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Published 17 Mar, 2018 07:04am

The weekly weird

Baby goat born with just one eye

The adorable, but unusual, animal named Tuah Jabang was born recently with the condition cyclopia in Malaysia.

Goat herder Awang Rosli Mat Taib, 47, said neighbours have flocked to see the one-eyed kid and have been ‘amazed’ by it.

He said he had taken the baby goat to the vets who had performed check-ups and said that apart from this condition, he was healthy.

The goat’s condition is known as cyclopia. It occurs in one in every 16,000 animals born, but the survival rate is much lower.

It is caused when the two hemispheres of the brain do not separate, which results in a formation of a single central cavity with one eye, or sometimes partially fused or separate eyeballs.


Rambo, the dog drives tractor

Rambo, the golden retri­ever, attracts a stream of visitors to his home where he rides on a red Massey Ferguson tractor, wearing a hi-viz vest in County Down, Northern Ireland.

The hard-working dog has helped his master mow lawns, plough fields, cut down corn and trim hedges. The six-year-old dog is also the father of four puppies.

Rambo’s owner, Albert Reid, said: “Nobody could believe it, when they saw it. They had to take photographs and video him.”

Albert, added: “I put him up on the tractor and then the dog started his work from there.”

Albert noticed his dog had these amazing talents since he was a puppy and said he has always been a helping hand for him.


Rare two-faced Microcar is for sale

Those familiar with Roman mythology may remember Janus, the god for whom the month of January is named. The deity, believed to have the power to look into the past and future, is always depicted with two faces — one facing forward and one facing backward.

Though the namesake Zundapp Janus microcar does not have any psychic abilities, it does have doors on both ends providing passengers with perfect front and rear views.

The tiny vehicle was the brainchild of German motorcycle manufacturer Zundapp, which ventured into the car business in 1957.

However, thanks to its small 245cc one-cylinder two-stroke engine that produced 14 horsepower, it could only reach a top speed of 50 mph (80kmh). Given that there were numerous faster, cheaper, and more conventional-looking microcars already on the market, the off-beat Zundapp Janus proved a failure and production was halted in 1958 after just 6,902 models had been made.

But as the saying goes, old is gold, this rare Zundapp is available for customers fond of collecting old stuff; it is priced at a $48,935.


A caterpillar centipede?

This is an amazing train of caterpillars crossing a dirt road. The inland bag-moth caterpillars travel this way to make sure none of them got lost, which is quite sweet really.

A passerby who filmed the bugs said: “I saw the train as I drove past and initially thought it was a shaded snakeskin. I went back to check when I realised that it couldn’t be snakeskin because the road graders would have buried it. Whatever it was had come onto the road in the past 30 minutes or so after the graders went past.”

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 17th, 2018

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