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BRIGHAM CITY, Utah -- A fanged creature found in Utah after some ice melted on a pond has stumped biologists trying to determine what it is.
The strange creature was found after about 4,000 fish were discovered dead in a Brigham City pond, according to officials
Officials said the pond may have been poisoned or the water may have run out of oxygen due to the thick ice.
While checking the pond, the creature was spotted.
"When we first saw that fish, we thought what in the ….. is that thing?" Utah Divison of Wildlife Resources Ben Boyce said.
The fish was found with carp and goldfish that had been stocked in the pond.
Biologists said they are not sure what the creature is and that it could be a type of trout whose tissue decomposed rapidly, making its teeth more prominent.
Aquatic biologists said if they can't figure it out, they'll let the fish decompose fully and then examine the bone structure to determine the species.
Giant Horse
A 70-million-year-old fossil of a giant frog has been unearthed in Madagascar by a team of UK and US scientists.
The creature, nicknamed Beelzebufo or "frog from hell", would have been the size of a "squashed beach ball" and weighed about 4kg (9lb), the researchers said.
The team from University College London (UCL) and Stony Brook University, New York, said the frog would have had a body length of about 40cm (16 inches), and was among the largest of its kind to be found.
"This frog, a relative of today's horned toads, would have been the size of a slightly squashed beach-ball, with short legs and a big mouth," explained co-author Susan Evans, from UCL's Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.
"If it shared the aggressive temperament and 'sit-and-wait' ambush tactics of [present-day] horned toads, it would have been a formidable predator on small animals.
"Its diet would most likely have consisted of insects and small vertebrates like lizards, but it's not impossible that Beelzebufo might even have munched on hatchling or juvenile dinosaurs."
This was the dramatic scene as the world's largest statue of Jesus was hit by lightning.
The bolt parted the thunderclouds over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to strike Christ the Redeemer.
The statue is 130ft tall, is made of 700 tons of reinforced concrete and stands atop the 2,296ft Corcovado mountain overlooking the city.
It was named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.
Sunday's storm caused havoc in Rio, felling trees in several neighbourhoods - but did not damage the statue.
This amazing photograph gives whole new meaning to the phrase "May God strike me with lightning if..."
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Researchers in a remote jungle in Indonesia have discovered a giant rat and a tiny possum that are apparently new to science, underscoring the stunning biodiversity of the Southeast Asian nation, scientists said Monday.
Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is considered very rare. The discoveries by a team of American and Indonesian scientists are being studied further to confirm their status.
The animals were found in the Foja mountains rainforest in eastern Papua province in a June expedition, said U.S.-based Conservation International, which organized the trip along with the Indonesian Institute of Science.
"The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. "With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip."
** THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CANNOT AUTHENTICATE THE CONTENT OF THESE IMAGES ** This image provided Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 by hunter Rick Jacobs shows an image taken by a camera with an automatic trigger set up in Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest on Sept. 16, 2007. The only thing certain about the critter photographed by a hunter's camera is that some people have gotten the notion it could be a Sasquatch, or bigfoot. Others say it's just a bear with a bad skin infection. (AP Photo/Rick Jacobs)
Read more: Pa. hunter's images stir Bigfoot debate - Yahoo! News
The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.
SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.
The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by. The High Court ordered the city to find an answer to the problem last year. One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques. The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests.
Culling is seen as unacceptable to devout Hindus, who revere the monkeys as a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman, and often feed them bananas and peanuts. Urban development around the city has also been blamed for destroying the monkeys' natural habitat.
Mr Bajwa, a member of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is survived by his wife and a son, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
(AP) St. Paul, Minn. A northern Minnesota resident who set a camera outside to monitor deer movements captured a very unusual -- and often disputed -- sight: a mountain lion walking through the Minnesota woods.
Mountain lions, or cougars, are extremely rare in Minnesota, and the Department of Natural Resources often discounts reports of the animals being spotted. But John Erb, the agency's furbearer expert, said the photo appears authentic.
"My best guess, it's the real deal," he said. "There are certainly no indications it's a captive animal. It's a lean, mean-looking cat."
The DNR gets dozens of mountain lion reports every year, but few sightings of the tawny-colored predators have come with proof.
Bill Berg, a retired DNR wildlife biologist in Grand Rapids, recalled seeing two videos and a few photos of mountain lions in northern Minnesota. But he said it was always difficult to know whether the animals were wild or escaped pets.
"No doubt there's an animal now and then, and I think some of them are wild animals dispersing and some are cats that got too big for the kitty litter," he said.
The digital photo taken Aug. 20 by Floodwood resident by Jim Schubitzke clearly shows the front half of a mountain lion standing next to a stump. Erb said another DNR manager visited the site near Floodwood Lake and confirmed the vegetative background in the photo, providing strong evidence that it is not a fake.
The image was captured about 20 miles north of Floodwood by one of five cameras Schubitzke had set up in the woods. "I was spooked for a couple of days because I was bear-baiting just a couple hundred yards from there," he said. "Now I'm back to normal."
Floodwood is about 40 miles northwest of Duluth.
http://cbs2chicago.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_285145614.html
Store manager Jay Jacoby displays a two-headed red slider turtle at Big Al's Aquarium Supercenter in East Norriton Pa., Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007. The rare turtle is on display at the store. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
MILFORD, Conn. A Connecticut man has filed a lawsuit against his neighbor, claiming he can't sell his house because of the smell of horse manure from next door.
In court documents filed in Superior Court, Gino Sciortino claims Helen Catlin is permitting significant quantities of horse manure to accumulate in piles on her property and the foul odor can often be smelled at his home.
Helen and David Catlin have lived on Park Road more than a year and own three horses.
Sciortino said that at times, the smell is overpowering.
"When the wind blows, everything smells of horse manure," Sciortino said Thursday, saying the odor has made it difficult to sell his house for the past year.
Sciortino is asking for monetary damages as well as an injunction ordering Helen Catlin to relocate the horse manure and other debris and to re-grade the soil near their property line.
"Once this is resolved, I will try to sell again," Sciortino said.
David Catlin, the husband of the woman named in the lawsuit, said Thursday that he mixes the manure with other material to create compost, which he sprinkles with lime to prevent the scent from wafting across the property.
"Nobody else seems to be able to smell it," Catlin said of his other neighbors. "He's misleading a lot of people."
Staffers at the Pomperaug Health District have not reported any complaints about horse manure on Park Road.
http://cbs5.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_257100003.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Long confined to the mountains, Japanese leeches are invading residential areas, causing swelling, itching and general discomfort with their blood-thirsty ways.
Yamabiru, or land leeches, have become a problem in 29 of Japan's 47 prefectures, according to the Institute for Environmental Culture, a private research facility in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo.
The little suckers are riding into towns and villages, hitching lifts on deer and boar whose numbers have grown due to re-forestation and dwindling rural populations.
Once there, the leeches, which measure in at about 1.5 cms before a meal, take to feasting on warm human flesh.
"Yamabiru will climb into people's socks and stay for about an hour, growing five to 10 times in size. Unlike with water leeches, people don't immediately realize they've been bitten. Only later when they see their blood-soaked feet, do they realize what has happened," said Shigekazu Tani, the institute's director.
"The real problem is that the bleeding won't stop and the affected area swells up and really itches," he added.
The best way to deal with the tiny vampires?
"We can cut down trees and mow long grass to dissuade wild animals from coming too close, and create sunny habitats that are inhospitable to leeches. We can also spread pesticides that kill the leeches," Tani said.
"Or we can just tough it out."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070906/od_nm/japan_leeches_odd_dc
A two-headed Greek turtle named Janus eats some salad leaves at the Natural History Museum in Geneva September 5, 2007. Janus, named after the Roman god with two heads, officially celebrated its 10th birthday on Wednesday. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse (SWITZERLAND)