Two quick stories from the BBC: A fire has destroyed a collection of snakes, spiders and scorpions at the Instituto Butantan in the Brazilian city of São Paulo:

"The entire collection was lost, the biggest collection of snakes in the world," curator Francisco Franco said. "It's a loss to humanity."

Meanwhile, a $4 iPhone app called iGorilla is to be sold to support conservation work in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park.

Editor's note: The feature list looks suspiciously similar to the company's 99¢ iPuppet.