The Montauk Monster?

Earlier this week, Gawker posted a picture of what appeared to be a strange sea creature that was washed on the Montauk beach after a storm. The blog post gave several possible explanations for the origin of the bizarre creature, including a possible viral marketing campaign.

The “Montauk Monster,” as it became known, looks kind of like a skinned dog, but has a dinosaur-like beak and pointy teeth. The photo led to debates on what the creature might be, like dog, raccoon and shell-less turtles (even though such an animal doesn’t exist).

Scientists say the monster can’t be any of these creatures. It seems that its feet are too wide apart to be a raccoon, its eye ridge is not that of a dog and turtles don’t have teeth. And its back feet look like sheep feet, while its front ones have strangely elongated paws.

Scientists believe that either the picture was created using Photoshop or that somebody used latex or something to create the strange animal.

You know… the first time a dead platypus was shown to scientists, they thought it was a fake too. Hmmm…

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