Earth Day 2011: Google Doodle celebrates eleventh Eath Day with animated nature scene

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• Earth Day has been celebrated for 41 years and raises awareness of our delicately balanced ecosystem
• Google first marked the event with a doodle in 2001
  

Google turned its homepage logo into an interactive Eden this morning in honour of Earth Day.The doodle features nine animated animals, including penguins that dive into the sea and a lion that swishes its tail when a mouse is hovered over them.It also shows a baby panda sneezing causing the mother panda to rock back in alarm - a tribute to a hugely popular YouTube clip, which has been viewed more than 100million times.Scroll down for video

Google doodle:Earth Day has been celebrated for 41 years and raises awareness of the delicately balanced ecosystem we live in.
The search giant has marked the event with a distinctive image for the last decade. The first doodle in 2001 simply included two globes in place of the 'o's in Google.
In 2006 the company featured renewable energy sources with solar panels and a wind turbine, followed by a melting iceberg in 2007.A few weeks ago Google provoked much speculation after celebrating the anniversary of the ice cream sundae with a doodle.

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The picture was supposedly to mark the 119th anniversary of the dessert's creation, but online blogs were buzzing with claims Google will shortly release an 'Ice Cream' operating system.Last month, Google paid tribute to what would have been the 200th birthday of Bunsen burner inventor Robert Bunsen with an animated doodleshowing a flame changing colour from blue to purple as various chemicals bubb! le brigh tly in pots and test tubes.In February, the search engine marked Valentine's Day with a tribute to artist Robert Indiana's famous 'LOVE' sculpture.Its homepage exhibited a remodelled version of the landmark piece of Pop Art.

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who returned from the International Space Station last June, posted this photo of Earth on his Twitter page today along with the message: 'Happy Earth Day to everyone on this beautiful planet!'Thedoodle kept the simple red, blue and green colour of the original art and replaced the first 'O' in Google with a love heart, while slanting it's second 'O' in homage.That same month the search engine marked the 183rd anniversary of the birth of French science-fiction writer Jules Verne.That doodle turned the Google logo into a cluster of submarine portholes of a distinctly vintage variety.Behindthese windows lay an ocean peacefully splashing away - but users were able to control the depth and direction of the submarine using the leverto the right of the logo.
Perhaps Google's most famous interactive Google Doodle was the Pac Man game last May. The playable game was posted online to mark the 30th birthday of the classic arcade title.

Watch the doodle in action: