“The Tibetan Mastiff also known as Do-khyi (variously translated as “home guard”, “door guard”, “dog which may be tied”, “dog which may be kept”), reflects its use as a guardian of herds, flocks, tents, villages, monasteries, and palaces, much as the old English ban-dog (also meaning tied dog) was a dog tied outside the home as a guardian. However, in nomad camps and in villages, the Do-khyi is traditionally allowed to run loose at night and woe be unto the stranger who walks abroad after dark”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A man displays a Tibetan Mastiff he raised during the Tibetan Mastiff exposition on April 7, 2007 in Langfang of Hebei Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

“Doctor fish is the name given to two species of fish: Garra rufa and Cyprinion macrostomus. Other nicknames include nibble fish, kangal fish, physio fish and doctorfishen; in non-medical contexts, Garra rufa is called the reddish log sucker. They live and breed in the outdoor pools of some Turkish spas, where they feed on the skin of patients with psoriasis. The fish are like combfishes in that they only consume the affected and dead areas of the skin, leaving the healthy skin to grow, with the outdoor location of the treatment bringing beneficial effects. The spas are not meant as a curative treatment option, only as a temporary alleviation of symptoms, and patients usually revisit the spas every few months”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Visitors to the Aqua Sheko fish therapy spa have their feet exfoliated on June 24, 2010 in London, England. Customers sit with their feet in a tank filled with 100-150 Garra Rufa fish which remove any dead skin by nibbling and sucking. A half hour session is then followed by a foot massage. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

It would seem to be something you'd see only in a cartoon or at a Phish concert, but according to park rangers in New South Wales, Australia, dozens of giant, fluorescent pink slugs have been popping up on a mountaintop there. The eight-inch creatures have been spotted only on Mount Kaputar, a 5,000-foot peak in the Nandewar Range in northern New South Wales. Scientists believe the eye-catching organisms are survivors from an era when Australia was home to rainforests. A series of volcanoes, millions of years of erosion and other geological changes “have carved a dramatic landscape at Mount Kaputar”, the park service wrote on its Facebook page, and unique arid conditions spared the slugs from extinction. (Photo by Michael Murphy/AFP Photo/NSW Environment Office)

Fighters from Germany take up position before competing in the Medieval Combat World Championship at Malbork Castle, northern Poland, April 30, 2015. Medieval combat is a full contact sport that revives the foot based tournament fighting of medieval Europe. Countries fight in refereed matches where the objective is to get the opposing team to the floor. There are also duels with polearms, swords and shields where the number of hits landed are scored. The fighters, both male and female, wear heavy armours and weapons, mostly replicas of authentic pieces, and fight following the knights code of conduct. According to organizers, 25 nations from 6 continents are taking part in the Championships, which started on April 30 and will go on until May 3. (Photo by Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

Boys walk home for lunch from school in the village of Kogelo, west of Kenya's capital Nairobi, July 16, 2015. U.S. President Barack Obama visits Kenya and Ethiopia later this month. His ancestral home of Kogelo is home to Sarah Hussein Obama, his step-grandmother. The Kenyan village, burial place of Obama's father, features an open-pit goldmine, a pork butcher's, a school named after their most famous son and outdoor market stalls. Villagers get around by motorbike taxi or on foot while a donkey-cart transports water. Children, some of them named Obama in honour of the President, walk to and from school together. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

Hadeel, 10, asks a passerby for help to pay a medical bill as her father Shahrour, 54, sits in his wheelchair in the Douma neighbourhood of Damascus Syria February 3, 2016. Shahrour said he developed diabetes at the beginning of the war in Syria. A lack of insulin led to his medical condition worsening and his right foot had to be amputated. Recently he also suffered a stroke that paralysed half his face. He and part of his extended family, a total of 18 people, live together and struggle to get by. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

A dead crocodile is seen on Huangsha Seafood Market in Guangzhou, Guandong Province, China, 22 January 2018. Tsukiji Market of China or Huangsha Seafood Market is biggest one in Southern China and one of the biggest in China, as there are literally hundreds of different varieties of fish and seafood scattered throughout the market. (Photo by Aleksandar Plavevski/EPA/EFE)