A pig born with only its two front legs has become a local celebrity in China after learning to walk. The 10-month-old pig manages to balance and walk on her front legs even though she now weighs more than 100 pounds. Named by villagers Zhu Jianqiang (strong-willed pig), the pig attracts crowds of visitors to its owner's home each day. Wang Xihai started training the two-legged piglet to walk when it was just a few days old by lifting it up by its tail. "I trained her a little each day. After a month, she could walk upside down on her own," he said. "A circus offered me a lot of money for her but I won't sell no matter what they offer."
Dracula fish, a bald songbird and a seven-metre (23 feet) tall carnivorous plant are among several unusual new species found in the Greater Mekong region last year, researchers said Wednesday.
Other new finds among the 145 new species include a frog that sounds like a cricket and a "sucker fish", which uses its body to stick to rocks in fast flowing waters to move upstream, according to conservation group WWF.
With fangs at the front of each jaw, the "dracula minnow" is one of the more bizarre new species found in 2009 in the Mekong River region, which comprises Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China's Yunnan Province.
Discovered in a small stream in Myanmar (which will always be Burma to us), it is largely translucent and measures up to 1.7 centimetres long. It is not yet known whether the species is endemic to a single ecosystem within Myanmar, or spread throughout the region as a whole.
Other bizarre discoveries include the Bare-Faced Bulbul bird, which is bereft of feathers on the face and side of the head and has pale blue skin on the rear of the head and around the eyes. It lives in sparse forest on limestone karsts in central Laos.
Among newly recorded plants, the Nepenthes bokorensis plant, found in southern Cambodia, has a climbing length of up to seven metres, with pitchers that trap ants and other insects for food.
One of Britain's leading head teachers stunned pupils - by eating a tarantula in front of a packed assembly.
Aydin Onac ate the baked spider to raise money for a new sports and drama centre at the highly rated St Olave's Grammar School in Orpington, Kent.
Some pupils enjoyed seeing his discomfort during the ordeal but others were upset, and at least one parent complained, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Mr Onac explained: "It wasn't until I opened the container and saw how big it was that I started to feel very nervous.
"When all the students came into the great hall and I realised what I had let myself in for, and that there was no way out, then I really started to panic."
He added: "It tasted quite salty, and a little bit like burnt chicken. It felt crunchy and very dry in the mouth, like eating those very dry cheese biscuits, so it was difficult to swallow.
"As I was eating it I was thinking about the quickest route to the cloakroom and whether I would still be alive by break-time."
An angler had a shock in the US - when a mystery fish bit him back with distinctly human-looking teeth.
Frank Yarborough was fishing in Lake Wylie, South Carolina, when he hooked the fish which was 5lb and nearly 1ft 8ins long.
Assuming it was a catfish, he scooped his hand in the water to pull it out, only to find his fingers clamped between what appeared to be a set of dentures.
Robert Stroud, a freshwater fisheries biologist with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, has confirmed that samples from the fish have been sent off to determine the fish's species.
Stroud told WBTV: "This fish is more than likely a common species of Pacu, Colossama macropomum, originating from the Amazon River basin of South America and is quite common in the aquarium trade."
Pacus, a distant relative of the piranha, is a warm water fish, and not native to Lake Wylie. Biologists believe it was probably raised in an exotic fish tank and released when it got too large for the tank.
The fish is currently in a freezer in Mr Yarborough's Clover home, but unsurprisingly he has no plans to cook his catch.
