He’s a water taxi!

HIPPOS can be aggressive and are known to attack wildebeest and crocodiles —but this one was friendly as it allowed a family of turtles to sunbathe on his back and gave them a lift across a pond. Apparently, the gentle giant was lazing around in water in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, when he was spotted by amused holidaymaker Elaine de Klerk and his wife.

The couple fell about laughing when they saw a hippopotamus ferrying more than a dozen companions across a waterhole.

“I don’t know why he allowed so many to climb aboard, but we think that they were using him as a rock to sunbathe. We’ve seen this before, but with only one or two terrapins — we couldn’t believe what we were looking at,” said Elaine de Klerk and Mrs de Klerk has now nicknamed the animal a ‘pond taxi’.

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THIS weird suit that double as futon mattress is made in Japan. King Jim, a Japanese company specialising in office equipment and supplies, recently started selling something called the Wearable Futon Air Mat Set.

It’s a jumpsuit made of nylon, polyethylene and polyester that can double between as an overcoat and a bed, for those times when you’re not sure where you’re going to sleep.

The product is available in Japan for about $40 from supplier King Jim — and that includes an air mattress. There is no news of a release in other territories yet. So far, reaction in Japan has been mixed. Some people admired the idea, while others fear it may make it easier for Japanese companies to force employees to pull all-nighters at the office.

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WHAT would you do if you had a million Lego bricks? Probably make a few houses, maybe a tower or a bridge. Or leave it until you could think of something bigger and better and of course easier.

Chances are you wouldn’t turn them into 80 enormous sculptures spectacular enough to go on worldwide display, which is exactly what the Lego artist Nathan Sawaya knocked up with his million Lego blocks.

New Yorker Sawaya, creator of new exhibition Art of the Brick, has built a selection of sculptures. “Dreams are built, brick by brick,” he says. And so, it seems are dinosaurs: one of Sawaya’s biggest ever Lego creations, apart from his ‘ego’, he says, is a 20ft-long Tyrannosaurus Rex. Now let’s not forget, people, this is Nathan Sawaya’s actual job. He gets paid to play with Lego. So if you are quite inspired by his art, make sure you have enough Lego bricks and ample time to start your project.

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Fish with human teeth

A FISHERMAN recently had something to smile, or you can say scream about, when he caught a fish that had a set of human-looking teeth in its mouth.

Angler Aleks Korobov, snared the fish on the Northern Dvina River in north-western Russia’s Arkhangelsk Oblast district, thinking it was just a normal catch. However, when he opened the mouth of the fish he saw a full set of teeth gleaming back at him.

Aleks quickly contacted the Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography who will carry out an autopsy on the fish to try and find out how it got its pearly whites.

Institute expert Gennady Dvorykankin said: “We are convinced it is a member of the Piranha family, and that it is a herbivore piranha, not one of the meat eating ones you see in films.”