Have you ever wondered why Brazilians speak Portuguese and the rest of Latin America speaks Spanish? Was it that Spain was a much more enterprising colonial power during the Age of Exploration?

A entire room vanished not in 1845, but 1945! How is this possible. A room so magnificent it was once described as the the eighth wonder of the world. A mystery that ignited imaginations and inspired a series of treasure hunts.

Earlier this year a man decapitated his 4-month-old Husky pup, with a chainsaw. Self-confessed dog-killer Phillip Matthysen was slapped with a suspended fine of R10 000 rand or 12 months in jail after being found guilty by a Delmas court.

A tragic end to an extraordinary partnership, but thanks to the intervention of The Joint Committee for the Conservation of the Large Blue Butterfly, at least one species survived.

The Tambalacoque tree is threatened by extinction, possibly because the Dodo became extinct 300 years ago. Thanks to an American ecologist, Stanley Temple, this is a story of "Seeds success".