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Unidentified animal photographed in North Carolina

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This is an odd one as the photograph(attached) is very clear:

Wait! It's a ... : Unidentified creature stumps experts

6-3-04

By Mark Brumley Staff Writer
News & Record

ASHEBORO -- First of all, this is a real newspaper, not a grocery-store tabloid.

So, the story you're about to read is true.

It starts with Bill and Gayle Kurdian throwing out dried corn for the wildlife in their neck of the woods in eastern Randolph County, and an odd-looking creature taking them up on their hospitality early last winter.

"What in the world?" Bill Kurdian asked himself when he saw the animal for the first time.

About the size of a fox, but with short brown hair and a long cat-like tail, it looked more like an animal in a National Geographic spread out of Africa than any critter native to the woods of central North Carolina.

He's seen the creature off and on since about Christmas, with it wandering up several nights in a row, then disappearing for awhile.

Though Gayle Kurdian could vouch for her husband, when Bill Kurdian talked about the animal, people scoffed that it was just a dog.

"Everybody thought I was crazy," said Kurdian, the vice president of Matlab in Asheboro.

But Kurdian, an avid outdoorsman, got proof.

He captured the animal on two frames of film on May 20, using a motion-sensing camera that his wife gave him for Christmas.

In one frame, the animal was photographed from the front as it approached. The second frame caught a side view of the animal facing the camera.

Kurdian called Guy Lichty, a curator of mammals at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro. But Lichty couldn't help based on just the description. So, as soon as he got his film developed, he couldn't wait to show it to Lichty. But Lichty and other curators were still unable to conclusively identify the animal.

Lorraine Smith, another curator of mammals who looked at the photo, said it might be a grey fox that has lost much of its fur, possibly because of parasites. But, she stopped short of total certainty.

"You learn with animals that you don't provide an absolute," Smith said.

There's speculation that it might be an exotic animal that got away from its private owner or was set free. It could also be a hybrid, Kurdian was told.

It's the second time this year that zoo curators have been called on to identify a strange animal sighted in the area.

In January, some people reported seeing an unidentifiable creature in southern Asheboro. Someone later trapped a large feral cat in the vicinity.

Zoo spokesman Rod Hackney joked that he wished North Carolina could put Randolph County's talent to work finding bizarre creatures for the zoo.

"Maybe we could increase attendance," Hackney quipped.

Kurdian still hopes that someone can identify his mystery animal. He's trying to catch it alive so the zoo or the N.C. State vet school can run blood tests.

"I'm not going to kill it," Kurdian assured folks.

"I don't think it's a vicious animal," he said. "It's just interesting."
Click to expand...

http://www.news-record.com/news/local/rand/creature_060304.htm
 
Intriguing, initialy I thought this was fairly straightforward, it looks like an Indian Wild Dog, but on closer inspection the tail is all wrong (too long and not bushy)

wilddogs8.jpg
 
It looks like a cross between a deer and a dog :eek:
 
It looks to me like a fox would look if it had short hair instead of long; you get breeds of dogs that come in long and short haired varieties. Genetic fox fluke perhaps?
 
Legs look too big to be a fox, and the ears too big and rounded athough the scale is slightly hard to judge.

Looks to me like a deer-cum-fox.
 
I suppose the line about any photograph being fakeable these days still applies.
 
Faggus said:
It looks like a cross between a deer and a dog :eek:
Click to expand...

This is not the first time that that description has been used to describe an unknown animal sighted in the US.
 
Could it be a cross between a fox and a dog? is that genetically possible? I mean it looks like a fox, or an Alsatian (GSD) :confused:
 
I was thinking more fox-jackal hybrid.
Anyone know if this is possible?
 
My first thought was dhole (Indian wild dog). But like Swan, I realized that the tail isn't right. To my eye, this beast looks very foxy, not at all wolfish or coyote-like. Maybe a fox crossed with a whippet or Italian greyhound? But I'm not sure that dogs and foxes are fertile together.
It could also be a very nice composite photo. I sure would like to see the other photo of it.
 
There is a species of fox found in South America that has extremely long legs. I'll try and track down some photos.
 
foxybox said:
Now that looks very similar.
Click to expand...

It does doesn't it?

But surely I haven't correctly identified an animal that has "stumped experts" in only five minutes of "googling" on "long-legged fox"?
 
Arthur ASCII said:
It does doesn't it?

But surely I haven't correctly identified an animal that has "stumped experts" in only five minutes of "googling" on "long-legged fox"?
Click to expand...

Close but no cigar...

With only a little bit more "googling" you'd find a better picture of the manned wolf and see that it actually looks like this (I say actually because in this picture you can see its tail, and the tail of the creature in the photograph is different, you'll also notice the span of the neck is quite different and various other details. I'd recommend an image search on google if you want more pictures)

http://www.auburnschools.org/auburn_early_ed/jlsmith/2002-03/pics/MANED_WOLF.JPG

hence possibly why experts are "stumped" and you might need to a bit more than just five minutes of "googling" on "long-legged fox".

I think it's an orange bearded serpent myself;)

She also looks like she's had a recent litter so they may be seeing more of the buggers soon;)

no...eye thangyew:D
 
Actually, foxes and dogs are not able to interbreed. Seems they different species (Vulpis and Canis, respectively). We're more likely to interbreed with apes.
 
Can dogs and wolves interbreed? But not foxes?
 
Dogs are descended from wolves and they are both from the genus canis. Its definatly possible for dogs and wolves to interbreed.

Foxes are from the same family as dogs and wolves- canidae- but a different genus-vulpus as Hedgewizard says. They cannot interbreed with dogs or wolves.
 
Looks like a very, very odd mongrel to me.

On further examination it looks like a dog's head photoshopped onto a lion's body. The neck and where the feet enter the grass look very very odd to me. It could be the lighting, but if someone has photo shop they may want to save and enlarge the picture.
 
The shadows appears to continue into blackness which suggests photoshopping. If there was something substantial in the back area for the shadow to fall on then it would be shown by the flash. But it appears there isnt.

Also i'm not happy with the way the tip of the ear is shadowed on the window. Doesn't look right to me, although im not a photographer so feel free to shoot me down.

:)
 
RJM I noticed the shadows too. Also the back legs show what look like clear signs of photoshopping.

The tail has been stretched and added, a dog's head emplaced over a deer's. Here's a scribbled up picture of where I thought I saw errors. (nevermind, can't attach pictures because they're too big, blow the image up for yourself)

The front legs are also wrong, first the shadow on the front left foot should extend all the way to the base of the foot; instead it ends somewhere back in the grass behind the animal. The shadow on the front leg is on the other damned side (i.e. the front leg looks like the light source is to the left, the right leg makes it look like the light source is to the right). There should also be a shadow on the neck.

The shadows around the tail make it look like the light source is off to the left of the camera (and again, there should be a shadow on the neck if this is so). Yet the main shadow makes it look like the light source was directly on the camera (i.e the flash).

The shadows on the top of the head have been heavily altered (because they'd show a regular deer's head). You can also see the shadow on the dog's ear from the original picture, and then further up you see another shadow of the same ear that has been added.

It's a deer with an added and extended tail with a dog's head pasted on it. Period. It is also a very, very bad photoshop unless you're looking at a miniscule picture.

Edit: I emailed the reporter who wrote the piece with information on why this is a photoshop, and how he can determine it himself; I hope to see the story edited. If anyone else looks at the photo and determines it is a photoshop as well, you should probably email the writer too. I'd like to see the fakers get burned on this one.
 
It does look like a fake to me too. Cant put my finger on it, head and tail dont seem to `fit` torso
 
I think everyone has hit the nail on the head with the shadows - they just look like someone got the outline of the compiste creature filled i with drak grey, blurred is a tad, made it bigger and put it on the layer behind the composite.

There doesn't appear to be any kind of thickening/thinning which you would expect from changes in the angle/shape of the background. They could easily have been faked too but they clearly couldn't be bothered.

Emps
 
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