FROM THE ZOOS AROUND THE WORLD

Bachelor party
Famed polar bear Knut walks around his enclosure in the Berlin Zoo the day before he is joined by 2-year-old polar bear Gianna

Baby Rhinoceros Geraldine runs beside her mother, Claudia, at the Serengeti Safari Park in the northern German village of Hodenhagen

A Dog found wandering around a tsunami-damaged village near Lalomanu on Samoa's southern coast stands in a tray of drinking water provided by the staff of Samoa's Animal Protection Society.

An Elephant of the Swiss national circus takes a bath in Lake Geneva at the Bellerive Beach near Lausanne, Switzerland

A Dog adorned with feathers looks on during a protest against animal abuse in Cali, Colombia.

Ten-year-old Bin Amin, a nomad boy, carries an animal over his shoulders while walking with his herd of Goats and sheep in Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley

A Sea Lion sits on Tintoreras Island in the Galapagos.

A large Golden Orb Spider crawls on the face of a keeper at Sydney Wildlife World. The wildlife park is holding a survey to establish which of the two types of animals the public find more creepy: snakes or spiders.

A Dog and a Llama size each other up as scores of people gather for a demonstration against animal mistreatment in Bogota, Colombia.

Indi, a 3-year-old Black-and-White Colobus Monkey, inspects his newly arrived sibling, who was born at the Melbourne Zoo five days ago

Spectators watch as some of the more than 1.5 million Bats emerge from beneath the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin, Texas. For more than two decades, the bats have returned from northern Mexico during warmer months to roost in the bridge. The bat colony awakens each evening above Lady Bird Johnson Lake to fly toward the Texas Gulf coast in search of insects

A newborn Pygmy Hippopotamus walks around its enclosure as the mother feeds at the Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Flare, a Doberman Pinscher, and trainer Yvonne Mancino, not pictured, of Columbus, Ohio, compete in the 60-weave pole-racing competition of the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge at Purina Farms in Gray Summit, Mo.

A Crowned Solitary Eagle flies to trainer Andres Capdevielle before being released after going through a rehabilitation program at the Buenos Aires Zoo

Cooper, a Border Collie owned by Keith Prior of Portland, Ore., bites at Prior's boat wake while on the Columbia River.

A 12-day-old White Lion cub is fed from a baby's bottle in Belgrade Zoo, Serbia. The two white lions cubs, an extremely rare subspecies of the African lion, were born at the zoo. White lions are not albinos but a genetic rarity

Righteous rodent
A deacon blesses a Guinea Pig in the Church of the Holy Heart in Schiedam, The Netherlands. Catholic churches around the world hold ceremonies honoring animals on Oct. 4 every year in commemoration of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi. St. Francis, the patron saint of animals, died on Oct. 3, 1226, and was canonized in 1228

An American Goldfinch holds a sunflower seed in its beak as it sits atop a withered sunflower in a field at Penn's Cave in Centre Hall, Pa

A Sphynx Cat stares at a judge while being examined during an international feline beauty contest in Bucharest, Romania

Mike Painter stands between Risto, a Shire horse, and Silver, an American Miniature Horse, during a preview event of a dog-and-horse trade show in Dortmund, Germany.

Camels drink water from a well in the village of Yaa-Sharbana in Egypt.

A Lamb stands with its mother at an enclosure at the agriculture and food fair in St. Gallen, Switzerland

Muffi and Tiger fly at each other while playing

A Gorilla eats treats from a pumpkin carved to resemble a bat at the Cincinnati Zoo

Two Dogs fight during the World Dog Show in Bratislava, Slovakia

A 12-day-old male Giraffe calf stands next to his mother Camerun at the Rome Zoo

A Neapolitan Mastiff rests during the World Dog Show in Bratislava, Slovakia

A Stag bellows in a wildlife park in Aurach near Kitzbuehel, Austria

A Seal swims around the convalescence pool at the National Seal Sanctuary near Helston, England. The Cornwall-based charity, which was founded in 1958 as a sanctuary for injured seal pups, is getting ready for seal pup season, when it is often called upon to rescue seal pups that have gotten into trouble along the coast

A Turtle arrives at a beach at the natural reserve La Flor in San Juan, Nicaragua. La Flor is one of only seven places in the world where turtles of the Palasma species lay their eggs every year

A young Koala looks around his enclosure in an animal park near Melbourne in Australia

A group of Monkeys rest on a wall at a Buddhist temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka

During a Cat show in New York City called Meet the Breeds, a breed of cat called "exotic" is shown. Exotic cats are a mix between American shorthair and Persian.