SIDELINES...

BLOODY HELL!

Police in Reading, Berkshire, are searching for a man caught on CCTV emptying a bag of blood in the street outside the town’s branch of John Lewis. No local hospitals had seen someone with injuries that would account for the blood, so police are carrying out forensic investigations to determine whether it was human, saying: “At this point, we do not believe the source of the blood is as a result of an assault, although we retain an open mind as to these unusual circumstances.” BBC News, 23 Feb 2022.

WASN’T ME GUV…

When Eric Holland, 57, was pulled over by police in Las Vegas for driving a stolen Chevrolet Avalanche truck, a search of the vehicle revealed a cooler containing body parts belonging to Richard Miller, who had died of gunshot wounds, resulting in charges of murder as well as car theft. Holland, though, maintains he is innocent, and just happened to have stolen a vehicle with body parts already stashed in it. D.Mirror, 8 Jan 2022.

SMART MAGPIES

Scientists tracking Australian magpies discovered some startling new behaviour, but not what they were looking for. Within 10 minutes of attaching the tracking devices to five magpies, one had been pecked off by another bird in the flock, and within three days all of them had had their trackers removed in the same way. This is the first time that scientists have seen birds co-operating altruistically like this. sciencealert.com, 22 Feb 2022.

MONKEY KONG

Visitors videoing a monkey sitting atop a 20ft (6m) pole at Chester Zoo got more than they bargained for when the animal snatched a passing seagull from the sky and battered it to death. The primate then licked the blood from its fingers, disembowelled the bird and ate the offal. After the video appeared on TikTok with comments comparing the monkey to King Kong, a viewer added: “That monkey is living the dream! I’ve wanted to do that every time my chips were stolen.” manchestereveningnews.co.uk, 10 Mar 2022.