QUIRKY WORLD... A daily look at some of the world's stranger stories
A German zoo says it is sending a monkey Casanova to the Czech Republic because he has produced so many offspring that he might soon start having children with his own relatives.
Halle Zoo monkey keeper Jutta Heuer said her 25 female adult squirrel monkeys had rejected all other males and would only mate with 10-year-old Purus, who arrived in 2009.
He has sired about 50 offspring — some of which went to other zoos, but many are now reaching the age of sexual maturity.
Ms Heuer said that could cause problems such as genetic defects if they were to breed, so he is soon off to the Zlin Zoo in time for mating season.
A trio of students who inadvertently became one of New Zealand’s biggest music acts in order to study in Wales have landed a UK record deal.
Brothers Pene and Amitai Pati and their cousin Moses Mackay formed their operatic group Sol3 Mio to help them raise the funds to train at the prestigious Wales International Academy of Voice in Cardiff.
They went on to be talent-spotted and found huge success in their homeland, even outselling teenage singer Lorde, who has become a well-known name around the world.
The group, from Samoa but who went to live in NZ when they were young, achieved their target and are all now based in Wales, developing their talents. Their debut album will be released in the UK in April.
Britons embraced a “convenience food” lifestyle around 6,000 years ago when they replaced hunting and fishing with dairy farming, scientists say.
Studies of old rubbish dumps and dirty dishes found our ancestors gave up their passion for fish and wild meat to begin a love affair with milk.
Early hunters feasted on venison and wild boar and ate large quantities of seafood, including seals and shellfish, research by the University of Bristol and Cardiff University found. But when immigrants introduced domestic animals 6,000 years ago, Britons quickly gave up wild foods and fishing was largely abandoned. The study is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Huge messages left in the snow on the frozen Mississippi River are giving patients at St Cloud Hospital a lift.
At ground level, the patted-down snow does not look like much. But from the hospital windows above, the messages are quite clear.
The latest are the words “love” and “believe”, along with a peace symbol. Each time there is fresh snow, there is a new message.
Nurse Mary Habiger has seen a man and woman in snow shoes stamping out the messages. She says the mystery man and woman seem well organised and plan their messages in advance.
Habiger told WCCO-TV there are lots of family lounges in the hospital that face the river, so all the patients can view the messages from there.
An error at a northern Illinois petrol station caused pumps to sell fuel for a penny a gallon.
A Shell station in Woodstock, 50 miles north west of Chicago, wound up mistakenly selling the nearly-free fuel for about two hours, according to the (Crystal Lake) Northwest Herald. Authorities had to use an emergency shut-off to stop the sales before the petrol station closed to reset the pumps to regular prices, Woodstock police said.
But before that, cars were blocking traffic and lining up on the street to reach the cheap fuel. Police said the station clerk working at the time was not aware of the glitch.
It was not clear how much fuel was sold.
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