Washington - Pythons married. Four-legged creatures ruled the box office. A lonesome ageing Galapagos turtle awaited his first offspring. And endangered polar bears inched one step further on the global chess board of protection - sort of.

For the animal kingdom in 2008, heroics, hilarious stunts and moves to protect them marked the last 12 months, according to information gathered from Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa news files.

Marriage between same-sex humans may be tabu in some areas of the world, but at least in Cambodia, there's nothing wrong with a wedding between two non-humans.

Neang Phat, a high-ranking official in Cambodia's Defence Ministry, was charmed when a pair of pythons moved into his home, then worried that they stopped eating.

After dreaming that the 2-metre serpentine lovers wanted to comply with Cambodia's controversial 2006 monogamy law, he arranged for an official ceremony. The pythons ended their hunger strike with live chickens at the reception.

Diesel, the Australian mongrel, had a less sympathetic view of reptiles.

When a deadly brown snake in Queensland struck at a 3-year-old boy, he hurled himself at the attacker mid-strike, taking enough venom from that blow and another to merit a double dose of antidote and two days of recovery. Diesel was rewarded with a bravery citation and the biggest bone in the butcher's shop.

On the Galapagos Islands, scientists have been waiting for decades for Lonesome George, the last of a sub-species of giant tortoises, to reproduce. Estimated to be at least 80 years old, he showed little interest in mating until earlier this year, when healthy-looking eggs were found in his protected compound.

Unfortunately, in late November, near the end of the 120-to-130- day incubation period, scientists found some eggs seemed infertile due to weight loss and fungus. But a park ranger at the Charles Darwin Station on Santa Cruz Island said in a press statement that 20 per cent of the eggs could still hatch.

Polar bears, fighting tooth and nail to maintain a slippery toehold on existence, continued to be the canary in the mine on global warming. In May, the US government caved in to a court-ordered deadline and, in a Janus-headed ruling, declared the species threatened because of global warming yet vowed to do nothing that would interfere with oil drilling or the economy to protect them.

Malaysian marine police were less equivocating in protecting endangered species. In one raid, they seized nearly 1,300 monitor lizards and 11 pythons believed to be bound for the cooking pot in China, Thailand and Hong Kong.

In a separate incident, they rescued 42 pangolins, the scaly anteater valued for its hard scales and believed to have medicinal qualities. Cambodian custom officials also rescued eight pangolins from a bus, where they had been packed in boxes and concealed with paper.

Wolves made headlines when King Gustaf of Sweden advocated culling of the country's 200-strong population because they "eat a lot." The remark brought applause from the Swedish hunters' association but outrage from the conservation movement WWF, of which Gustaf is the country chair.

Further south, in Germany, the Ur-canines struggled back from a century of extermination to start breeding in Lusatia, an area east of Berlin that straddles the borders with Poland and Czech Republic.

Under the "who knew?" category, German scientists found that cattle on six continents tend to face the North and South Poles when they graze, suggesting they are as attuned to Earth's magnetic fields as migratory birds, sea turtles and monarch butterflies.

German researchers also determined that birds take "power naps" to keep their senses alert all day, just like busy executives, and that magpies can recognize themselves in a mirror - the first known non-mammal to do so.

Vietnam moved on several fronts to protect the endangered. It called home a senior diplomat from South Africa after a television crew filmed her receiving a horn from the protected rhinoceros species.

Vietnam also opened its first bear rescue centre, with support from the Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation, to provide a home for bears seized from illegal smugglers and illegal farms. The bears' bile and meat are believed in the region to have healing properties.

On the big screen, animated animals from the New York zoo - Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe and Gloria the Hippo - liberated themselves again to rule the box office jungle when Madagascar Escape 2 debuted in November.

Two of Hollywood's favourite four-legged creatures, Mickey Mouse and King Kong, celebrated big birthdays this year. The mouse was born of Walt Disney's creative genius 80 years ago, while the massive gorilla came to life as the grandfather of all of Hollywood's terrifying yet sympathetic monsters 75 years ago.

Canine health worries plagued British veterinarians, who warned of a mounting canine and feline obesity epidemic. The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals found that about half of British dogs and one-third of its cats were too fat.

Finally, a Croatian cat clocked some 150,000 kilometres being chauffeured alone in an official government vehicle commandeered by the country's former defence minister, Berislav Roncevic.

The cat visited him in the capital on the weekends and spent the rest of the time back home with his family in Osjek, about 260 kilometres distant. (dpa)