The woman's initial reaction when she realized what this horse had given birth
to was one of utter disbelief. But I think we'll all be able to understand birds and bees a lot
better by now, especially since the whole thing turned out so well. For most living things,
reproduction is fairly straightforward. It's important to animal births that they're
so unusual and surprising. Keep watching and find out.
Destiny, the female horse. Horses are beautiful and majestic animals. Don’t you think? And baby
foals are quite cute, but the calf to which this mare gave birth was not a baby foal… as you would
expect any guesses? Denia McKees spent her time at Gaston's farm, handling them during the day
and running the business independently. This means that she's very well versed
in all things horse related, which means there's not much about these majestic beasts
that might surprise her. But that all changed when her 19-year-old male EOC Nooks AKA Destiny
had an unbelievable birth in June, 2018. But what was so peculiar about this case?
Well, for starters, she didn't end up giving birth to one full, she gave birth two. If you
didn't know, seeing a horse, conceiving twins is extremely rare and even rare for a horse
to carry those twins to completion. In fact, the chance of that happening is about one in 10,000.
Having these twins born strong and healthy is another totally rare phenomenon.
The twins named GFs shockwave, and GFs master blaster, with GFs meaning Gaston farm Stud
were perfectly heathy foals and to this day at three years old, they're still as vigorous as they
were when they were just foals. But it doesn't end there, about 18 months after the twins were born.
After a year of no breeding, it was decided that destiny would only breed one last time.
And what do you think happened? She just had another set of twins.
What are the chances of that happening? Certainly, this is a unique incident.
At the time, Ms. McKee even did an examination in Destiny for a set of twins while she was
pregnant. But for some reason, one of the foals was not detected on the ultrasound.
Maybe wasn't ready to say hello yet. Who knows? Although, unlike the first set,
these two folds were not identical. They were still incredibly rare. The chance of a mare
giving birth to not only one, but two sets of twins is insane. Literally one in a million.
And 80% of twin embryos and horses tend to miscarry spontaneously within the first six weeks.
The probability of carrying both sets of twins to term is very difficult to comprehend, but luckily
born in March, 2020. The new set of twins was reported to be just as healthy and lively as
the previous one. These twins of Philly and a foal, delighted Ms. McKee and she said, “it's
amazing. I've been raising horses for years and years, and I've never heard of such a phenomenal.”
It was surreal. I can't believe they're healthy. They're strong and energetic animals, they're very
happy. Even an expert cannot understand this. Now these brave little foals have been separated. One
of them was sent to a professional jumping center and the other went to a horseback riding school.
As for destiny, Ms. McKee said she will not reproduce again because the risk of complications
during pregnancy is too high. Besides I think it's time for her to rest. Don't you!
Curva, the elephant Like mares elephants usually only get pregnant with one calf
because they're very large mammals. Obviously, this wasn't the case for this
beautiful elephant. Curva the elephant named for the curve of one of her tests ended up
giving birth to an incredibly rare pair of twins. She was 31 at the time of her pregnancy and ended
up giving birth to these rare beauties in the Pongola game reserve. Yeah, you guessed it Pongola
in South Africa. The probability of an elephant conceiving, let alone giving birth to twins
is extremely rare and hovers around 1%. Survey conducted in amboseli estimated that only one set
of twins was born out of 1,192 elephant births. So you can understand how exciting it is when
that happens. Even when an elephant gives birth to twins. It's unfortunately not very common for both
calves to survive. While it's not uncommon for an elephant to have twins it's unlikely to happen.
So the elephants didn't evolve very well to take care of more than one calf.
Usually, an elephant ends up dying because the mother cannot provide enough milk for both of
them. Sometimes other female elephants in the herd that have recently given birth,
help feed the young. Although this isn't very common. Therefore, the stronger calf
often controls the access to milk, which in turn leads to a weaker calf’s death.
Fortunately, the miracle babies of Curva, the elephant were monitored by
wildlife experts around the reserve, and everyone was rooting for the two
twins to stay strong and healthy. During the weeks after birth, experts monitored Curva
from a safe distance to ensure that she had enough space to overcome these mortality odds.
Still, they stayed close enough to ensure none of the elephants needed intervention.
Fortunately, nearly seven years after Curva gave birth to her calves,
both are healthy and thriving. As rare as this phenomenon is, it's actually been recorded to have
happened on several occasions in recent years. Maybe it's something in the water. Either way,
Sri Lanka has welcomed its first set of twin baby elephants in 80 years this month.
Saranji age 25 gave birth to two male calves at the Pinawala, Elephant orphanage. And so
far they're doing very well. Although they also struggle with high death rates. They seem to be in
perfect health at the moment. Interestingly, the last twins before them were born to a domesticated
elephant in Sri Lanka in 1941. What a miracle? Yeti, Odin, Samson and Apollo surprisingly,
these kitties that were born in July are the rarest cats in the entire world. This even
humiliates the twin elephant stats. But what makes them so incredibly rare, perhaps you've
heard the names, Yeti, Odin, Samson, and Apollo together before. Born in 2014, these four brothers
earned the title of the world's rarest, big cats and were expected to become the biggest as well.
Considering there, uncle Hercules ended up taking the title of the world's biggest cat weighing
922 pounds or 418 kilograms and 131 inches or three meters long. That estimate wasn't too bad.
However, it's their parents that they can thank for their rarity.
Their father ivory is one of the 300 white African lions in the world.
And their mother Saraswati is among the 1,200 remaining white tigers in the world. Breeding
these together has only increased the rarity of their offspring. So they are very special,
ivory and Saraswati were bred together on the Myrtle beach safari in South Carolina. Where they
allowed the safari to produce its first lion white tiger hybrids in the world, also called Ligers.
With only 1000 ligers in the world, predominantly in captivity.
These kittens have gone viral from the moment they were born. When the kids were just six weeks old,
they already weighed about 15 pounds or six kilograms and were recorded to gain about
half a pound of weight each day after that, wow! As kittens Apollo was the smallest of them all and
behave like a domestic cat. On the other hand, Yeti was the biggest and was known to be very
rowdy and was always eager to be the center of attention. One of her caretakers even said that
he hoped one day, he would end up in the Guinness book of world records just like his uncle.
Safari founder and director, Dr. Bhagavan Antl suspected that Yeti would be even bigger than his
uncle Hercules. He stated, I am convinced that Yeti will be in the Guinness book.
He's already very big, he has a huge head and very big fat paws, a little rude, but we understand
what he meant and he wasn't wrong either. I'm sure it's no surprise that these brothers
got huge, but it might be a surprise that Apollo became the biggest. Although he has
get to match uncle Hercules his record, he still weighs an incredible 700 pounds or 320 kilograms
and has been compared to a saber toothed tiger. The biggest feline that ever lived,
his brothers aren't far behind either. How fascinating are these four brothers.
Test tube lions, if you thought Yeti, Odin, Sampson and Apollo were awesome.
Wait until you hear about these unique lions. And when I say unique, I mean, unique. Born in 2018,
these special lions are the first of their kind, how? Well, they're the world's first
test tube lions. These kittens were not only innovative for scientific purposes,
but also for wildlife conservation purposes. As the number of big cats are tragically
steadily decreasing due to poaching and global warming. The birth of these test tube babies
indicates a promising step forward and saving the endangered felines.
Of course, scientists will work tirelessly to apply the science to other species as well.
Let me introduce you to these adorable felines that were bred through artificial insemination.
The lioness gave birth to a male, Victor and a female, Isabel. These adorable kittens,
which were raised at the university of Pretoria in South Africa, or born without complications
and were in perfect health. Even more surprising given the great success of these kittens,
experts believe that IVF could be used to save many other species as well in the near future.
In particular, pioneering IVF can now be used to save species of tigers,
Bobcats, snow leopards and other big cats that are facing a decline in their numbers. In the future,
this treatment can be explored with other species as well. The animal kingdom sure is
an amazing thing to behold, which of these rare pregnancies and births surprised you the most.