CARRYING a fully grown goat on his back, this five-year-old boy is a child shepherd in the mountains of northern Ethiopia. Away from modern civilization, children living in the Simien Mountains spend their gruelling days herding, or carrying, animals and walking miles through the rocky terrain. From the age of five these children are responsible for goats and sheep in the highlands and when they do rest, the boys and girls are schooled in classrooms made from mud, rocks and wood. German photographer Mario Gerth trekked 3,000 metres up the Ethiopian mountain range to visit this group of Tigray people and their hardy children and witness their unorthodox lifestyle.
LYING flat out on his back, this little meerkat makes the most of the English sunshine .
FULLY equipped with a kitchen and lounge, it's hard to believe this modern holiday let is actually a BUS .
A proud gorilla mum welcomes her newborn baby western lowland gorilla, a critically endangered species .
A pair of adorable polar bear cubs play-fight with each other in the Alaskan snow .
PRANKSTER Dom Joly was so livid when he was slapped with a parking ticket that he took to Twitter to vent his anger – only to discover he was the victim of his own gag! The comic got a taste of his own medicine when he was tricked by a fellow joker for the first time in a decade .
INSIDE Britain's last Naval hospital where scurvy was cured looks like an NHS time capsule .
A northern potoo shows it is a master of disguise as it perches on a tree stump and blends into the bark .
A BUMPER season of births has left zoo with three of the cutest exotic kittens you're likely to see .
A middle spotted woodpecker swoops into her nest and feeds her young in a forest in Trentino, Italy .
ROLLING across a 65-metre-high viaduct in the Alps, the red carriages of the Bernina Express add a splash of colour to the spectacular snow-covered Swiss surroundings .
A fox takes a tumble and lands on his head when he tries to fend off a pair of eagles in Japan .