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Today's Paper | May 08, 2024

Published 13 Aug, 2022 03:32pm

The weekly weird

Japanese city under attack of biting monkeys!

People in a south-western Japanese city have come under attack from monkeys that are trying to snatch babies, biting and clawing at flesh, and sneaking into nursery schools.

The attacks on 58 people, mostly children and the elderly, since July 8 are getting so bad that a special unit was hired to hunt the animals with tranquiliser guns. The monkeys aren’t interested in food, so traps haven’t worked.

“They are so smart, and they tend to sneak up and attack from behind, often grabbing at your legs,” city official Masato Saito said.

The monkeys terrorising the community are Japanese macaque. While no one has been seriously injured, all have been advised to get hospital treatment. No one seems to know why the attacks have occurred, and where exactly the troop of monkeys came from remains unclear.

World’s longest inflatable obstacle course installed in Scotland

The Conifox Adventure Park in Kirkliston, Scotland, achieved a Guinness World Record with the installation of a 1,863.5-foot inflatable obstacle course, determined as the longest in the world.

Dubbed The Tartan Titan, it was confirmed the new record holder after it was found to measure 1,863.5 feet long — 239.5 feet longer than the previous record holder, Belgium’s The Beast.

The obstacle course features 50 sections of obstacles, including “The Corkscrew,” “Wipe Out,” “Ninja Run,” “Ladder Challenge,” “Tidal Wave” and “Everest Slide.” The obstacle course will be opening to the public soon.

Albino alligator hatches at Florida reptile park

An alligator park in Florida announced the hatching of an albino alligator for the third year in a row.

Wild Florida Airboats and Gator Park in Kenansville announced in a Facebook post that the baby gator hatched in a nest that still holds eight more eggs.

The baby’s parents, Snowflake and Blizzard, are also albino, meaning their bodies lack pigment.

The park said it is the only location in the world to successfully breed albino gators.

This hatching marked the third year in a row that the albino parents have had an albino baby, the park said.

Huge pink diamond discovered in Angola

Abig pink diamond of 170 carats has been discovered in Angola and is claimed to be the largest such gemstone found in 300 years.

Called the “Lulo Rose,” the diamond was found at the Lulo alluvial diamond mine, the mine’s owner, the Lucapa Diamond Company, announced on its website.

Only one in 10,000 diamonds is coloured pink, so the pink gemstone is expected to fetch a high value when auctioned.

Lulo is an alluvial mine which means the stones are recovered from a river bed.

The pink diamond will be sold by international tender by the Angolan state diamond marketing company, Sodiam. Angola’s mines make it one of the world’s top 10 producers of diamonds.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 13th, 2022

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