Nature Hub

     By Jacqueline Howard,  BBC News,  Edited by Amal Udawatta Share Getty Images The president of Botswana has threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in a political dispute. Earlier this year, Germany's environment ministry suggested there should be stricter limits on importing hunting trophies. Botswana's president Mokgweetsi Masisi told German media this would only impoverish people in his country. He said elephant numbers had exploded as a result of conservation efforts, and hunting helped keep them in check. Germans should "live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to", Mr Masisi told German newspaper Bild. Botswana is home to about a third of the world's elephant population - more than 130,000 - more than it has space for. Herds were causing damage to property, eating crops and trampling residents, he told Bild. Botswana has previously given 8,000 elephants to neighbouring Angola, and has offered hundreds more to Mozambique

  (Image credit:  By - Christine Ro Edited by -Amal Udawatta A lone female stingray recently fell pregnant, despite having no male companions in her tank. What are "virgin births" and why are they happening more frequently for animals in captivity? I It is an event that appears to defy the laws of nature. In February 2024, a female stingray, named Charlotte,  fell pregnant at a small aquarium in Hendersonville , North Carolina, US – even though she had not encountered a male stingray in over eight years. It left scientists at the Team Ecco Aquarium & Shark Lab stumped. How exactly Charlotte conceived four stingray pups, while floating around in her tank without a mate, was a mystery. One theory pointed the finger (or fin) at two white-spotted bamboo sharks who share the tank with Charlotte, due to some suspicious bite marks found on the stingray's body. Such marks can be a sign of mating behaviour in sharks.  But that would lead to an unusual shark-stingray hybrid. In