A lakeside baptism service in Ethiopia was struck by tragedy after a crocodile attacked and killed the vicar.It is reported that an 80-strong congregation looked on in horror as the reptile struck at a protestant clergyman in the town of Arba Minch, while he conducted a mass baptism in the shallows of Lake Abaya on Sunday.Reports state that - “All of a sudden, a crocodile jumped out of the lake and grabbed the pastor, pushing aside the person he was baptising.” Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772 – 1844) was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theories.
You may not easily spell or pronounce “Ouagadougou” – the name of capital of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural and economic centre of the nation.The city's name is often shortened to Ouaga. The name Ouagadougou dates back to the 15th century when the Ninsi tribes inhabited the area. They were in constant conflict until 1441 when Wubri, a Yonyonse hero and an important figure in Burkina Faso's history, led his tribe to victory. He then renamed the area from "Kumbee-Tenga", as the Ninsi had called it, to "Wage sabre soba koumbem tenga", meaning "head war chief's village". The city became the capital of the Mossi Empire in 1441. To the clergyman in Nigeria and elsewhere, Crocodiles may be one of the deadliest hunters in the animal kingdom, but in a small village in Burkina Faso it is not unusual to see someone sitting atop one of the fearsome reptiles. People in Bazoule, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the capital Ouagadougou, share their pond with more than 100 of the razor-toothed creatures.Villagers in west Africa have been photographed in a series of stunning images that show a startlingly close relationship between crocodiles and humans.In one of such images, a large crocodile is seen leaping clear of the ground in an attempt to snatch a chicken offered to it by a resident, in a pose which brings to mind a cat jumping for a toy. Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa around 274,200 square kilometres (105,900 sq mi) in size. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali,Niger, Benin, Togo,Ghana and Ivory Coast. Formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta, the country was renamed "Burkina Faso" on 4thAugust 1984 by the then-President Thomas Sankara, using a word from each of the country's two major native languages, Mòoré and Dioula. Figuratively, Burkina, from Mòoré, may be translated as "men of integrity", while Faso means "fatherland" in Dioula. "Burkina Faso" is understood as "Land of upright people" or "Land of honest people”.French is an official language of government and business in the country. The West African crocodile or desert crocodile (Crocodylussuchus) is a species of crocodile related to – and often confused with – the larger and more aggressive Nile crocodile (C. niloticus). The species was named by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1807, who discovered differences between the skulls of a mummified crocodile and those of Nile crocodile (C. niloticus). This new species was, however, for a long time afterwards regarded as a synonym of the Nile crocodile. Compared to the Nile crocodile, the West African crocodile is smaller: Traditional peoples who live in close proximity to West African crocodiles revere them and protect them from harm. This is due to their belief that, just as water is essential to crocodiles, so crocodiles are essential to the water, which would permanently disappear if they were not there to inhabit it. Here the crocodiles live in harmony with the humans, and never attack swimmers !