A woman was shocked by the
mysterious find
in her backyard: to her it was
a mutilated "dinosaur claw
," or something similar from an unknown animal that vets can't identify.
Laura Moorcroft,
36, was responsible for the find. She said she thought it was "a dinosaur claw" when she and her husband discovered the remains at their home in Flintshire, Wales, UK.
A "dinosaur claw" or something else
"We had just come back from a walk and my husband noticed it on the grass," she recounts.
Laura Moorcroft said she instantly thought it was "a dinosaur claw".
"It looks prehistoric to us: a
scaly lizard-like claw
. We're big fans of
Jurassic Park
, so we instantly thought it was from a dinosaur," Moorcroft confessed, reflecting on
The Mirror.
Faced with doubts, Moorcroft decided to go in search of a more qualified opinion, so he approached the Chester Zoo (England) and a nearby veterinarian.
At first, both maintained that
it came from a bird
, but even they could not agree on the species.
The mystery surrounding the find continued.
"One said it was like a
pheasant and the other a turkey
, so we don't know anything yet," Laura continued in disbelief.
A "dinosaur claw" is found in his garden, leaving experts baffled.
But immediately a couple of doubts arose: "And if it came from poultry or some kind of game bird,
what happened to the rest of the animal?
And
how did the claw end up in that place?
" the woman wonders. .
Speculations about the mysterious claw in the garden
By sharing her photo online, Laura got the locals starting to spout theories.
Some said it was from a bird, but others suspected a reptile such as
an alligator, crocodile or turtle.
More than one person noted the resemblance to a
velociraptor
, with some even joking that it was from the movie monster seen in 1984's Gremlins.
An artist's rendering of a Velociraptor mongoliensis.
Modern birds are descended from theropods, a group that includes raptors and the Tyrannosaurus rex, according to
Scientific American
.
Arkhat Abzhanov, a biologist at Harvard University
, told the magazine: "The earliest birds were almost identical to the late embryo of Velociraptors."
Unlike their movie counterpart, the real Velociraptors were also feathered and the same size as turkeys.
They measured the mysterious claw found in the garden of a house in the United Kingdom.
Antecedent
The baffling find comes after
the remains of the world's largest flying reptile
from the Jurassic era were unearthed on the Isle of Skye.
They claim that a fossilized skeleton of the winged creature was in
"almost pristine condition"
, despite the fact that the pterodactyl dates back around 170 million years, the British newspaper notes.
It was found at Brother's Point, the same promontory on Skye's Trotternish peninsula where fossilized dinosaur tracks
were discovered some 170 million years ago.
The mysterious sea creature that washed up dead on a beach in the UK.
reddit screenshot
At the same time, disconcerting images of a mysterious
dead sea creature washed up on a UK beach
surfaced last December .
The animal was nicknamed
the "baby Loch Ness Monster"
by some Reddit users, due to its resemblance to the creature from Scottish folklore.
look also
A Jurassic Park icon collapses: the Tyrannosaurus rex had lips and did not show teeth
They capture fish that live at 8,300 meters, the deepest depth recorded so far
She is 3 years old, was bitten on a beach and was transmitted a rare infection resistant to antibiotics