ANIMAL NEWS
Smoothie operator: David McNamara feeds Tonka gum leaves and water.
(By Russell Mcphedran -- Associate Press)
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Ape Gets the Message: No Monkeying Around
· Firefighters responding to an alarm at a research center in Des Moines, Iowa, found no fire and one guilty ape.
A 25-year-old bonobo named Panbanisha pulled the fire alarm, which is on a wall in an area used by apes and scientists at the Great Ape Trust.
"She's been told not to do it again," spokesman Al Setka said.
Panbanisha is one of seven bonobos at the 230-acre site. Bonobos, sometimes called pygmy chimpanzees, are among the most human-like of the great apes.
A Mixed-Up Manatee
· A wandering manatee has been spotted in the Mississippi River near downtown Memphis, Tennessee.
Wildlife officials believe the creature swam 750 miles upriver from its home waters of Florida.
State wildlife officers are keeping their distance because they have no experience with manatees and don't want to hurt the animal. But with chilly weather in the forecast, officials are trying to figure out how to get their unusual guest back home.
Koala's Bare Necessities
· An 8-year-old koala who has lost all of his teeth is being fed the equivalent of eucaplytus smoothies four times a day.
Tonka, one of 30 koalas at a park in Sydney, Australia, is hand-fed a mixture of gum leaves and water that keepers make for him.
Ssscience Lesson
· A two-foot-long python that slithered away from a sixth-grade science classroom last month has come out of hiding.
"Slim the Snake . . . is safe and sound back in the tank," Principal Maryann Fletcher of New York's Hauppauge Middle School said last week. Cricket-filled traps hadn't lured Slim from hiding. Fletcher guessed that when the building's heat was turned on, that did the trick.
