Hoax Museum Blog: Animals

Quick Links: Bonsai Contortionist, etc. — Bonsai Contortionist
Hugo Zamoratte is known as 'The Bottle Man' and has the ability to dislocate almost every bone in his body.

Playing Astronauts
The Haughton Mars Project's research and development of ways to survive in space seem like a dream come true for big kids.

Cardboard Office
Mike, a keen prankster, pushed his co-workers too far. It was probably a mistake to then take a few days away from the office.

Lobster Pinches Wallet
A man who lost his wallet during a late-night swim was surprised when it turned up in the claws of a lobster caught by a diver.

Frog Salad Surprise — A lot of sites have been linking to this photo of a frog inside a bag of salad. Could the photo be real? Well, I don't think it's photoshopped, this being a case where it would be a lot easier to stick a frog inside a bag rather than go to the trouble of photoshopping it in. But there have been reported cases in the past of frogs showing up inside packaged salads. For instance, a few months ago (April 12, 2006) The Daily Telegraph in Australia reported a case: I don't think the photo here is from the Australian case. Also note that in the Australian case the frog was dead, which is a lot more believable. The frog here looks alive. However, I think it is possible that this is real. Although I'd be more comfortable listing this as real if there were some contextual details (such as when and where this photo was taken.) (Thanks to Doug Nelson for the link)

World’s Smallest Cat — There's been so many giant cats in the news, it's good to see a munchkin cat make headlines. This tiny cat named Heed is 14 weeks old and is currently in the running to grab the record for Smallest Cat Ever. It's only 3 ¼ inches tall. In that picture he looks bigger than a roll of toilet paper to me. Anyway, Potrero is just a few miles east of where I live. Maybe I should drive over and check Heed out. Greg writes: "I had never heard of the Munchkin breed of cat. Quite amazing how small these cats are, and cute too. =) Going to need a really small bottle to Bonzai them 😉"

Quick Links: Perishing Penguins, etc. —
Penguins Perish in Freak Texas Truck Accident
A truck carrying zoo animals to a new home overturned on a Texas highway. Four penguins died as well as some exotic fish. The octopus got away unharmed. The person who emailed me this (they didn't give a name) writes : "The story itself isn't all that interesting, but the headline is a classic. Possible sequel to Hippo Eats Dwarf?"

Beware of Eyeball-Sucking Red Lamprey
A prankster in northern Wisconsin has been placing hoax signs around lakes. The signs are decorated with the logo of the Department of Natural Resources and claim that a) a bounty is being paid for crayfish if you deliver them to a DNR office; and b) There's an invasion of red lamprey who like to attach themselves to the optic nerve of swimmers. I assume that red lamprey do not attach themselves to eyeballs. But do they attach themselves to any part of the body? Big Gary's knowledge is needed here.

Chinese Create Robot Secretary
Chinese researchers have created an attractive robot secretary. She can greet visitors, act as a tour guide, and is equipped with advanced voice and movement control. Her name is Rong Cheng. This reminds me of that John Hughes movie Weird Science. (Thanks, Kathy)

Zaky Infant Pillow
Now you can fool your baby into thinking that you're there holding it as it falls asleep, while you're really out in a bar getting drunk. "The Zaky is an ergonomic infant pillow designed by a mom to mimic the size, weight, touch, and feel of her hand and forearm to help her baby with comfort, support, protection, and development." Kids raised on this thing will be natural customers, later in life, for the Boyfriend Arm Pillow. (via Must Have Gizmos)

Quick Links: Animal Antics — Transsexual Chicken
Anne Boleyn the chicken is causing uproar in her henhouse, ever since she grew a comb, tail and wattle.

Marauding Goats
Nantgwynant, in Wales, is suffering an invasion of wild goats. The goats' antics include, according to some passing motorists, playing "chicken" with passing cars before running off.

Flying St. Bernard
A St. Bernard dog has been placed in care after being thrown out of a second storey window and landing on a man passing below.

Disguise Your Doberman As A Poodle — Attackchi.org is offering a "Poodle disguise kit for Dobermans" for people who worry that they'll be criticized while out in public for having a dangerous breed of dog. The kit includes: Fake fur pieces (4 leg pieces, one body piece, and head piece), Black face paint (safe for dogs), Safe suit fitting method statement and instructions. However, they warn that "dressing your dog like this will increase the chance of it biting you." They promise that other kits are coming soon, such as "Golden Retriever disguise kit for German Shepherds" and "Old English Sheepdog disguise kit for Mastiffs." (And no, I don't think they're really selling any of these kits.) (Thanks to LaMa for the link)

On a related note, check out artist Hung-Chih Peng's Dalmatian disguise for his dog.

The Specter Moose — Curtis MacDougall, in his 1940 work Hoaxes, briefly mentions a creature named the Specter Moose. He writes: Unfortunately that's all he says about the Specter Moose. But I've always been intrigued by this mysterious creature, and recently when I decided to expand and improve my Gallery of Tall-Tale Creatures, I resolved to find out once and for all what the Specter Moose is.

A web search turned up nothing except one other person who had also come across MacDougall's mention of the creature and was similarly intrigued. A search through various library research databases didn't turn up anything. Google Book search also came up dry. But finally I got some results when I tried newspaperarchive.com, which is an archive of old newspapers.

The Specter Moose appears to have been a moose version of Moby Dick. It was a huge, whitish-gray moose, apparently immune to bullets, who terrified hunters by chasing them around. As such, it's probably less of a tall-tale creature and more of a cryptozoological legend.

On November 14, 1900 the Minnesota Freeborn County Standard reported: The Specter Moose returned to the headlines on November 19, 1911, at which time the Texas Galveston Daily News gave this summary of reports coming out of Maine: Finally he reared his antlers again in 1938 when news wires carried this blurb (which appeared on March 15 in the Pennsylvania Charleroi Mail): After that the Specter Moose never again seems to have been seen. At least, no sightings made it into papers. Perhaps the big guy died of old age. It's quite possible, of course, that a white moose (or more than one) was wandering around Maine. The size of the creature is the real question. My guess is that Maine hunters may really have seen a white moose, but then exaggerated its size, as hunters have a tendency to do.

Update: To put the Specter Moose in perspective, Mooseworld.com reports that the largest moose on record was an Alaskan bull moose that weighed 1,697 lbs. Other sites report that this record moose had an antler spread of 6 ½ feet. The Specter Moose, at 2500 lbs and with an antler spread of over ten feet, would easily have beaten this record.

Conger Cuddling Contest Cancelled — If standing on a wooden platform as people hurl giant dead eels at you is your idea of a good time, then sorry, it's too late. The giant dead eel tossing contest held in the English village of Lyme Regis for the past 30 years has been cancelled. A lone animal-rights activist spoiled everyone's fun by complaining that the contest was disrespectful to the dead eel. It sounds to me like the guy may have been joking. (He sent his complaint via an anonymous email.) But still, the town decided not to use dead eels this year. Instead they used boat dock fenders as surrogate eels. But everyone agreed that it wasn't quite the same. Yahoo News reports: Big Gary, who submitted this story, notes that a) nobody respects traditions anymore, and b) "a conger is a type of eel. The main distinguishing feature of congers is that they have pectoral fins, which are lacking or underdeveloped in most other eels (e.g. morays)."

Alien Bug: What Is It? — This video of an alien-looking bug has already been posted in the forum, but I wanted to repost it here to give it a bit more attention (i.e. for those who read the site via RSS and never check out the forum). Hopefully someone will be able to identify this thing.

I should note that I do think it's a real bug and not something mechanical (as one emailer speculated), but what kind of bug is it? I'm leaning towards it being a variety puss moth. For more bug types to choose from check out: hag moths, and stinging caterpillars. (Thanks to hulitoons for the links)

Is There A Hoose Loose? (Possible Horse-Moose Hybrid) — A Canadian rancher claims that one of his mares has given birth to a horse-moose hybrid. His main evidence for this is that the mare has a funny looking head. Also, he says that his stallions were both sterilized shortly before the mare got pregnant, and there are no other male horses in the region. So who could the father be but a rogue moose that happened to be wandering by?

Biologists, naturally, are skeptical. Gilles Landry, a biologist with Quebec's parks and wildlife department, says: Lou emailed me a bunch of links to articles about this strange hybrid (Thanks, Lou!) and writes: I agree with Lou and the biologists. A horse-moose hybrid seems unlikely. Although I suppose it would be biologically possible. But we'll know for sure once the genetic tests are done.

I should start a new gallery devoted to strange hybrids, since it seems like there's been a lot of them reported recently (i.e. the cumato and the cuculoupe.) The strangest hybrid of all would, of course, be a human-ape hybrid, but there remains no evidence that such a creature has existed in modern times (as opposed to prehistoric times), despite the efforts of Russian scientist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov.

Rob the Parachuting War-Hero Dog — A collie named Rob has long been celebrated as a hero of World War II. He received the Dickin Medal for Gallantry "For service including 20 parachute jumps while serving with Infantry in North Africa and SAS Regiment in Italy." However, Rob's plane-jumping exploits have now been exposed as a hoax.

Quentin "Jimmy" Hughes, a former SAS training officer, exposed the hoax in his recent autobiographical account of the SAS, Who Cares Who Wins? The London Times reports: I had never realized that dogs could make parachute jumps, but Wikipedia reports that the first parachute jumps, back in the late eighteenth century, were done by a dog: The BBC also notes that during WWII parachutes were made for pigeons. But if you're imagining pigeons with little harnesses around them, it's not quite like that. The pigeons were first put into containers and then dropped by parachute into France:

Penguin On A British Beach? — A penguin might have recently visited a British beach near Yarmouth. Jean Edwards claims to have seen the penguin standing on the beach, and she took a photo of it with her mobile phone. But wildlife experts are skeptical that it really is a penguin. After all, penguins live at the South Pole, so it would be a long way for one to travel. And no local zoos have reported any penguins missing.

Kieran Copeland, animal care manager at Hunstanton Sealife Sanctuary, speculated that it might be a guillemot (though he can't explain why the guillemot would have its winter plumage): "The beak does not look right for a penguin, it looks way too thin, and I am not convinced. It looks a lot more like a guillemot, but the dark colour would more correspond to its winter plumage, and it's the wrong time of the year."

Coincidentally, a penguin seen wandering along the banks of the river Thames was the theme of The Sun's April Fool's Day joke this year. But I doubt that the bird seen by Mrs. Edwards has anything to do with The Sun's joke. (via The Anomalist)

Human-Toothed Fish Found in Texas — A Lubbock, Texas news station has reported that a local fisherman recently caught a fish that seems to have human teeth: The leading theory is that the fish is a Pacu, about which Wikipedia has this entry: I'm hoping that Big Gary (as the MoH's fish expert) may be able to shed some light on this.

Mouse-Infested Plane — First I should note that I didn't title this post 'Mice On A Plane', since it seems that everyone else in the world who's written about this has already used that joke. The same with noting that the cure for mice on a plane is snakes on a plane.

Anyway, the story here is that an American Airlines plane was recently grounded because of a mouse infestation. I know that my parents (who live out in the countryside in Virginia) often have problems with mice getting into their car and chewing through cables, but I wouldn't have thought mice would like conditions on a plane. Too loud and cold. Apparently I was wrong. American Airlines has admitted that 17 mice were found on the plane, while a whistleblower claims that the real number of mice on the plane was much higher. Possibly as many as 1000. There were even dead mice found in the oxygen masks. (That would be a pleasant surprise in the case of an emergency.) The scary thing is that this plane was flying repeatedly back and forth between LA and New York before American finally did something about the problem. (Thanks to Jen for the link)

Flying Cat — This picture of a cat having a whitewater adventure is doing the rounds. Amusing, but pretty obviously photoshopped. (I don't think many cats would willingly get into a raft.) Here's the original from which the cat was taken:

Trained Flies — Posted on YouTube: a Japanese video of trained flies (actually they don't look like flies to me... maybe wasps or bees). They roll on their back and then juggle a ball on their legs. While it may be possible to train goldfish, I don't think it's possible to train flies. (Though, as one person on Digg pointed out, in laboratory experiments flies have been shown to be capable of learning.) My guess is that they've been drugged. This would account for them rolling over. Juggling the ball between their legs is probably a reflex action. (via Neatorama)

Horny Shark — Divester.com has been posting more Scary Shark: Real or Not challenges. Their latest picture shows a "horny shark." Is it real or not? The answer will be revealed next week. I'm not sure about this one. The shark kind of looks like it's made out of paper mache, so I'm going to vote that it's fake.


They also had a good challenge last week which I forgot to post about. To me the picture looked like a rag-doll shark, so I voted that it was fake. But I was wrong. Turns out that it's a photo of a real creature known as a cookie cutter shark. It lives in the depths of the ocean and only ventures to the surface at night to feed.

Related Posts:
July 1, 2006: Shark Head
June 24, 2006: Shark Photos

Yet Another Two-Toned Lobster — Big Gary forwarded me this story about a rare two-toned lobster found last week by a lobsterman, Alan Robinson, off the coast of Maine. Robinson donated it to the Mount Desert Oceanarium whose staff members say that "the odds or finding a half-and-half lobster are 1 in 50 million to 100 million. By comparison, the odds of finding a blue lobster are about 1 in a million."


Something about this story struck me as very familiar. And then I remembered what it was. Another story about the discovery of a two-toned lobster was posted last month in the forum. This earlier lobster was found off the coast of Newfoundland and is currently on display at the marine interpretation centre in Terra Nova National Park.

So what are the odds of two half-toned lobsters being found within a month and a half of each other? It's like these things are popping up all over.

Shark Head — Museum of Hoaxers helped make last week's Real-or-Not Challenge at Divester.com it's most popular yet. So we're now getting a special heads-up (pun intended) each time they post a new Real-or-Not challenge. Their latest photo shows a shark in all its "bug-eyed, needle-tooth glory." I would vote real, but that's just my personal, non-expert opinion. Maybe it's a trick. I'll post the answer here (not in a new post) when it's revealed.

Update: It's real. This is a photo of a crocodile shark. It's a small shark with large eyes for hunting in deep waters.

Related Post: Shark Photos

Shark Photos — Divester.com offers a series of images of sharks and challenges their readers to guess whether they're real or fake. About half of the images have been posted here before, but that still leaves half that should be new. Here are a few of the ones I hadn't seen before.



They are, from left to right: fake, fake, and probably fake real. The diver attacked by a shark is from a Weekly World News cover. The girl swimming with sharks is an image created by Australian photographer Mike Berceanu (it's a composite of a number of different images), and the one of the shark approaching a kayaker just looks too good to be true (though there's no firm evidence that it is fake), but it's real. It appeared in the September 2005 edition of Africa Geographic.