The Lujan Zoo, in Argentina provides crazy ass zoogoers the opportunity to bottle feed a bear, cuddle a tiger, rub noses with a lion, or throw you child into a cage with a few lions, and, walk away un-mauled.

While many visitors assert the animals are clearly drugged, the zoo insists the tameness is entirely natural, a product of raising each cub from birth and teaching them to be calm, permissive, and uninterested in eating humans. Since opening in 1994, there have been no reports of unexpected predation, but whether that perfect record is due to good training, luck, or bribery of authorities is hotly debated.

[Cheers grindtv]

Say hello to Beau, an orphaned 30-day-old Short-Beaked Echidna…or as I like to call them ‘puggle’. Baby Beau was brought to the Taronga Zoo after it was found helpless on a hiking trail near Sydney, Australia.

TIL…Female Echindas do not have teats, but rather feed their young from milk patches on their bodies.

There are fewer than 40 aardvarks in zoos in North America. They are solitary by nature, and Aardvark births are not common.

Kind of nightmarish and cute at the same time?

[Cheers likecool]

Say hello to a beautiful friendship… Samantha and Panda, the gorilla and the Dutch rabbit.

So why the odd pairing? Poor old Samantha has been alone ever since her beau Rudy, a male gorilla, died in 2005 at the age of 49.
She’s too old and fragile to be paired with another gorilla now, zoo officials said.

But she needs the same thing any human does, a friend. So Erie Zoo officials introduced the two in mid-February after deciding that Samantha really needed to have a companion.

Right off the bat, they hit it off… he hopped next to her, and they sat together, the aging gorilla and the tiny rabbit with the pale pink nose.

[Cheers goerie]

Vets were left baffled by the condition of the bespectacled bear, like sweet ol’ Dolores, who had lost all of her body hair…left with just a few clumps around her head.

Some experts believed it could be due to a genetic defect though the animals do not seem to be suffering from any other affliction. Maybe even something in their diet.

The bears, which originate from South America, normally have fluffy dark brown fur (pictured bellow) and should have been growing a thicker fur coat to keep warm during the winter.

It looks like it wasn’t their diet or disease after all…the condition was caused by a mange mite… Rotten little parasitic mites that also infect plants, birds, and reptiles, as well as Fido and Fluffy.

Now fed and cared for around the clock by a caregiver at Western Sydney’s Wild Animal Encounters…the tiny marmoset has turned adversity into education after becoming an ambassador for wildlife. She will visit schools, shopping centres and corporate events to promote wildlife conservation.

The common marmoset is one of the smallest primate species on Earth..She only weighs about 70g and yes I want one.

[Cheers telegraph]

As the crowd looked on, the stud let out a cry of satisfaction – before losing its balance and falling on his back in all the excitement… And then the crowd burst into applause.

The poor little guy lay on his back for ten minutes before he was righted by a keeper.

This happens to me all the time, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve rolled back and hit my head on that bloody dresser.

[Cheers thesun]

They may not win any beauty contests anytime soon, but the weird wonders of the animal world are infinitely more interesting than any mundane and adorable little creature.

For five years the Zoological Society of London’s Edge of Existence programme has scoured the world to find nature’s rarest beasts. They are given a rating based on their uniqueness and how close they are to extinction.

Sadly, China’s Yangtze River dolphin — top of Edge’s danger list five years ago — is now believed to be extinct, so all the animals on this page are in peril too.

From the dark depths of the sea to the treetops of Madagascar, these are just a few strange animals that are quite a sight to behold and it’s entirely our fault.

Aye-Aye

Few mammals are as weird looking as the endangered Aye-Aye, a lemur found only on the island of Madagascar, but – surprise! It’s actually a close relative of humans. With big protruding eyes, super-skinny fingers and a huge bushy tail, Aye-Ayes are pretty unique. Their bat-like ears allow them to detect insect larvae squirming inside trees, and they’ve also got a sweet tooth for coconut and sugar cane, which gets them in trouble with farmers.

Viperfish

The depths of the ocean are literally swimming with creatures straight out of your weirdest nightmares, and the Viper Fish is among the scariest. This grotesque-looking creature has teeth so large, they don’t fit in its mouth. It swims at high speed toward its victims and impales them upon its sharp teeth

Longeared Jeboa

Shaped somewhat like a tiny kangaroo, the nocturnal mouse-like Long-eared Jerboa uses its elongated tail and hind legs for jumping. The endangered rodent, found in the Gobi desert of Mongolia, has ears that are about a third larger than its head and eats mostly insects. It’s so extraordinary that it’s the only species of its genus, and believed to be close to qualifying as an endangered species.

Rare pygmy sloth

Found only on an island off Panama in Central America.

Asian or Malayan tapir

Suffering mainly because of the loss of its forest habitat.

Horror Frog

It’s called a ‘horror frog’, but this amphibian isn’t the star of a b-movie. It’s so named because of its ability to actively break its own bones to produce claws. Hairy and bizarre, the horror frog – also nicknamed the wolverine frog, after the comic book character – can break its bones so that they puncture its toe pads, producing extendable claws on demand when threatened. This Cameroon native, which is often roasted and eaten, was discovered in 2008.

Blobfish

When you pull up your fishing net to inspect its contents, the last thing you want to see is a gelatinous mass of pale flesh peering up at you with dull bluish eyes. But, fear not – catching a blobfish is extremely rare. These bizarre fish live in the depths off the coasts of Tasmania and Australia. They don’t have any muscles, but since have a lower density than the water, so they just sort of float around.

Naked Mole Rat

Its wrinkled pink skin, piggish nose and protruding teeth don’t exactly make the naked mole rat the cutest animal around. Colonies of these hairless rodents live in underground “palaces” led by one dominant rat – the queen, which is the only female to breed and bear young. As with bees, naked mole rats have roles in the colony, including workers that dig the tunnels and gather food. Most naked mole rats are found in the sandy deserts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Pignose frog

The sole member of an ancient family, 50 to 100 million years old, it hunkered deep underground while the dramatic environmental and physical changes sweeping the earth wiped out whole groups of animals and saw new ones evolve. This dinosaur among frogs was only discovered in 2003, and it is unclear how many actually exist in the wild, but it is incredibly endangered.

The chimp pulls away at his keeper’s green top to take a closer look, but he was caught in the act by snapper Cyril Ruoso who took the photo at Padrillus Drill Sanctuary in Nigeria.

Girls, now you know where a man’s instinct comes from… We can’t help looking.