A weaned harbor seal pup was resting onshore when an untagged male sea otter approached it, grasped it with its teeth and forepaws, bit it on the nose, and flipped it over. The harbor seal moved toward the water with the sea otter following closely. Once in the water, the sea otter gripped the harbor seal’s head with its forepaws and repeatedly bit it on the nose, causing a deep laceration. The sea otter and pup rolled violently in the water for approximately 15 min, while the pup struggled to free itself from the sea otter’s grasp.
Finally, the sea otter positioned itself dorsal to the pup’s smaller body while grasping it by the head and holding it underwater in a position typical of mating sea otters. As the sea otter thrust his pelvis, his penis was extruded and intromission was observed.
At 105 min into the encounter, the sea otter released the pup, now dead, and began grooming.
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| 'Ice shove' from a Minnesota lake in 2013 "consumed" homes |
The incredible basketball sized - and bigger - 'ice balls' have been captured on film at Glen Arbor Township, Michigan, were they cover the entire shoreline.
Despite appearing as unnatural creations, the boulders are a regular feature of Lake Michigan when temperatures drop below freezing, and are formed by ice clumping together in a similar way to snowballs.
Meteorologist Joe Charlevoix explains: "[When] the water temperature on the Lake Michigan is just a little bit below freezing, so you get a small piece of ice that forms in the water and as waves move back and forth it adds additional water and freezes in layers.
"It gets bigger and bigger, and eventually you get big balls of ice, that are pushed to the shore by the wind."
About 100,000 bats have fallen from the sky and died during a heatwave in Australia that has left the trees and earth littered with dead creatures.
In scenes likened to "an Alfred Hitchock thought bubble", a heatwave across the north-east state of Queensland in recent days caused mass deaths of flying foxes from an estimated 25 colonies.
"It's a horrible, cruel way to die," a conservation worker, Louise Saunders, told The Courier Mail.
"Anything over 43 degrees [Celsius, 109F] and they just fall. We're just picking up those that are just not coping and are humanely euthanising what we can."
