Griffon Washes Up Onto Long Island Beach

[Hooloovoo]

The ears are also sort of big and floppy for a raccoon, unless decomposition can make ear cartilage stretchy and flaccid. Even for a bloated corpse, the head isn't shaped right for a raccoon. The eyes don't look like they're in the right place. I'm still leaning toward dog. Dog with big teeth.

I also like the viral marketing idea. What do you promote with something like this?
Visit Montauk, home of bloated unidentified animal remains! Or maybe Coca Cola.

 

[robinson]

Right now, somewhere, somebody is sawing a dead pitbulls snout off, and waiting for the body to decay, so the fur sloughs off, for the next round of monsters washing ashore on beach.

 

[neutrino_cannon]

That makes no sense at all. The lower teeth contradict your hypothesis.

I should have specified: maybe the distal tip of the lower jaw came off somehow. Note that there are no lower incisors.

Anatomically that doesn't make much sense though.


Edit: Someone posted a much better explanation in the comments on Naish's blog:

"Adding a bit to the confusion is that the mandible appears not to be in the correct orientation to the maxilla and is probably disarticulated. The lower canine in the normal closed jaw sits in a position anterior to the upper canine, in the space (diastema) between the upper canine and the first incisor. In the "monster" photo, the lower canine is too far back in relation to the socket of the upper canine. The inset photo of the raccoon skull shows the correct orientation."

So the lower jaw is dislocated, accounting for the apparent overbite.

See? Now I didn't want to point this out, but there is another rather obvious fact in the picture. A Raccoon has a penis bone. A Raccoon penis does not look like a dog penis. Ever. Because the bone.

Dogs have a baculum too.

 

[Dogdoctor]

Dogs can have digits that are quite long .
The digits of the subject don't look any longer, proportionally, than these.. ( IMO )

[qimg]http://www.worldofstock.com/slides/PPT1685.jpg[/qimg]

They will look even longer minus the fur...

They just don't have the flexibility That raccoon digits do ..

Plus, I think raccoon digits would look more slender, proportionally, than do those of the subject ..

Yes there is much more anatomical variation in dogs than raccoons. Just look at Chihuahuas and Great Danes. Still if we could count the toes on the feet, raccoons have 5 toes whereas dogs usually have 4 or 4 and a dewclaw.

 

[autumn1971]

@ robinson,
Have you never seen a raccoon that is two-to-three feet long from snout to butt?
If not, then your only experience with them must be based on road-side clues.
Large raccoons are easily able to attain these lengths. Or is it only in Florida where raccoons regularly take out half the front bumper of a car while distracted.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Raccoon sizes:

The average size of an adult raccoon is approximately twenty to forty-five lbs. Ranging in length from sixteen to twenty-five inches, with an additional twelve to fourteen inches for their tail, the average raccoon is often over 40”. Females are typically smaller than males. Keeping this in mind, there are exceptions to the rule, and raccoon weighing well over fifty pounds have been recorded.

My experience with them around here is they are as big as a small coyote.

 

[robinson]

After extensive analysis of Raccoon skulls, I change my answer. It probably is a mutant raccoon. How it got those giant neck muscles is beyond me, but the skull certainly fits a raccoon, because it would require minimal damage to it to achieve the same appearance as in the "monster".

A dog skull would require extensive damage to look like that. For those who have not done a Google search on Raccoon skulls, they is some pretty scary looking things.

 

[rymdman]

Since the beast on the beach was too ugly to publicize in its raw state, the editors had to clone stamp the beast a little bit, to remove the flies.

The flies, wich could act as a relative guide for the beasts actual measure.







*edit*



*edit* The strange thing is the fly that seems to appeare on the front leg on the image wich do not contain the two flies from the first image. Now what dows this mean, that the image is not edited but instead two separate exposures wich caputred a similar image though different positions of the flies, or did they edit out two flies, and snuck in a fake fly, just to confuuuuuse us?

 

[kosai]

Decaying Racoon, Dog, Otter, Viral Marketing made to promote the upcoming movie http://www.splinterheadsmovie.com/

I can't say any of them for sure... but you can now buy a rubber one for halloween on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/MONTAUK-MONSTER...oryZ1468QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[staunch]

Capybera from South America, and the only challenge here is finding out why it washed up in New Jersy.

 

[neutrino_cannon]

Where did the putative capybara's upper incisors get off to? Why are there large, jutting canine teeth in the lower jaw when capybara, and all other rodents for that matter, only have a long diastema before the molars?

I assume you jest; why posit a capybara when the beaver is a far more likely large rodent, given the area?

This thread does illustrate the considerable difficulties involved in identifying a decomposed animal only from photos.

 

[robinson]

Yeah, especially when the animal is a plastic model some Bastid made to promote an upcoming film.

 

[rymdman]

 

[staunch]

December 6, 2007

Giant rodents are about to take over New Jersey!

And even if the Garden State might not look any different, it has some officials worried about the ugly, 20-pound nutria which have made their way here from points south of the Mason-Dixon line.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

This reminds me of the time a squid washed up on the shore and the headlines were "Scientists Baffled". Uh huh. Dead things don't look the same as when they were alive, and a few simple observations can reveal what species it is in no time. Observation can also find if it is a dumb hoax due to parts being put together that don't belong and chumped up with skin from another animal. Anyone know a taxonomist in the area that is bored? Silly human hysteria on the run again. sighs. Idiot Media..

A tipster told Gawker.com that there is "a government animal testing facility very close by"

Wanna bet that the "we must never test on animals" nazis are trying to get people in arms against research facilities for creating monsters?


Wanna bet it is a baby rhino with stuff added to areas easy to frac with (beak where horn would have grown, another jaw, other legs stuffed onto front and back)?

 

[tube]

My taphonomy tool of choice in such situations is the "Pokin' Stick", a venerable and useful implement used to situate the specimen into more appropriate Cartesian coordinates which enable variegated photographic documentation:

 

[robinson]

[qimg]http://www.montauk-monster.com/images/montauk_creature_underbelly.jpg[/qimg]

Splinterheads is currently being filmed on Long Island, NY.

 

[William Parcher]

Polar Bear Washes Up Onto Cornwall Beach

A TV station in Britain has been left red-faced after mistakenly reporting that a polar bear had washed up on a beach in southern England.

Presenter Naomi Lloyd astonished viewers of the ITV network's West Country Breakfast bulletin with a report that a polar bear had mysteriously travelled several thousand kilometres from the Arctic Circle to surface on the shores of Cornwall.

"A walker in Cornwall has caught an extraordinary sight on camera. A polar bear has washed up on a beach near Bude," Miss Lloyd told viewers.