A Philippines toy maker is being flooded with orders from grieving pet owners who want to memorialise their dogs, cats, hamsters and rabbits with stuffed toys or 'plushies'.
David Tan and a team of 20 employees use photos sent by customers to create life-like replicas of their deceased pets using synthetic fur that is airbrushed to recreate colours and markings of the animals.
The process is different from taxidermy, which preserves the body of the animal, said Tan, owner of Pampanga Teddy Bear Factory.
"It removes that 'ick' factor. This is actually one hundred percent, genuinely a stuffed toy," he said.
Each plushie costs about 3,500 pesos ($65), which 38-year-old dog lover Jaja Lazarte said is a price worth paying for the memory of her Shih Tzu.
"Although his ashes are here, and his memories are here, it's so much better to see something that really resembles him," Lazarte said.
Police called to reports of a crocodile seen in flood water near an English village have escaped unharmed after discovering locals were fooled by a replica.
Surmising even the physical appearance of a dinosaur - or any extinct animal - based on its fossils is a tricky proposition, with so many uncertainties involved. Assessing a dinosaur's intelligence, considering the innumerable factors contributing to that trait, is exponentially more difficult.
A number of horses are running amok in London and at least one person has been injured, with the army called in to help locate the animals, authorities in the British capital said on Wednesday.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida drew cheers and applause from US lawmakers on Thursday when he announced a plan to donate 250 cherry trees to the US capital to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US independence.