Biologists on Wednesday explained how the larvae of marine zooplankton can see with just two cells, using what is believed to be the world`s simplest vision system.

Zooplankton are tiny creatures such as copepods and krill that drift in the ocean`s water columns, swimming up from the depths towards the light in order to graze on marine plants called phytoplankton near the surface.

NEW DELHI, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - The mayor of the Indian capital said Monday that authorities could not deal with the scourge of violent monkeys, blamed for the death of a top city official over the weekend.

The danger posed by the estimated 10,000 monkeys that roam the city was brought home sharply on Sunday when deputy mayor S.S. Bajwa, 52, died after falling from his apartment while fighting a horde of wild simians.

'We have neither the expertise nor the infrastructure to deal with the situation,' said Delhi's mayor Aarti Mehra, amid a barrage of criticism.

SYDNEY, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - An infectious cancer threatening to wipe out Australia's largest surviving marsupial carnivore, the Tasmanian devil, has spread into one of its last disease-free refuges, biologists said Friday.

The disease, which causes facial tumours and kills infected animals within six months, has been found in a national park in the state's north which had previously been thought to be disease-free.

The Nawrantapu national park contains a high density population.

SYDNEY, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A tourist who was attacked by a crocodile while swimming in an Australian river was so drunk that he fell asleep at his campsite before going to hospital for treatment, a report said Friday.

Matt Martin was camping in an area of the northeastern state of Queensland known to be inhabited by crocodiles when he drank what he later described as 'half a slab' -- or 12 cans of beer.

When he dived into the river at Cow Bay in the topical far north of the state, he landed on a crocodile.

FREETOWN, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Authorities in Sierra Leone on Thursday expressed concern at the upsurge in elephant poaching after at least 10 jumbos were killed in the past two months in the west African country for meat and illicit ivory trade.

Senior wildlife official Kailie Bangura said the animals were killed in two wildlife parks in the remote northern Outaba Kilimi and Loma Mountain parks near the border with Guinea.

He suspected the elephants fell prey to foreign hunters.

MADRID, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Leading opponents of bullfighting Thursday for the first time took their cause to the Spanish parliament, demanding deputies put an end to the centuries-old tradition.

About 30 arts and sports personalities appeared before legislators to read out a statement drawn up by two left-wing deputies and supported by around 70 associations.

The motion demanded the 'abolition of all types of ritual spectacle that includes the ill-treatment, death or torture of animals.'

Parliament is debating a draft law on animal rights.

BUCHAREST, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Some 2,500 pigs are to be slaughtered next week after a new outbreak of swine fever was found in a natural park in eastern Romania, local veterinary authorities said Thursday.

'The slaughtering and incineration of the pigs will begin Monday,' the head of the local veterinary authority Gicu Dragan told AFP.

The outbreak was discovered last week and confirmed by the Institute for Veterinary Diagnosis and Animal Health, Dragan said.

CHICAGO, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - African elephants can tell a human friend or foe by their scent, a skill which may be unique in the animal kingdom, a study released Thursday says.

Researchers who set out to explore reports that elephants behave differently around members of Kenya's semi-nomadic Maasai people than around others were surprised to find that the animals appear to distinguish human groups based on their different scents.

LONDON, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - New suspected cases of foot and mouth disease in sheep have been reported in Britain, the environment ministry said on Monday, in another county from the confirmed cases in this year's outbreak.

A three-kilometre (1.8-mile) temporary control zone has been imposed around premises close to the town of Rye, near the southern English coast, after sheep showed possible symptoms of the disease. Tests were being carried out.

STOCKHOLM, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - A bear attacked and injured two elk hunters in northern Sweden on Sunday, police said, in the same region where a hunter was killed last week.

The two hunters were accompanied by their dogs and tracking an elk when a bear attacked in the Jamtland region north west of the capital Stockholm.

The men were helicoptered to hospital but their condition is not yet known, according to a police spokesman.

Police were looking for the bear, he added.

BELGRADE, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Serbia has begun returning to Croatia a herd of Lipizzaner show horses that were taken from the neighbouring country during its war in 1991, officials said Friday.

The first truck carrying the horses has already left a farm near Serbia's second city of Novi Sad, north of the capital Belgrade, said Serbia's veterinary inspector Sanja Celebicanin.

BEIJING, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - A rare South China tiger has been spotted in the wild for the first time in decades, surprising researchers who feared the subspecies was extinct outside of captivity, state media said Friday.

Experts have confirmed a photograph taken on October 3 by a farmer in Shaanxi province was of a young wild South China tiger, the most critically endangered of all tiger subspecies, Xinhua news agency said.

COLOMBO, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Sri Lanka Lanka's main zoo was briefly closed to the public Wednesday after a dispute between animal-keepers and administrators over pay and welfare descended into violence.

Police said several staff were injured in the fighting at the National Zoo in the Colombo suburb of Dehiwala, including a senior manager who was beaten so badly he needed to be taken to hospital.

SYDNEY, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Australian wildlife such as koalas and platypuses could fall prey to a disease similar to the deadly facial cancers killing Tasmanian Devils, a leading researcher said Wednesday.

Katherine Belov of Sydney University, who last week announced a breakthrough in the study of the contagious tumours that have killed 90 percent of some native devil populations, said species with small gene pools were at risk.

NICOSIA, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Gunmen in Cyprus have killed 46 threatened red-footed migrating falcons simply for target practice, bird conservation officials on the Mediterranean island charged on Tuesday.

Birdlife Cyprus manager Martin Hellicar said farmers on Friday found the pellet-riddled birds lying in a tight cluster on a citrus farm west of the coastal resort of Limassol.

Another six birds were found shot but still clinging on to life.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 6, 2007 (AFP) - California's delicate marine environment could be threatened by the declining numbers of sea otters decimated by pollution, commercial fishing, and mysterious brain infections, scientists say.

'When the otters are gone the kelp forests change to a barren land,' Jim Estes, an otter expert and marine biologist with the US Geological Survey, told AFP.

Sea otters are known as a keystone predator. They eat sea urchins, which feed on kelp, thus maintaining the environmental balance for other species.

LONDON, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - Britain's environment ministry said Friday it believed an outbreak of the livestock disease bluetongue had been contained after 25 farms in eastern England were infected.

'Current evidence gives a degree of confidence that the disease is currently contained within the control zone and all current measures are focused on ensuring this remains the case,' said deputy chief vet Fred Landeg.

LONDON, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - A total of 25 premises in eastern England are now infected with the animal disease bluetongue, Britain's environment ministry said Friday, expressing the hope that the infection was contained.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the figures were correct as of 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) Thursday and all the premises were within the bluetongue restriction zone set up to prevent its spread.

BRUSSELS, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - EU veterinary experts agreed Wednesday to ease an embargo on British meat exports from October 12, as long as there is no new foot and mouth outbreak outside a protective zone where a ban remains in place.

'This proposal will only be adopted if there are no further outbreaks outside a 200-kilometre (120-mile) area around the surveillance zones ... and only under certain, strict conditions,' said Philip Tod, spokesman for the EU Health Commissioner.

LONDON, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - British authorities Wednesday lifted a temporary control zone around the latest suspected case of foot and mouth disease in southern England, after tests proved negative, officials said.

The three kilometer (two mile) radius zone was set up Tuesday around land near Haywards Heath in Sussex, southeast of a spate of cases in the neighbouring country of Surrey since August.

BRUSSELS, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - EU veterinary experts agreed Wednesday to ease an embargo on British meat exports from October 12, as long as there is no new foot and mouth outbreak outside a protective zone where a ban remains in place.

'This proposal will only be adopted if there are no further outbreaks outside a 200-kilometre (120-mile) area around the surveillance zones in Surrey and only under certain, strict conditions,' said Philip Tod, spokesman for the EU Health Commissioner.

ROME, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - Three endangered Marsican brown bears were found dead in Italy's central Abruzzo region by park rangers who suspect they were poisoned, a statement said Tuesday.

'It's an unacceptable and incredible act, terrible and very serious,' Giuseppe Rossi, president of the Abruzzo National Park, said in a statement, calling it an 'act of barbarity unworthy of a civilised people.'

One of the three, Bernardo, was the park's mascot. His body was found Monday near the Abruzzo capital L'Aquila, while the two others were found nearby on Tuesday.

LONDON, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - British authorities have imposed a temporary control zone around a new suspected case of foot and mouth disease in southern England, officials said Tuesday.

The three kilometer (two mile) radius zone was set up around land near Haywards Heath in Suffolk, southeast of a spate of cases in the neighbouring country of Surrey since August.

Tests were being carried out on cattle at the new suspected site, said a spokesman for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

PARIS, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - The kitchen capers of a rodent who dreams of becoming a top Parisian chef in the US box-office hit 'Ratatouille' have sparked a new craze for pet rats in the French capital, a pets association said Monday.

'Since the film came out, there is no question there is a real fashion for rats,' said Gerald Moreau, 25, who runs a group near Paris promoting the long-tailed rodents as domestic animals.

LONDON, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - British officials confirmed Sunday an eighth case of foot and mouth disease since the outbreak began last month, within a protection zone in the southern English county of Surrey.

'Foot and mouth disease (FMD) has now been confirmed at the premises in Surrey where slaughter on suspicion was announced yesterday,' the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said in a statement.

CAIRO, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - Egypt is to resume shooting and poisoning stray dogs in Cairo's twin city of Giza because veterinary services say it is too expensive to sterilise them.

The move, announced by Giza's chief vet Abdullah Badr in the official Al-Ahram daily, comes after French film star turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot in May begged President Hosni Mubarak to stop the 'cruel' killings.

LONDON, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - The research lab that was largely blamed for an outbreak of foot and mouth disease last month ignored warnings that its drains and pipes needed upgrading, The Sunday Times reported.

Citing emails it had seen sent by a contracted engineer hired to oversee construction and maintenance at the Institute of Animal Health (IAH), the newspaper said officials were warned as early as June 2006 about drainage problems.

LONDON, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - British authorities culled cattle on a farm in the southern English county of Surrey on Saturday on suspicion of foot and mouth disease, the environment ministry said.

The farm was within an existing protection zone in Surrey, southwest of London, where seven cases of the disease have been confirmed since the first was announced on August 3.

PHNOM PENH, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Cambodian police have put a 250-dollar bounty on the heads of several monkeys who have been terrorising tourists at a key temple in the capital and destroying nearby residents' laundry, officials said Friday.

At least three of the large macaques, which have been biting tourists at the famed Wat Phnom pagoda and also tearing up Internet lines, are being targeted, deputy district governor Pich Socheata told AFP.

'There are more than 200 monkeys there, but only three monkeys that behave badly... they behave like gang leaders,' she said.

STOCKHOLM, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - A gluttonous American pseudo-jellyfish, giant Japanese oysters, and an unidentified virus killing seals: strange intrusions are threatening Sweden's seas and fishermen are concerned.

The biggest threat is called mnemiopsis, an animal that measures about 10 centimetres (four inches) and is not technically a jellyfish but has a gelatinous and translucent appearance. It is not harmful to humans.

The species has never before been seen this far north in Europe and could change the region's entire ecosystem.

MOSCOW, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Over 80 foreign companies were stripped of meat import licences into Russia this year because of deemed poor quality, Russia's state veterinary service Rosselkhoznadzor said Thursday.

'The right to export meat to Russia was stripped from 83 foreign companies, including 37 EU-based ones -- one in France, Lithuania, Finland and Iceland each, three in Belgium and Spain each, four in Denmark, five in the Netherlands and 18 in Germany,' the agency said in a statement.

HANOI, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Eleven new animal and plant species have been discovered in a remote area of central Vietnam, conservation group WWF announced Wednesday.

Scientists have found a snake, five orchids, two butterflies and three other plants new to science and exclusive to tropical forests in the Annamites Mountain Range, known as the Green Corridor, in Thua Thien Hue Province, WWF said in a press release.

HANOI, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Wednesday announced the discovery of 11 new animal and plant species in a remote area of central Vietnam.

Scientists have found a snake, five orchids, two butterflies and three other plants new to science and exclusive to the Annamites Mountain Range in Thua Thien Hue province's 'Green Corridor' tropical forests, WWF said in a press release.

LONDON, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - Two temporary control zones around farms in southern England were lifted Tuesday after animals there tested negative for foot and mouth disease, the environment ministry said.

Britain is battling to contain the disease -- and avoid a repeat of the devastating 2001 outbreak -- after it re-emerged in the county of Surrey, southwest of London, on August 3. So far, seven cases have been confirmed.

MOSCOW, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - A treaty inked in 2000 between Russia and the United States to protect polar bears in their respective nations has just come into effect, the Russian foreign affairs ministry said Monday.

This accord 'defines the conditions of cooperation between Russia and the United States to protect the polar bear population' in Chukotka, Russia's extreme northeastern territory, and Alaska, the northernmost US state.

The agreement regulates hunting in a manner 'that guarantees the vital needs of the indigenous peoples,' it added.

BEAUVAIS, France, Sept 22, 2007 (AFP) - A 10-year-old French girl died Saturday after being viciously bitten by two dogs owned by her mother's partner, the police said.

The girl was playing with the dogs, thought to be mastiffs, in the courtyard of her mother's home in Auteil outside Paris when they turned on her.

Hearing her cries for help, her mother rushed in but was unable to save her.

The incident comes a day after a 20-year-old woman died after two of the family Rottweilers savagely bit her in the head in another Paris suburb, Noisy-le-Sec.