Here's an unusual sight: a mysterious skeleton jutting out of a melting iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland:
The six pictures show what looks like a brown rib cage and spinal column, slightly bent, sticking out of a crust of ice.
But researchers throughout Canada, Greenland and Norway are unable to determine the origin of the skeleton, said Garry Stenson, a marine mammal scientist with the federal Fisheries Department.
"It's definitely unusual," Stenson said today. "It's not something that I've encountered before."
His colleagues have been debating whether the carcass belongs to a bearded seal, a walrus or a beluga whale. But without the actual specimen in his hands, Stenson said he can't resolve the mystery.
the sad this is that at the pace we're going with global warming, scientists wouldn't have to wait too much to have the specimen in their hands :/
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there's some chance that either this specimen or some future find will be from creatures that have gone extinct but have left their remains preserved in tens-of-thousand-year-old ice sheets. it might be little consolation that as the global weather changes, there are bound to be some new and amazing insights gained -- such as the 'new' island off the coast of Greenland, and so forth.
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What the hell is this?
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