The 'puppy' born to a SHEEP!

Vets say it’s impossible - but to Chinese farmer Liu Naiying his birth is a miracle.

For Mr Liu insists one of his sheep has given birth to a dog.

The 'puppy' has wool like a lamb but its mouth, nose, eyes, paws and tail look more like a dog's.

His 'sheep dog' even plays like a hound.

The birth has prompted thousands to flock to his farm in Shaanxi Province to see for themselves.

Mr Liu told how he found the unusual baby animal shortly after it was born in one of his fields.

‘I was herding the sheep, and saw a sheep licking her newborn lamb on the grassland. The lamb was still wet,’ he said.

‘When I went up close to check on the lamb I was shocked because it looked so weird, like a cross between a sheep and a dog.

‘I was a bit frightened, as I've been raising sheep for 20 years and had never seen such a creature.’

Yue Guozhang, a researcher at Xi'an City Animal Husbandry Technology Centre, said sheep and dogs were different species.

‘It's not possible that a sheep could become pregnant with a puppy,’ he said. ‘It's likely that this is just an abnormal lamb.’

Einstein, the world's smallest stallion, gets set for first birthday

He may not be able to compete in the Kentucky Derby, but he is surely as popular as the winner.

And with appearances on Oprah and across the U.S. it has certainly been an eventful first year for Einstein, the world's smallest stallion, as he approaches his birthday.

Standing just 20inches tall, the horse attracted huge media interest when he was born in April last year.

Thousands queued at a farm in Barnstead, New Hampshire for a glimpse of him.

But while human interest was high, he didn't have many friends of his own breed.

Now his quest to find buddies and his life at home with owners Charlie Cantrell and Rachel Wagner in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, will be published in a new a book to celebrate his birthday.

'This has been a remarkable year for us and for Einstein,' said Mr Cantrell, 44, who bought Einstein for their small farm along with his wife Rachel.

'We are both horse enthusiasts and we decided to get ourselves a miniature horse from the renowned breeder Judy Smith at a Miniature Horse Farm in New Hampshire.

'Einstein is the smallest horse on record ever to survive and when the news got out to the media the level of interest was incredible.

'The average weight of a newborn miniature horse is 18lb. The average height at birth is 21 inches.

Einstein is all the remarkable because he shows no dwarf characteristics and is simply a very small miniature horse.

His mother Finesse stands a relatively tall 32 inches and his dad Painted Feather measures 30 inches.

'Guinness approached us straight after the original press that surrounded Einstein,' said Mr Cantrell.

'He can't be officially recognised as the smallest stallion until he is four, but we are both relatively sure that he has stopped growing.'

With the press surrounding him, it wasn't long before Einstein did make friends - of all shapes and sizes.

He now spends his time mingling with his giant friend Playboy - a full sized stallion - and messing around with Charlie and Rachel's dog Lilly.

'Playboy is owned by a young lady who lives next to our farm and Einstein sometimes meets him to have a head sniff and a simple hello,' explained Charlie.

'You see the adorable thing about Einstein is that he doesn't seem to be too aware of his height at all.

'He approaches Lilly and Playboy just like he was a fully grown stallion. He rears up and huffs and gallops around.

'However, due to his extraordinary size he can't mingle around with other horses because it would be dangerous and he might get trampled underfoot.

'So him and Lilly kiss and say hello, he knows a particularly friendly St Bernard at the farm he was born at and we have a couple of Nigerian Dwarf Goats that he spends time with here in New Hampshire.'

Living peacefully in his own pen on his owners land, Einstein's first birthday is something that GP Rachel and Charlie can't wait to share.

'He loves children and they of course love him,' said Charlie.

'They get wide eyed because they have never seen a horse this size before and they want to smother him.

'However, he is so small, so hopefully the book will satisfy everyone's desire to see Einstein and his cute and unusual life.'

Adoring look of the mother orang-utan cradling her newborn baby

It's a tender moment that will resonate with any parent cradling their child.

Sumatran orang-utan Comel holds her newborn son as he sleeps in her loving embrace.

The baby was born at Singapore Zoo and is the great-grandson of Ah Meng who featured on numerous ad campaigns for Singapore's tourism industry.

As well as being enormously popular with the city-state's public, she even got to meet Prince Philip, Elizabeth Taylor and Bjorn Borg.

Ah Meng, who died in 2008 aged 48, had been smuggled illegally into the country. She was given a home at the Singapore Zoo in 1971.

The Sumatran orang-utan is a critically endangered species with just 7,500 left living in the wild.

Now, zookeepers want help from Facebook users to help name Comel's child who is the 36th orang-utan to be born at the zoo and has already attracted thousands of visitors.

There are four choices - Ah Boy, Bino, Terang and Xing Xing.

Zookeepers say he is friendly and always has a smile and Ah Boy is a common term of endearment for boys in Singapore.

Bino means 'brave' in Bahasa Indonesia while Terang is Malayan for 'bright'.

Finally, Xing Xing which is Chinese for both 'star' and 'ape'.

There are two weeks left to go and at the moment Bino is the most popular name.

Great Dane gives birth to litter of SEVENTEEN

This Great Dane has her work cut out after she gave birth to 17 puppies.

Gazing adoringly at the camera, four-year-old Hania feeds her puppies around the clock to ensure they don't go hungry.

The tiny pups, pictured at only three-days old, have to scramble and fight one another off to make sure they get their fair share of milk.

And to make sure none of them are left without food their breeder, Gabriela Kubalska, helps to nurse the litter and has drafted in the help of another female Great Dane.

Their exhausted mother and the brood take up the entire ground floor of their owner's house which is located in Warsaw, Poland.

The whimpering pedigree pups, eight male and nine female, were born by Cesarean section at a veterinary clinic near their home.

Ms Kubalska decided to spare her prized pedigree dog the pain of a long labour - especially since this is her first litter.

A Rhodesian Ridgeback in Germany also hit the headlines last September when she also gave birth to 17 puppies.

Is it a chicken or a turkey? No, it's a churkey

Its naked neck has long ruffled feathers among both scientists and poultry fanciers.

Is it there because this fowl is a hybrid of a turkey and a chicken? Many once mistakenly believed that to be true, with the result the bird is sometimes still called a 'turken'.

In fact, the Transylvanian Naked Neck, to use its proper name, is a chicken.

But the reason for its mysterious bald patch has continued to intrigue, with home-spun theories abounding.

Some like to think it is Mother Nature's way of giving us something easier to pluck than the average bird. Others have archly speculated (bearing in mind the province the bird is named after) it is to give vampires easier access.

Now, at last, the heated debate over its curious appearance can cease. For a DNA study by scientists at a British university has discovered the bird developed its distinctive look to stay cool.

Dr Denis Headon, who led the research at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, said the findings could help breeders produce chickens more suited to hot countries.

'Naked neck chickens have no feathers whatsoever on their necks, and if you were to pluck one you'd discover fewer feathers on their bodies as well,' he said.

'But they behave like normal chickens, they do lay good eggs and are also very popular for their meat. They are, however, more resistant to heat than normal chickens.'

Transylvanian naked necks originated in Central Europe and were introduced to Britain in the 1920s.

The study found that their naked neck is the result of a random genetic mutation that causes the overproduction of a feather-blocking molecule called BMP12.

The mutation first arose in domestic chickens in northern Romania hundreds of years ago, making them look like they have head of a turkey on a chicken's body with a long, deep-red neck in between.

Dr Headon said that when the scientists treated standard-breed chicken embryos with BMP12 in the lab, the young chickens developed no feathers on their necks, suggesting the neck is more sensitive to the molecule.

He and his team then did a further DNA test which revealed an acid derived from Vitamin A is produced on the Transylvanian Naked Neck's skin. This acid enhances BMP12's effects thus making the birds' necks bare, they found.

Genetic mutations are usually bad for an animal. But in this case it has helped the bird prosper because their resistance to heat has made them popular with poultry farmers in hot countries such as Mexico where they can produce better eggs and meat than other breeds.

It is likely ostriches and storks lost their neck feathers to stay cool too, but it is unclear whether BMP12 played any role. For vultures, the absence of neck feathers helps them to poke about the insides of carrion unimpeded.

'Evolution has always found it easy to loose neck feathers wherever it gest hot and the bird gets big,' said Dr Headon.

Penguin with a heart-shaped breast

While most of us might wear our hearts on our sleeve, this little chap shows it off in just the right place.

He is an Emperor penguin chick whose change of plumage into adulthood was brrrrrilliantly blessed by Mother Nature.

The white heart-shaped patch on his chest is a natural formation due to the moulting of his feathers.

The baby penguin is blissfully aware that not only is he the focus of a heart-warming image, but that he is also literally one in a million too.

Award-winning photographer and wildlife film-maker Sue Flood said that in the 20 years she has been taking pictures in the Arctic and Antarctic, and on more than 30 trips to the frozen plains, she had never picked up such a penguin phenomenon.

She said: 'It's the only one I have ever come across with a bib of this shape.

'I took the picture at a time when Emperor penguin chicks are gaining their adult plumage and are a mix of grey baby down and "penguin suit" colours.

'This one is one in a million and in all my time as a photographer he's the only one I have seen with a bib of this shape - when I saw it, I just couldn't believe it'.

The Emperor penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species.

Its diet consists primarily of fish but can also include crustaceans, such as krill, and squid.

While hunting, it can remain submerged for up to 18 minutes, diving to a depth of 535m and is able to reduce its metabolism and shut down non-essential organ functions in order to do this.

The Emperor penguin is perhaps best known for the sequence of journeys adults make each year in order to mate and to feed their offspring.

The only penguin species that breeds during the Antarctic winter, it treks as many as 120 km over the ice to breeding colonies which may include thousands of individuals.

The female lays a single egg, which is incubated by the male while the female returns to the sea to feed.

Mrs Flood, who has worked on some of the BBC's most successful natural history programmes including Blue Planet and Natural World, has won a clutch of awards for her photography.

Some of her amazing pictures have now been drawn together for her first book, Cold Places, which is published later this month.

It coincides with an exhibition - Cold Places: From Pole To Pole - of 50 of her photographs at London's prestigious Getty Images Gallery.

She said: 'There are times when I question why I'm so drawn to the Poles - for instance, when camping in -40 degree temperatures, enduring the hardships of macho ice-breaker life or when my eyes won't open because my eyelashes have frozen together.

'But there is something magical about the light, the isolation and the stillness, and something inspirational about how resolute animals and people have to be to survive there.

'Yes, the Poles are cold places but they also warm the heart, as I hope my book and images show.'

Wonky waterbuck stands out from the crowd with his lop-sided horns

An unusual twist in this waterbuck's horn made him look like he had been fitted with an extraordinary head set.

Unlike his pals, who had two straight horns, this chap had one which had grown in a bizarre curl.

The animal's lop-sided appearance made him stick out like a sore thumb.

Amateur photographer Ingrid Bunse snapped this photograph while on safari in the Ongava Wilderness Reserve, Namibia.

The 49-year-old, from Cologne, Germany, has been visiting Africa for several years but admitted she had never seen a sight like it before.

She said: 'When I spotted this animal I knew I had to get a picture because it was so unusual - I've never seen anything like it.

'I don't know what caused the horn to curl like this but it didn't seem to be too bothered by it.'

Waterbuck are a large species of antelope found across the savannah of sub-Saharan Africa.

The solitary males can grow up to 54in at the shoulder and a weight of 660lb. In their prime, they can command a territory of around 300 acres.

The long spiral structured horns, found only in males, usually sweep back and up.

Despite their name, they do not spend much time in the water, except to take refuge from predators.

Mrs Bunse, who works in a publishing house, added: 'I think it is something special and rare.

'Everybody can do the perfect lion shot if the animal is close and posing but this waterbuck is special, something I will probably only see once in a lifetime.'