A few months back there was a news story on a motherless baby Bengal Tiger who was “adopted” by a French Bulldog (our past mention, and video). How have things been going for this unlikely pairing?
FNN supplies an update. The lively little tiger and its surrogate parent are, in fact, doing just fine. The now four-month-old tiger has certainly grown, measuring 70 cm (28 inches) long and weighing in at 12kg (26 lbs)—3kg (7 lbs) more than “mom.”
She’s still doing a fine job caring for her not-so-little bundle of joy, but according to one of the keepers interviewed by FNN it’s getting to the point where they’re going to have to separate them. Not surprisingly, at some point a rambunctious growing tiger goes from being a handful to a danger to its undersized parent.
The plan, however, is to put them in adjacent cages so they can at least see each other, if not wrestle around.
Heart-kun, the puppy with the heart-shaped patch on his side, has become internationally famous, recently showing up on a Reuters story (check out the video if you like cute animals). But now he’s got some competition: Chachamaru, a kitten with a heart-shaped mark on the other side.
FNN is reporting on Masako Nakaya, a resident of Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture and her unusual cat, Chachamaru. A month ago, an animal hospital was looking for a home for an abandoned kitten that had a heart-shaped patch of fur on its right side. Nakaya volunteered to take him in.
Now five months old, Chachamaru has, according to FNN, made the Nakaya house a lively place. Although someone abandoned Chachamaru, Nakaya says he’s brought happiness to her home (not to mention her 15 minutes of fame). No word on whether they’re going to try for the life of fame and fortune like Heart-kun, but they appear to be happy to just have him around.
In a bit of a turnabout on those boxy watermelons, Matsuyama City (J), in Ehime Prefecture, made national news by producing the first-ever license plate in Japan with curved edges.
The cute little cloud-shaped plates, intended for use on scooters and small motorcycles, became available on July 2nd. The cloud shape is a tribute to Ryotaro Shiba’s historical novel “Saka no Ue no Kumo” (roughly, “Clouds Over The Hill”), about Japan’s tumultuous 19th century Meiji Period. The novel takes place in the region, so the city has adopted it as something of a theme—they opened the Saka no Ue no Kumo Museum this April.
The plates come in three colors, depending on the size of the motorcycle. Matsuyama City plans on making 12,000 of the plates available through the coming year; they’ve already received orders for over 1300 of them.
