Five African lions escaped their enclosure at Sydney's Taronga Zoo while the zoo was hosting a "Roar and Snore" overnight stay program for visitors

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From the zoo's official site:

An initial review of this morning’s incident has confirmed that an integrity issue with a containment fence enabled five lions to temporarily exit their main exhibit.

CBS has a little more:

Taronga Zoo — set in a leafy, affluent neighborhood with views of Sydney's famous opera house and harbor bridge — said it would be opening as normal later in the day. Zookeepers were seen probing the fences of the lion enclosure for signs of damage.

...

One of Sydney's most famous animal escapes occurred in February 2020, when baffled onlookers watched three baboons scampering about an inner-city car park after they bolted from a medical research facility.

Book your own Roar and Snore experience:

Unwind in our comfortable safari-style tents, falling asleep to the sounds of the Zoo

From the Guardian's write-up of that baboon escape:

These particular baboons are in a family group of seven – the three who escaped and four other females. The NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, said the group would be reunited on Friday, after the male’s vasectomy, which was delayed by a day.

Hazzard said the male and “two of his wives” escaped due to a faulty lock on the truck. It’s unclear how many locks were between the baboons and freedom.

Dolphin Stampede Overtakes Whale Watching Boat

Dolphin Stampede Overtakes Whale Watching Boat.

Family menaced by giraffes (and their giant tongues)

A mom tries to protect her son from some inquisitive giraffes. Via.

Link roundup

1. Here's Jess Nevins's annotations to the excellent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 2009 (Alan Moore's the best writer in comics, and it's not even close). Sample (SPOILER SPOILER):

Norton, Mina and Orlando are walking into Platform 13, from Eva Ibbotson’s The Secret of Platform 13. In the novel Platform 13 in King’s Cross Station leads to another world.

And, yes, the similarities between Ibbotson and J.K. Rowling’s Platform 9 3/4 has been noted before, though no one seriously believes that Rowling plagiarized or stole from Ibbotson. In Ibbotson’s words, “I think we all borrow from each other as writers.”

And from Rich Johnston's observations:

There’s a certain character that made all the headlines the other week when the comic went on sale in England. And while I am in awe at the tricks Moore and O’Neill use to avoid any trademark or copyright issues concerning him, there is a name they use, found, scorched, in the grounds of a magical school. But rather than having the initials HP on his folder, instead there is the name “Will Stanton.”

Will was the lead in the second The Dark Is Rising novel from 1973, the seventh son of a seventh son who discovers his wizarding heritage on his eleventh birthday, and must collect six “signs” to help fight The Dark. Yes, comparisons have been made. What this means, despite all the newspaper headlines, it may be a very different children’s wizarding character who is actually portrayed on the page…

2. Gawker writer tries out new matchmaking site, gets fixed up with a Gawker writer who works a few computers over.

3. Nightmare fuel.

4. Diamonds don't come from coal.

Daddy is pregnant again

Ad campaign by Taxi, featuring illustrations by Byron Eggenschwiler for the Vancouver Aquarium. The pregnancy testers were stuck in urinals and designed to change colors in reaction to heat. Via.

Baby harbor seal goes for its first swim

Watch as a baby harbor seal goes for a swim with its mom one hour after birth. This second video, of the mom waking the pup is pretty funny too:



Via.

Watch otters chase a girl back and forth in an aquarium

Video of otters playfully chasing a girl. Via.

*Previously: Little girl vs lion.

Video of a corgi enjoying being vacuumed

Video of a corgi enjoying being vacuumed. Via these sites.

Glaucus Atlanticus Sea Slugs

Glaucus Atlanticus Sea Slugs:

G. atlanticus is able to feed on P. physalis due to its immunity to the venomous nematocysts. The slug consumes the entire organism and appears to select and store the most venomous nematocysts for its own use. The venom is collected in specialized sacs (cnidosacs), on the tip of their cerata, the thin feather-like "fingers" on its body. Because Glaucus stores the venom, it can produce a more powerful and deadly sting than the Man o' War upon which it feeds.

Via.

*Previously: Rainbow-hued pigeon; giant bat-eating centipede.

A look at the wild parrot population boom in Los Angeles

"Some experts say the parrots are descendants of the pet bird trade and population boom of the 1970s"

Cemetery frequented by kangaroos

The cemetery at Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park in Australia is frequented by kangaroos.

Breeding animals for violence and domesticity

NatGeo article about scientists breeding rats and foxes for violence and domesticity.

The rich Russian and his miniature giraffe are back

Direct TV has a new commercial featuring the rich Russian and his miniature giraffe.

Cyborg seal

Scientists are mapping the ocean floor in Antarctica by gluing sensors onto seals' heads.

Lions and tourists

Tourists in a cage surrounded by lionesses. Via.

*Buy plush lions at Amazon.

Sword-billed Hummingbird

Sword-billed Hummingbirds have astonishingly long beaks and tongues.

Miniature giraffe

Miniature giraffe created by The Mill for DirecTV.

*Buy giraffe toys at Amazon.

Time to start crying more?

"According to a new study, male mouse tears contain a sex pheromone called ESP1, which makes female mice more receptive to mounting." The pheromone only works if the female touches it.

Hippopotamus skull

Hippopotamus skull.

Chilling description of vampire bats

Here's how Bill Schutt's article about vampire bats for Natural History Magazine starts:

It was on one of the first of those special feeding days that I noticed two of the white-winged vampires doing something incredible. They crawled across the floor of their feeding enclosure like a pair of spiders, and then one of the bats made a bold approach to a rather large hen. The bird cocked her head to one side, eyeing the bats. Her beak could have severely injured or even killed them, so I got ready to intervene. Sharing my concern, perhaps, one of the vampires stopped a couple of inches beyond pecking distance. The other bat, however, crept even closer, and then, amazingly, it nuzzled against the hen’s feathery breast. Instead of becoming alarmed or aggressive, the bird seemed to relax. The vampire responded by pushing itself even deeper into what I would later learn was a sensitive section of skin called the brood patch: a feather-free region, densely packed with surface blood vessels, where body heat is efficiently transferred to the hen’s eggs or to her chicks. As I watched, the hen reacted to the bat by fluffing her feathers, hunkering down—and closing her eyes.

My God, I thought, these bats have learned to mimic chicks!

Click through to read the whole thing.