Animals in the news 54 Photos

 Two rival male lions fight over a female in front a group of tourists travelling in the Masai Mara national park in Kenya. Photographer Olga Kirillova captured the drama on camera.

 The picture was taken at the Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna by Romashchenko Elena, a maths teacher. She said: "I noticed how a little monkey was sat on the goat's back and was surprised the goat wasn't annoyed. The monkey started looking through the goat's fur with its hands. I presume it was eating any sort of ticks or fleas. Perhaps that's why the goat was happy to have the monkey on its back."

 A man bathes his performing monkey in a water sprinkler of a roadside garden in Chennai, India

 Amateur photographer Vedran Vidak has captured the fighting stallions of the Cincar mountains in Bosnia. They spend the winters hidden in the mountain valleys only reappearing again in the spring to fight for ascendancy on the grassy plains. Vedran has spent days tracking the beautiful stallions over the last few years to photograph them fighting for control of the herd.

 Spring has sprung: John the baby goat makes friends with Charlie the chick at Reddish Vale School Farm near Stockport

 This newborn chick, who is just a few weeks old, has apparently struck up an unlikely friendship with a kitten who helps protect her from pesky vermin. Sergey Dmitriev, from Barnaul, Russia, said: "We want to help restore the ancient Pavlovskaya hens because they are a very rare breed. Sometimes they can get attacked by rats and mice who get into the coops and kill them. We usually have to protect them like they are our own children - but recently our pet cat Mikeal has protected them for us. He will follow them everywhere they go whenever we let them out to make sure they are safe."

 A harvest mouse seems to be enjoying the sunshine as it clambers up a daffodil. The picture was taken by amateur photographer Matt Binstead in Lingfield, Surrey.

 A meerkat investigates a daffodil at at Knowsley Safari Park, in Merseyside, Liverpool

 Wallaby joey Pip plays amongst the daffodils at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, Dunstable, Bedfordshire. The orphaned wallaby is being hand-reared by a zoo keeper after being abandoned by her mother.

 A giant panda cub plays with the boots of her feeder at the enclosure at the Giant Panda Research and Conservation Centre in Chengdu, in southwest China's Sichuan province

 Alison MacLean of the Edinburgh Zoo meets a young Giant Panda at the Bifengxia Panda Centre near the city of Ya'an in Sichuan Province, China. A breeding pair of pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, are being loaned to Edinburgh Zoo in an historic agreement between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and the Chinese Wildlife Conservation Society. The breeding pair will be the first Giant Pandas in the UK for 17 years and Alison will be their keeper. It is hoped that the pair will mate during the ten years they spend at Edinburgh. If they mate successfully, the cub will be returned to China once it reaches two years old. The panda in this picture is about 18 months old. Tian Tian translates as 'Sweet Honey' and Yang Guang as 'Sunshine'.

 One of two polar bear cubs, namd Gregor and Aleut, licks its mother Vera at the Tiergarten zoo in Nuremberg, southern Germany...

 Two polar bear cubs Gregor and Aleut play at the Tiergarten zoo in Nuremberg

 Einstein, the world's smallest stallion, stands next to Playboy the horse in Barnstead, New Hampshire, USA. Standing only 20 inches tall, Einstein will mark his first birthday with a book, 'A Friend for Einstein'

 An elephant rears up on her hind legs to pluck some fruit from a tall tree. British photographer Stephen Blake captured the scene in Zambia.

 An employee bottle-feeds a one-week-old meerkat cub at the Royev Ruchey zoo in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The cub is one of a litter of three being hand-reared after they were rejected by their mother.

 A new arrival at Busch Gardens Tampa - a baby cheetah - is pictured at the attraction in Florida, USA

 Two 13-week-old lion cubs sit with their mother Shiva at Bristol Zoo Gardens

 A bottlenose dolphin leaps for the first time in many months, welcoming spring to Tobermory Bay on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland

 An inquisitive beluga whale ends up with a squashed nose as it tries to get closer to visitors at an aquarium. The curious creature swam straight at the glass when he spotted people watching him from the other side, flattening his nose and chin as he struggled to get a better look. The sight was captured by photographer Nicole Perkins at an aquarium in Connecticut, USA.

 A tiger shark with a satellite tag on its dorsal fin swims in the Caribbean. Shark researcher Dr Neil Hammerschlag and his team are able to carry out this delicate work in just five minutes to ensure safety for his team and the shark. Since May last year they have tagged and tracked a total of 25 tiger sharks and 25 other sharks, including the endangered hammerhead and bull sharks at a cost of $200,000 (122,000). Their research will provide a greater understanding of shark migration, breeding and conservation.

 Senior Technician Carly Daniels studies a three-month-old lobster that is ready for release. A new scheme to repopulate the seas of Britain with thousands of young lobsters has put out an appeal for divers to come forward to help release the tiny creatures.

 Senior Technician Carly Daniels holds a female lobster carrying thousands of eggs

 A stork flips a fish around in its beak to make it easier to swallow. Bruce Robinson photographed the bird feeding in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Cape Canaveral, Florida.

 Not quite old enough to have shed the feathers of his youth, the one brown-headed bald eagle stands out among his family. The juvenile bird looks the odd-one-out as he nestles among the group. Photographer Pam Mullins snapped this shot near her home in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada.

 Three stork nests are pictured on the church tower in Kandern-Holzen, Germany

 Steven Sykes feeds an 18-month-old Yemen Chameleon called Karma, the latest arrival at the Kirkley Hall zoological gardens in Northumberland, which will open to the public for the first time this May

 Sanya, the Bactrian camel, leads her calf on a walk at the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, Minn. The male camel, who doesn't yet have a name, was born on March 7 and weighed 125 lbs at birth

 Sumatran tigers, Jalur and Cinta, at the Symbio Wildlife Park in Helensburgh, Wollongong, New South Wales. Originally from New Zealand's Auckland Zoo, where they were the first tigers born at the zoo, the two tigers were shipped to Australia as part of an international breeding program

 Staff at St Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire have made a little jumper to keep a spineless hedgehog warm. The animal was found by a member of the public in a garden in Bedford and has been named Spudlina by staff as her skin resembles that of a potato. The two year old is undergoing various tests to determine the cause of the loss of her spines and she is currently enjoying regular skin massages with a Vitamin E moisturiser

 A flamingo loses its balance and falls over whilst trying to stand on one leg in its pool at Moscow Zoo

 The polar bear cub Vicks walks under mother Olinka's legs in their enclosure at the Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam

 A baby squirrel curls up into a tiny ball while his mother gently carries him in her mouth to the safety of the nest

 A lion cub is carried in its mother's mouth in the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya. The mother had taken her newborn out into the open for the first time and had just finished feeding it when the excited youngster misbehaved. The clumsy cub went back for more food and roughly nuzzled at the mother's belly, causing her to let out a painful roar. The angry lioness then picked the baby lion up by the scruff of the neck with her mouth and carried the hapless youngster back to their den.

 Two-month-old North China leopard cub Nekama sits in a basket in her enclosure at the Berlin zoo

 Two new-born female white tiger cubs are pictured at Night Safari Zoo in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand

 A six-day-old female chimpanzee clings to her mother Uschi at Bratislava Zoo in Slovakia

 A newborn White-Handed Gibbon baby is seen with its mother Bettina, aged 32, as she climbs a rope at the Ramat Gan Safari near Tel Aviv. The birth of the gibbon surprised staff, as it had been 11 years since Bettina last gave birth.

 Baby lemurs hang onto their mother at a zoo in Hefei, China

 Three baby meerkats are cared for by their family at Bristol Zoo Gardens

 An eight-day old capybara relaxes with its mother in their enclosure at the San Diego Zoo, California

 Seven ginger guinea pigs rescued by The Blue Cross animal charity have been named after famous red-heads - Fergie, Annie, Bonnie (Langford), Nicola (Roberts), Geri (Halliwell), Bianca (Butcher) and Lily (Cole). The copper-coloured critters were brought into The Blue Cross adoption centre in Burford, Oxfordshire, earlier this month along with five other guinea pigs because their owner could no longer care for them. Anyone wanting to give a guinea pig or any other animal a home should contact the centre on 01993 822483. For more information about The Blue Cross or to make a donation, visit www.bluecross.org.uk.

 This abandoned black-and-white cat with a heart-shaped marking on her side has been named Bette Davis by staff at Gables Farm Dogs' and Cats' Home in Plymouth, Devon. She was handed in to the animal shelter last month looking dishevelled and emaciated after she was dumped by her previous owners. Bette is one of dozens of cats currently waiting to be re-homed at the centre.

 A cat balances on a row of high fence posts. Owner Loree McComb photographed her cat Johnny balancing on the fence in her back garden in New Mexico, United States

 Eleven month old red Tibetan mastiff dog, Hong Dong (Big Splash) was handed over to its new owner, a man, who was only idendified surnamed as Yang, at a private breeding base in Qingdao city, in east China's Shandong province, on 12 March 2011. Media sources reported that the dog was bought by a multi-millionaire coal baron for 10 million yuan (£945,000) making it probably the most expensive dog in the world

 Say hello to the seal who has learned to wave his flipper in exchange for fish. Charlie the seal has discovered that by pleasing the crowd with his friendly antics he can get more fish...

 ...Visitors to Howth near Dublin, Ireland flock to the local harbour to purchase fish by the bucket load to chuck to the hungry seals. Photographer Paul Hughes says: "He seems to have learned how to do this by imitating people."

 A great grey owl stares into the camera at the Bird Zoo in Marlow, eastern Germany

 A white-tailed eagle grabs a pollock from a lake in Lauvsnes in Norway. The impressive picture was snapped by Harry Eggens from Groningen, in the Netherlands. He said: "It is a great sight to see when these majestic birds grab the fish right out of the water. Most of the time they catch them on their first attempt. This eagle flew straight back to the nest when he'd caught the pollock and he probably had to give the lot of it to the wife and kids."

 Thousands of starlings flock into the shape of a bird. Amateur photographer Kenneth Barker snapped the picture at Gretna Green in Scotland.

 A robin feeds from a man's hand in Donabate, Dublin, Ireland

 Volunteer wildlife rescue worker Erin Healey releases a rehabilitated grey-headed flying fox at a bat colony in western Sydney, Australia. A food shortage caused by rains, flooding and cyclones has forced flying foxes which normally feed on pollen and nectar into suburban gardens. A large number of grey headed flying foxes, an endangered species, have needed to be rescued from city regions after being entangled in fruit tree netting used by residents in a bid to stop the starving bats from feeding in them.

 A giraffe tries to lick visitors through a glass window in the zoological garden in Kiev, Ukraine

A tadpole appears to smile for the camera - captured in minute detail using a high-powered electron microscope. British science photographer David Spears placed the 14-day-old tadpole under a lens in his home lab in Kirland, Somerset.