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Hong Kong's Twin Panda Cubs to Make Public Debut

Twin panda cubs, the first ever born in Hong Kong, are seen in their enclosure on February 7, 2025 ahead of their first highly anticipated public appearance on February 16. (Photo by Peter PARKS / AFP)
Twin panda cubs, the first ever born in Hong Kong, are seen in their enclosure on February 7, 2025 ahead of their first highly anticipated public appearance on February 16. (Photo by Peter PARKS / AFP)
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Hong Kong's Twin Panda Cubs to Make Public Debut

Twin panda cubs, the first ever born in Hong Kong, are seen in their enclosure on February 7, 2025 ahead of their first highly anticipated public appearance on February 16. (Photo by Peter PARKS / AFP)
Twin panda cubs, the first ever born in Hong Kong, are seen in their enclosure on February 7, 2025 ahead of their first highly anticipated public appearance on February 16. (Photo by Peter PARKS / AFP)

Hong Kong's baby panda twins will make their public debut on Sunday, with officials rolling out a full-scale panda marketing campaign to boost tourism.
The pair, one female and one male, were born six months ago and join four other pandas at the city's Ocean Park theme park.
"This is the first pair of giant pandas born in Hong Kong, and the whole city is cheering with excitement," John Lee, the city's leader, said at a ceremony on Saturday.
According to Reuters, he said a naming competition had been launched with the names to be announced in the first half of the year.
Since their mother Ying Ying became the world's oldest giant panda on record to have given birth, just one day shy of her 19th birthday, panda decor and promotions have mushroomed across Hong Kong.
Metro trains and the city's airport express have adopted panda themes and an exhibition with 2,500 panda sculptures has been on display at different locations around the city.
Adding to panda mania has been the arrival of two from Sichuan, An An and Ke Ke, who were gifted by the central Chinese government in September and only put on display in December.

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Octopus Riding a Shark Caught on Camera

Researchers with the University of Auckland captured the rare sighting in the Hauraki Gulf near Kawau Island in New Zealand. (Credit: University of Auckland)
Researchers with the University of Auckland captured the rare sighting in the Hauraki Gulf near Kawau Island in New Zealand. (Credit: University of Auckland)
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Octopus Riding a Shark Caught on Camera

Researchers with the University of Auckland captured the rare sighting in the Hauraki Gulf near Kawau Island in New Zealand. (Credit: University of Auckland)
Researchers with the University of Auckland captured the rare sighting in the Hauraki Gulf near Kawau Island in New Zealand. (Credit: University of Auckland)

A rare sighting, captured on video off the coast of New Zealand and shared by scientists affiliated with the University of Auckland, shows a Maori octopus riding on top of a mako shark, Fox News reported.

The university said the December 2023 encounter "was one of the strangest things University of Auckland marine scientists had ever seen. It was a mysterious sight indeed... octopus are mostly on the seabed while short-fin mako sharks don’t [favor] the deep."

The university researchers had been looking for shark feeding frenzies in the Hauraki Gulf near Kawau Island when a mako shark with an "orange patch" on its head was discovered, the report said.

The researchers launched a drone and put a GoPro camera in the water and "saw something unforgettable: an octopus perched atop the shark’s head, clinging on with its tentacles," University of Auckland Professor Rochelle Constantine wrote in a piece for the university last week.

Constantine added that the researchers moved on after 10 minutes, so they weren’t sure what happened to the "sharktopus" next, but the "octopus may have been in for quite the experience, since the world’s fastest shark species can reach [30 mph]."