Animal of the Week January 31, 2005 -- Coconut crab

The largest living arthropod, climbs trees, eats coconuts.

Animal of the Week January 24, 2005 -- Flammulated owl

A very cute, small owl. Chosen because of its name and its cuteness. Very popular in Kennington.

Animal of the Week January 17, 2005 -- tiger kills crocodile

Tiger. Watching tv documentary about tiger and they showed video footage of a tiger killing a crocodile. It was an amazing thing to see.

I could find nothing like it at the time for an image. Eventually I found a picture of a statue of probably a lion killing a crocodile. Then, months later, a reader sent me a link to the video clip.

Animal of the Week January 10, 2005 -- Nerpa the freshwater seal

Phoca sibirica (Baikal seal, Nerpa). I love these animals, I really do, they are so cool. They live in Lake Baikal, the world's oldest, deepest, and most capacious lake. Since doing them as AOTW, my sister and her then fiance went to see them and I was put right by my mate that these aren't actually the only fresh water seals in the world, there are two subspecies of ringed seal that live in lakes in Finland. However, Nerpa's are the only seal with species status that live in freshwater. So I was kind of right. No-one really knows how they got there, that's one of the fascinating things about them.

Animal of the Week January 03, 2005 -- Haast's eagle

Harpagornis moorei (Haast's eagle). The world's largest eagle, now extinct, lived in New Zealand, it would have preyed on moas. Attacking the two legged birds from above. When people arrived, the eagle likely preyed on them also. However, they didn't like that and it was likely the combination of people protecting themselves and wiping out the moas that did for these eagles. Funny thing is, genetic studies showed that their closest relative is one of the world's smallest eagles, which is native to Australia.