ODDLY ENOUGH

Orders for a Brazilian pig-feeding robot, which plays classical music while dispensing meals, soared this year as farmers strove to cut costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Romanian cobbler who made giant shoes to help keep people apart during the first wave of COVID-19 has come up with a new line of huge winter boots to stamp out the second onslaught of the disease.

A 10-foot-tall metallic monolith appeared mysteriously atop a Central California mountain this week, then vanished just as suddenly early on Thursday in what seemed to be a copycat of one that appeared and then vanished in a Utah desert.

A handgun used by the late Sean Connery in the first James Bond film sold for $256,000 at auction in Beverly Hills on Thursday, topping earlier estimates for the piece of Hollywood history, Julien's Auctions said.

Japan's oldest zoo unveiled the first baby elephant to be born there since its founding more than a century ago, and asked the public for help in naming it.

Pakistan's lonely elephant Kaavan began his new life in a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary on Tuesday, the result of years of campaigning for his relocation by U.S. singer Cher.

Only trained dogs qualify as service animals on U.S. airlines, as regulators rejected requests to extend legal protections to miniature horses, monkeys and other species, under final U.S. Transportation Department rules issued Wednesday.

Namibia has put 170 "high value" wild elephants up for sale due to drought and an increase in elephant numbers, the southern African country's environmental ministry said on Wednesday.

A Belgian restaurant has found a way to keep orders rolling in during lockdown - by serving its seafood to customers in camper vans.