The beaver from Belarus and other deadly animals

The death of a man in Belarus, who died from blood loss after a beaver bit his leg, highlights the dangers of assuming sweet-looking animals are harmlessThe beaver is an unbearably cute animal. When standing, it holds its little paws together as if nervous. When in water, it looks like a fat, damp squirrel. And when it eats, it nibbles like a naughty child. But beavers bite, and in Belarus attacks by the animals are on the rise. In fact, they have just claimed their first fatality: a 60-year-old fisherman who spotted the cute little creature at the side of the road, stopped to pose with it for a photograph and was bitten several times in the leg, slicing an artery. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a doctor's clinic.Beavers are not the animal kingdom's only adorable attackers. Take, for example, the lemur, arguably one of the cuddliest of exotic creatures. Earlier this year, a pair of the ring-tailed cuties had to be rounded up by police after escaping from their owner's cage, prowling the streets of North Miami Beach and clawing a two-year-old girl in the face.Or, say, the kinkajou, AKA the honey bear, a super-sweet rainforest mammal with huge round and innocent eyes, increasingly popular as a pet among people with a thirst for attention and the exotic. People such as Paris Hilton, who, in 2006, was rushed to hospital by her publicist at 3am after her pet kinkajou Baby Luv got overexcited and bit her in the arm, drawing blood. Although, in the kinkajou's defence, she had ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: The Guardian Blogposts Biology World news Europe Features Animals Animal behaviour Belarus Science Source Type: news