WAmur and Timur are respectively a tiger and a goat who have established an unlikely friendship in a safari park in Primorye in the Far East of Russia. Timur was placed in Amur's enclosure as food but, by his confident behaviour, established a rapport with Amur, which did not eat him. There was an incident of mauling when Timur annoyed Amur by poking him with his horns for hours but, after treatment for shock, Timur recovered. The pair were separated after another fight in 2016 and Timur was moved to the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (VDNKh) in Moscow. Timur died on November 5, 2019, aged 5.
WChaser was a Border Collie with the largest tested memory of any non-human animal. Chaser worked with Professor John W. Pilley, at his home in Spartanburg, South Carolina, from eight weeks old, until Pilley's death in June 2018. Pilley spent that time training her in a formal research project. Chaser could identify and retrieve 1,022 toys by name.
WChris was a Merino ram who gained international fame in September 2015 after being shorn of a record amount of wool in Canberra, Australia. Chris was named after a sheep character in the sitcom Father Ted by local Bonner resident Sue Dowling, who spotted the sheep wandering in a paddock near the Bonner district in Canberra.
WThe 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, colloquially known as the Black Summer, was a period of unusually intense bushfires in many parts of Australia.
WTardar Sauce, nicknamed Grumpy Cat, was an American Internet celebrity cat. She was known for her permanently "grumpy" facial appearance, which was caused by an underbite and feline dwarfism. She came to prominence when a photograph of her was posted on September 22, 2012, on social news website Reddit by Bryan Bundesen, the brother of her owner Tabatha Bundesen. Lolcats and parodies created from the photograph by Reddit users became popular. She was the subject of a popular Internet meme in which humorously negative, cynical images were made from photographs of her.
WGustave is a large male Nile crocodile from Burundi. He is notorious for being a man-eater, and is rumored to have killed as many as 300 people from the banks of the Ruzizi River and the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika. Though the actual number is difficult to verify, he has obtained near-mythical status and was greatly feared by people in the region.
WLil Bub, officially Lil BUB, was an American celebrity cat known for her unique physical appearance. Her photos were first posted to Tumblr in November 2011, before being taken off after being featured on the social news website Reddit. "Lil Bub" on Facebook has over three million likes. Lil Bub starred in Lil Bub & Friendz, a documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2013, and won the Tribeca Online Festival Best Feature Film.
WMing was a tiger that became notable when he was found living in an apartment in Harlem, New York City, United States, in October 2003. Ming, approximately three years old at the time of his capture, lived semi-openly with his owner, Antoine Yates, in a room of his five-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a large public housing complex in Harlem. Several other normal and exotic pets were found in Yates' apartment, including an alligator named Al in another bedroom.
WSykes was a dog actor from Clifton, Oxfordshire, England. He was best known in the UK for his appearance as Harvey in Thinkbox's television commercial and, under his real name, in Midsomer Murders. He also appeared in several Hollywood blockbusters, as well as a UK TV movie, several series, and a miniseries. Originally found as a stray, he was owned by animal trainer and stunt dog specialist Gill Raddings. Since January 2016 Sykes had been in semi-retirement with him no longer being displayed as available for hire on Gill Raddings' agency website. In September 2016, Midsomer Murders announced that Sykes had retired. He died in June 2019.