Out Of Place Animals

[Kondoru]

I they were tired they might have imagined movement.

and there is no shortage of real looking crocs in sundry medium on the market...

 

[RaM]

One was reported crossing the Preston Blackpool M way a few years back by several motorists.

 

[GNC]

We all know about the validity of observed stuff and how people don't always see what they think they do. That and liars.

Looking at the pic though....do we not think that if it was actually a moving animal, wouldn't there be a trail of squashed vegetation behind it?

Could be one of those bouncing crocodiles.

 

[Trevp666]

Blimey - it even found it's way onto the Voice of Reason, lol.

 

[ramonmercado]

He still likes boats though.

New pictures show Wally the Walrus relaxing on a small boat in Crookhaven​

Wally the Walrus paid a visit to Crookhaven on Wednesday morning. Picture: Gary Finn.
WED, 18 AUG, 2021 - 12:14

Wally the Walrus continues to draw a crowd as new pictures posted to social media appears to show him relaxing in Crookhaven. The images show the 800kg male walrus chilling out in a small pleasure craft in the harbour, enjoying the sights of West Cork. On Tuesday, the Irish Examiner reported that Wally is to get a ‘floating couch’ in an effort to prevent him from sinking more boats.

The Arctic walrus, who was first spotted off Kerry last March, has spent the last two weeks cruising and feeding along the south-east and southern coast. The juvenile walrus has left a trail of destruction in his wake – after hauling himself onto several small boats to rest, causing thousands of euro worth of damage and sinking at least two.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40360598.html

Now the wandering walrus is in Iceland.

A walrus previously spotted in Ireland, France, Spain and the UK has turned up in Iceland, marine experts have said.

The 800kg (125st) Arctic walrus, known as Wally, had not been seen for more than three weeks, with spotters saying they were "starting to lose hope" of ever seeing him again.However, Seal Rescue Ireland said he had been seen in Iceland on Sunday after 22 days of no sightings. He was identified from scars on both his front flippers, the group said.

The wandering walrus was thought to have travelled 4,000km (2,485 miles) before reaching Ireland, with the new sighting in Iceland meaning he had swum more than 900km (560 miles) from his last known location in Cork.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-58632372

 

[WeeScottishLassie]

Now the wandering walrus is in Iceland.

A walrus previously spotted in Ireland, France, Spain and the UK has turned up in Iceland, marine experts have said.

The 800kg (125st) Arctic walrus, known as Wally, had not been seen for more than three weeks, with spotters saying they were "starting to lose hope" of ever seeing him again.However, Seal Rescue Ireland said he had been seen in Iceland on Sunday after 22 days of no sightings. He was identified from scars on both his front flippers, the group said.

The wandering walrus was thought to have travelled 4,000km (2,485 miles) before reaching Ireland, with the new sighting in Iceland meaning he had swum more than 900km (560 miles) from his last known location in Cork.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-58632372

Yay! I'm so glad he has been spotted again and on the right way to where he is meant to be!

 

[EnolaGaia]

Meanwhile, the Dutch now have their own version of Wally.

Walrus spotted near Schiermonnikoog; First in NL in 23 years

A walrus was spotted on the beach of Schiermonnikoog on Monday, the first sighting of one of these massive marine mammals in the Netherlands since 1998. Seal sanctuary Ecomare called the sighting "very exceptional" ...

The walrus was spotted by Ralf van Hal, a researcher at Wageningen University. ... A walrus was also recently spotted in Germany and Denmark. It is believed to be the same animal.

An adult walrus weighs between 1,000 and 1,500 kilograms. They are native to the Arctic, and normally never leave the area. The one spotted on Schiermonnikoog is therefore a wanderer - an animal that is very far outside its habitat ...

The animal seems to be uninjured, and Ecomare therefore will not intervene. "If she came here, she can also go back. And here she can also catch fish," the spokesperson said. It is also very difficult to catch an adult walrus, the spokesperson added. "They are very big."

FULL STORY: https://nltimes.nl/2021/09/21/walrus-spotted-near-schiermonnikoog-first-nl-23-years

 

[RaM]

One of these turns up every day here on the scrounge not as big as this one but very heavy
when you chuck it out you could see how it could be mistaken for something strange.
It's a Main Coon cat

 

[GNC]

I think that one could prepare and serve its own three-course meal.

 

[WeeScottishLassie]

One of these turns up every day here on the scrounge not as big as this one but very heavy
when you chuck it out you could see how it could be mistaken for something strange.
It's a Main Coon cat
View attachment 45591

Gosh it's beautiful!!

 

[Kondoru]

A small person

 

[RaM]

we have a bird bath in the garden I must check it’s hight as the cat can easy stand on its back legs and drink out of it non of the other local cats can

 

[Sharon Hill]

Gosh it's beautiful!!

I second this: they are striking animals!

 

[PeteByrdie]

One of these turns up every day here on the scrounge not as big as this one but very heavy
when you chuck it out you could see how it could be mistaken for something strange.
It's a Main Coon cat
View attachment 45591

I know my aunt in the US has a couple of maine coons, but regrettably I've never been there and haven't met them. I don't know how many if any exist in the UK.

EDIT Apparently there are maine coon breeders in the UK.

 

[EnolaGaia]

There seems to be a new UK promotional campaign underway ... Duly take your trash out to the curb and the Lizard Fairy will reward you with a chameleon.

British man finds chameleon perched on his door

A British man taking out the trash at his home discovered something unexpected when he returned to his door -- a chameleon.

The RSPCA said the man was taking the trash out last week at his home in the Fulwood area of Preston, England, when he spotted the unusual creature perched on his door. ...

The man did not know what type of lizard it was, but he did not believe it to be a native species so he trapped it in a box ...

The man's brother determined the animal was a chameleon, a lizard native to warm climates such as deserts and forests. The family contacted the RSPCA, which sent animal rescue officer David Hatton to the scene.

"It certainly isn't something you expect to see when you are about to open your door -- but the man did exactly the right thing in calling us as this beautifully colored reptile would not have survived without warmth," Hatton said. ...

The chameleon is believed to be an escaped pet, but the RSPCA said no owner has come forward to claim the lizard.

FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/09/28/RSPCA-chameleon-door-Preston-England/3121632848046/

 

[RaM]

Someone I know who as sadly now passed once rang me and asked what I knew about
geckoes, I said leave it be it will eat insects and such but he was adamant it was in
a room in his house and he wanted rid.
So I ended up searching this room from top to bottom never found the thing god knows
what it was all about but he was adamant that it was there.

 

[maximus otter]

Someone I know who as sadly now passed once rang me and asked what I knew about
geckoes, I said leave it be it will eat insects and such but he was adamant it was in
a room in his house and he wanted rid.
So I ended up searching this room from top to bottom never found the thing god knows
what it was all about but he was adamant that it was there.

Geckoes are popular as pets in the UK. In fact, my oldest mate once had quite a business going, breeding then selling leopard geckoes.

The idea that an OOP gecko might turn up in the UK, especially in a nice warm dwelling, is far from implausible.

maximus otter

 

[Trevp666]

British man finds chameleon

So not exactly the masters of disguise they're made out to be huh?

 

[EnolaGaia]

A single beluga whale has been observed in the waters around Seattle - circa 1500 miles south of the nearest known beluga territory.

Lone beluga whale spotted 1,500 miles from home, and nobody knows why

There's a big white whale swimming off the coast of Seattle, and no one knows why.

Over the past week, people in the greater Seattle area have spotted the white whale swimming around Puget Sound. The wayward cetacean — a beluga — is normally found in Arctic and subarctic waters.

"The closest beluga population is Cook Inlet, Alaska," which is about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away from Seattle, Howard Garrett, co-founder of Orca Network ... , told Live Science. ...

One of the first reported sightings occurred on Sunday (Oct. 3), when Jason Rogers ... filmed the white whale swimming in Commencement Bay near Tacoma, about 30 miles (50 km) south of Seattle. ...

Other people spotted the beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) around Puget Sound ...

There aren't any clues hinting at the newfound beluga's origins. "We've seen no markings, no indication of where it comes from," Garrett said. ...

Like many other Arctic and subarctic animals, beluga adults are white, which helps them stay camouflaged in a world of snow and sea ice ... Belugas are also known for their unique "melons," the round bumps on their heads that the whales use for communication and echolocation. In fact, belugas are social animals that live in pods of as many as 100 individuals, Garrett said, which makes this lone whale's journey all the more mysterious. ...

The last documented sighting of a beluga whale in Puget Sound was in 1940, Garrett said. There was also a report of a beluga in Puget Sound in 2010, but only one person reported seeing it, and they weren't able to get any photographic evidence of it, he noted. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/lost-beluga-whale-seattle

 

[Bullseye]

So not exactly the masters of disguise they're made out to be huh?

But how many don't we see !

 

[Nosmo King]

I reckon it's a croc of excrement.

A family in Yorkshire have spoken of their disbelief after spotting what they think is a crocodile on the loose in their neighbour's garden.

The sighting of the 'Castleford Croc' is just the latest in a number of reported sightings of a scaly beast seen around the area.

Is this photograph proof that a crocodile is on the loose in Castleford?

It was taken recently by Sarah Jayne Ellis in a garden just off Savile Road, not far from the River Aire.

Sarah thinks the animal was about 3 or 4ft long and "looked real". She told YorkshireLive : "I thought 'that's a crocodile'.

Sarah, who works as a nurse, didn't get a chance to investigate further as she'd just done a night shift and needed to sleep.

Photo of the Castleford 'croc' spotted in a residential garden

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/yorkshire-news/familys-shock-4ft-long-crocodile-21612500

Case solved

"The good people of Castleford can rest easy once again – the mystery has been solved.

‘It’s just a plastic toy crocodile,’ Nigel told Metro.co.uk."

https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/22/bric...f-the-castleford-croc-in-his-garden-15298012/

 

[Trevp666]

‘It’s just a plastic toy crocodile,’ Nigel told Metro.co.uk. whilst stating the bleedin obvious"

 

[uair01]

From Facebook:

 

[Mythopoeika]

From Facebook:
View attachment 46419

A deer in quicksand?

 

[Kondoru]

Urban Fallow.

We will end up like Nara.

 

[escargot]

A rather misleading and clickbaity Sky News headline for an article about a poor doomed Indian viper, cold and far from home -

This type of snake has killed more people than all others combined, and one has been found in Essex

A deadly stowaway snake found its way to British shores after being found in a shipping container from India.

The saw-scaled viper - a species of snake believed to have killed more people than all other species combined - was collected by South Essex Wildlife Hospital before it caused any harm.


"The authorities that had already been contacted were not responding to the situation so our reptile expert Steve and Tom the vet collected the very agitated and aggressive animal before someone was likely killed," the hospital said.

Also,

Sue Schwar, the charity's founder and manager, said the people who opened the crate and found the viper were "very lucky to be alive", BBC News reported.

"The snake was probably cold from travelling, so was not too active."

So was it agitated and aggressive or cold from travelling and not too active?
One hopes it can now be cared for.

 

[hunck]

Spider found in woman’s ear

A Chinese woman, named only as Yi in local media reports, went to the hospital after feeling discomfort and hearing a strange noise.

When the itching became too much to bear, she went to A&E assuming she had an infection.

A probe revealed the real cause was slightly more complicated and a whole lot grosser.

When doctors placed the camera inside her ear, the creepy crawly came dashing towards the lens, making it appear much larger than it actually was.

The doctor, who has not been named, was able to remove the spider using an electric otoscope, which is a device used by doctors to look inside people’s ears.

The incident reportedly happened in the city of Zhuzhou, which is located in southern China’s Hunan Province.

 

[ramonmercado]

Falkland Wolf Mystery

This is new to me:

How scientists cracked puzzle of the Falklands wolf
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Monday, 2 November 2009

The origin of the mysterious Falkland Islands wolf, which was persecuted to extinction in the late 19th century, may finally have been solved – 175 years after Charles Darwin puzzled over the nature of this curious fox-like creature.

A DNA analysis of four stuffed museum specimens has revealed that the wolf did not, as previously thought, come to the Falklands as the pets of early South American natives who voyaged to the islands, but travelled there long before humans had populated the Americas.

The genetic study of tissue samples taken from the four stuffed specimens has revealed that they last shared a common ancestor more than 70,000 years ago, showing that the species must have come to the Falklands long before the end of the last ice age.

But even though the study has gone some way to clarifying the evolutionary origins of the Falklands wolf, the species still represents a great biogeographical conundrum because the Falklands have never been connected to the South American mainland and no other land mammals – not even small rodents – have managed to live there.

“It is really strange that the only native mammal on an island would be a large canid. There are no other native terrestrial mammals, not even a mouse,” said Graham Slater of the University of California, Los Angeles, whose DNA analysis of the Falklands wolf is published in the journal Current Biology.

“It’s even stranger when you consider that the Falklands are 480km [300 miles] from the South American mainland. The question is, how did they get there?”

When Darwin wrote about the wolf in 1834 during his travels on HMS Beagle, he noted how peculiar it was for such a large animal to be living on a remote archipelago. He also commented on its unusually tame nature, which led others to speculate that the animals must be the descendents of escaped pets brought to the archipelago by natives.

The wolves grow to the size of coyotes or large foxes, but are much stockier with thick, reddish fur and short muzzles, rather like grey wolves. Little is known about their behaviour but they probably lived off nesting ground birds, seal pups, insects and other grubs.

The DNA study found that the closest living relative of the Falkland Islands wolf, Dusicyon australis, is the maned wolf, an unusually long-legged, fox-like canid that lives on the South American mainland. But they last shared a common ancestor some 6 million years ago, Dr Slater said. “Canids don’t show up in the South American fossil record until 2.5 million years ago, which means these lineages must have evolved in North America. The problem is that there are no good fossils that can be assigned to the Falklands wolf lineages in North America,” he said.

Another close relative of the Falklands wolf is likely to be a canid species, called Dusicyon avus, which lived in Patagonia but went exinct about 7,000 years ago, Dr Slater said.

The Falklands wolf quickly went extinct after Europeans arrived on the islands from the 17th century. The last wolves are believed to have been killed in the 1870s by sheep farmers.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 13521.html

The headline is misleading - the puzzle remains: how did they get there?

More on this out of place wolf.

The enigmatic, now-extinct Falkland Islands wolf had human visitors on the remote archipelago up to 1,070 years ago. The find suggests that Indigenous people could have originally brought the foxlike creatures, also known as the warrah, to the islands.

Scientists have debated how the islands’ only land mammal journeyed to the region: by a long-ago land bridge or with people. But little evidence of a human presence before Europeans arrived in 1690 had been found. Now, traces of ancient fires and hunting show that Indigenous people arrived on the Falkland Islands centuries prior to Europeans, researchers report October 27 in Science Advances. The Yaghan people — historically fire-wielding seafarers who kept foxes as companions — may have been the visitors.

Abrupt spikes in charcoal levels in sediments offer “telltale signs of human arrival” from 1,070 to 620 years ago on New Island, says Kit Hamley, a paleoecologist and archaeologist at the University of Maine in Orono. Those spikes mirror later traces of Europeans’ fires around 250 years ago.

And massive piles of sea lion and penguin bones imply hunting by humans from 745 to 600 years ago, Hamley says. Before being hunted to extinction by Europeans in 1875, the Falkland Islands wolf (Dusicyon australis) also consumed marine predators such as sea lions and penguins, nitrogen levels in two warrah bones and one tooth show.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/wolf-falkland-islands-origin-ancient-human-visitors-fire-hunt

 

[Kondoru]

Ok, so what happened to the people?

And how did they get there? Yaghans had bark canoes....and though they were adept seafarers...I doubt they went out of the sight of land.

At least not on purpose

 

[ramonmercado]

Ok, so what happened to the people?

They were eaten by the Bennies.