A creature filmed walking with a group of deer in a West Virginia park has the community asking, “What is that?”
On Oct. 24, Brittany Keller noticed “a strange-looking creature” while traveling by Ritter Park in Huntington, W. Va., on her way to work, as reported by WSAZ.
Keller managed to film the mystery animal as it scurried amongst a small herd of deer munching on grass in the park. The woman has since shown her clip of the critter to numerous Huntington residents, and no one is sure what the animal could be.
“Whenever I stopped to take a better look, I realized that it was something I had never seen before,” Keller told WSAZ about the encounter.
According to the source, Keller posted a video of the unknown species on social media, and some viewers speculated that it was a lemur. Lemurs are indigenous to Madagascar, a country located over 9,000 kilometers from West Virginia.
Andy McKee, an animal expert who spoke with WSAZ about the sighting, said the bizarre creature “looks more like a fox with mange.” Mange, according to the Wildlife Center of Virginia, is “a contagious skin disease caused by mites” that causes “itchiness, hair thinning and loss, thickened skin, and scabbing.”
The creature seen in West Virginia was not the only strange animal in October. On October 22, the Bristol Zoo Project, a wildlife conservation park in England, posted a photo from trail camera footage collected on the park’s grounds. The zoo stated that the image depicted “a mysterious winged and horned creature” that they needed help identifying.
“Our conservation team employs video traps to survey the ancient woodland on our property. “Here, you can see a familiar muntjac deer alongside a creature that has us just a little stumped,” the park captioned the post, which also included a shot of a muntjac deer in daylight for visitors to compare to the mysterious animal. The muntjac deer is a Southeast Asian species with small, horn-like antlers.