center said she saw the suspect while he was being processed.

She rather casually added: ‘I just looked at him. I see a lot of stuff. It didn’t really bother me.’

The man’s picture was no longer on the Miami-Dade County website because he had been released. The spokeswoman said she did not know his name – and he is variously identified as 25-year-old Carlos Rodriguez, 25, or Carlos Sosa.

Of course, with an identifying feature such as ‘half a head’, who needs a name? (wrapup)

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This cute baby elephant shows off his silky skills as he gives a first class demonstration in ball control under the watchful gaze of his proud mother.

The Asian elephant, called Luk Chai, seemingly smiles as he contentedly chases the massive football around his paddock.

Luk, which means son, raced after the ball after his mother, Porntip, kicked it for him to retrieve.

Luk, who was the first Asian elephant to be born in Australia, then fell in a heap on top of the ball before knocking it back to his mother for another round of the kick about.

The photos were taken by amateur photographer Renee Doyle while on a family visit to Taronga Zoo, in New South Wales, Australia.

The 46-year-old grandmother, from Queensland, said: ‘Luk is so full of personality and wonderfully playful that I could just stand and watch him all day.

‘He loves to chase after his football. Sometimes it is the keepers that roll the ball toward him and sometimes it’s one of the adult elephants that kicks the ball for him to go chase after.

‘In these photos it was his mum. He will even swim in the small pool pushing his ball around if it happens to roll in there. There’s no set routine – it’s just playtime.

‘The keepers do an absolutely amazing job and interact with all the elephants on a daily basis.

‘There are no goals in the yard and the ball just goes wherever it goes but there will be no doubt that Luk will be chasing it. (Mail Online)

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Here’s a man who hasn’t let his disability get in the way of his favourite hobby.

Michael has no arms, but is still a crack shot. He uses his feet to fire a pistol.

The bandanna-wearing marksman can be seen in an astonishing video clip sweeping the internet lying on the bonnet of a car, firing round after round of shots.

Michael rolls up his jeans, rests his feet on some cushions and, having re-loaded the gun unaided, let’s rip with another volley.

Squeezing the trigger of the pistol with the toes on his left foot and aiming with his steadying right foot, he warns: ‘Tell them: "If they want to come and screw with the U.S., come on!"‘

The man, armed without any arms, even uses his feet to reload the weapon, placing the bullets between his toes and feeding them into the pistol.

‘Every two shots I turn the safety [catch] on,’ the shooter adds.

Just beware this man with an itchy trigger toe. (Daily Mail)

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An animal lover who rescued an injured pigeon has become a real-life Dr Doolittle after taming the bird – to become his house pet.

Nigel McFarr nursed the stricken bird back to health after he found it starving in the corner of his work warehouse.

But when he released the pigeon it refused to fly away – and now lives with him and wife Valerie at their home in Emersons Green, Bristol.

They have named it ‘Silver’ because it perches on his head and shoulder just like Long John Silver’s pet parrot Captain Flint.

The bird waits for them to come home before joining them in the house – relaxing in the lounge and eating food from their hands.

It is believed Silver fell from a nest at the John Lewis warehouse in Bristol where Nigel, 65, works as a fitter.

The bird was ‘close to starving’ when he took it home eight weeks ago. He fed it garden seed and water and put it in a rabbit cage to recover.

Nigel said: ‘His eye colour changed from white to brown and he started to get purple and green plumage around his neck.

‘He was gobbling up all the seed and soon began to look a lot brighter.

‘After 10 days I thought I should let him loose in the back garden and we expected him to fly off.

‘Val was in the garden on a reclining chair and the first thing he did was go and sit on her head.

‘Since then he has barely left our sides. Every time I go into the garden he comes to sit on my shoulder like a pirate’s parrot, that’s why I named him Silver.’

Silver lives in the couple’s garden and swoops down onto their heads when they arrive home from work.

Nigel added: ‘When I’m out in the garden he always finds me – we’ve had him eight weeks now.

‘We once saw him on the roof with a wood pigeon and thought, that’s it, he’s off now, but he still returned.’

Nigel is known locally as a ‘Dr Doolittle’ because he has rescued many other stray animals including cats, dogs, a duck and bred lop-eared rabbits. (Mail Online)

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He’s known as the invisible man for good reason.

Whether lurking next to a telephone box or standing to attention in front of the iconic Beijing Olympic Stadium, Liu Bolin has made an art form out of blending in.

The Chinese artist is creating more than just startling images with his works.

He claims they make a statement about his place in society. He sees himself as an outsider whose artistic efforts are not always valued, especially in his native country.

Standing silently in front of his chosen scene, in locations all around the world, the 38-year-old uses himself as a blank canvas.

Then, with a little help from an assistant, he paints his body to merge as seamlessly as possible with what is behind him.

It means people walking by while he is carrying out his performances often have no idea he is nearby until he begins to move.

Liu said he wanted to show how city surroundings affected people living in them.

He added that the inspiration behind his work was a sense of not fitting in to modern society and was a silent protest against the persecution of artists.

He said: ‘Some people call me the invisible man, but for me it’s what is not seen in a picture which is really what tells the story.

‘After graduating from school I couldn’t find suitable work and I felt there was no place for me in society.

‘I experienced the dark side of society, without social relations, and had a feeling that no one cared about me, I felt myself unnecessary in this world.

‘From that time, my attitude turned from dependence into revolting against the system.’

Liu said he was further pushed on with his work when the Chinese authorities shut down his art studio in Beijing in 2005.

He said: ‘At that time, contemporary art was in quick development in Beijing, but the government decided it did not want artists like us to gather and live together.

‘Also many exhibitions were forced to close.

‘The situation for artists in China is very difficult and the forced removal of the artist’s studio is in fact my direct inspiration of this series of photographs, Hiding In The City.’

Liu’s art credentials were formed after he graduated from the prestigious Sculpture Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in China.

He said his work requires a lot of patience with him having to pose and work on his photographs for more than ten hours at a time to get it just right.

‘My job is to choose a good background where I want to be "disappeared", and then stand there unmoved until a design has been painted on me,’ he said.

‘I am standing, but there is a silent protest, the protest against the environment for the survival, the protest against the state. (Daily Mail)

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No, you’re not going quackers, this really is a duck-shaped spud. A surprised Sainsbury’s customer found it in her shopping bag after visiting the store for her weekly stock-up.

The shape of the vegetable was so ap-peel-ing to Mrs Linda Curley, from Wembley, London, that she decided to keep it rather than eat it for her Sunday dinner. (Metro)

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Meet Japan’s newest police dog – all 6.6 lb of her.

In what is a world first, a long-haired Chihuahua named ‘Momo’ has passed exams to become a police dog in the western Japanese prefecture of Nara.

The brown-and-white dog was one of 32 successful candidates out of 70 dogs, passing a search and rescue test by finding a person in five minutes after merely sniffing their cap.

‘Any breed of dog can be entered to become a police dog in the search and rescue division,’ said a Nara police spokesman.

But he admitted that news a Chihuahua had been entered may still come as a surprise to many.

‘It’s quite unusual,’ he said.

Television footage showed the seven-year-old Momo bounding across grass or sitting proudly, long hair blowing in the breeze.

Momo will be used for rescue operations in case of disasters such as earthquakes, in the hope that she may be able to squeeze her tiny frame into places too narrow for more usual rescue dogs, which tend to be German Shepherds.

The public response to the news of Momo’s selection took police by surprise, the spokesman said, adding: ‘The phone’s been ringing all afternoon.’

‘It’s quite rare for us to have a chihuahua work as a police dog,’ the spokeswoman said.

Chihuahuas, named after a Mexican state, are the smallest breed of dog.

‘We would like it to work hard by taking advantage of its small size,’ a Nara police department official told the Sankei Shimbun daily. (wrapup)

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Giant Irish Wolfhound Druid is the size of an average person, so it’s only natural he would use the furniture in the vet’s waiting room.

The 75kg giant pooch from Australia likes to take a pew next to his owner when he comes to visit the vets.

He performs the amusing trick whenever he visits the Allambie Veterinary Clinic in Sydney.

While most other dogs sit patiently on the floor of the waiting room, Druid has decided to literally take a seat next to his owner Pamela Mullan.

She says her gentle giant of a pet starting displaying this amusing behaviour about a year ago, when she was taking him to vet Dr Michael Morrice.

‘One day I brought him up to see Michael, Druid took my seat and the next thing I know he had sat down next to me with his bottom on the seat, just like a human,’ she said.

‘I thought it was hilarious.’

We’re inclined to agree. (Metro)

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A farmer in China has spoken of his surprise after one of his ducks turned out to have three legs and four feet.

Yang Fuyong, of Linchuan County, Guilin, southern China’s Guangxi Province, said the duck was one of a batch of 600 he had bought as ducklings.

While vaccinating them, he noticed one of them had one too many legs – and two too many feet.

He has since sold the ducks but kept the unusual one for a pet.

"I have been raising ducks for more than 10 years but I have never seen anything like this before," he said.

"It has an extra leg behind the other two and that leg has two feet. I’m going to carry on raising it to see how it does."

An official at the local livestock husbandry station said the duck was almost certainly the result of a genetic mutation. (Orange News)

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