Look outside in your neighborhood, and you’ll probably see the usual wildlife: squirrels, birds, maybe a deer. But what if you spotted a creature so unusual you can’t even identify what it is?
It’s a mystery that has caused a lot of debate in West Virginia recently, after a strange animal was spotted in the park. One expert weighed in on what he thinks it really is.
On October 24, Brittany Keller was passing through Ritter Park in Huntington, West Virginia on her way to work when something caught her eye. Among a herd of deer was an animal she had never seen before and couldn’t identify.
“Whenever I stopped to take a better look, I realized that it was something I had never seen before,” Keller told WSAZ.
Camera footage shows the mystery creature, which appears to be a small animal with a long tail and snout. Keller posted the footage to Facebook looking for answers, but everyone was stumped. Some said it looked like a lemur, but the species is only native to Madagascar, over 9,000 miles away.
“It would be very, very odd that there would be a lemur out in this area, unless it is somebody’s pet,” said Andy McKee of the Zoology Zone Science Center, an animal expert consulted by WSAZ. Lemurs, an endangered species, are legal to own as exotic pets in West Virginia under certain regulations, but they are not common.
So then what is this mysterious creature? McKee says there is a much more mundane explanation: it’s most likely a fox, with mange or some other ailment that gives it a strange appearance.
While that’s probably the real answer, it hasn’t stopped people from speculating that there is some exotic mystery animal lurking in their local park.
Do you think this creature is a fox, a lemur or something else? Please share this story and let us know your thoughts.
