A snake with a single clawed foot has been discovered in China, according to reports.
Dean Qiongxiu, 66, said she discovered the reptile clinging to the wall of her bedroom with its talons in the middle of the night.
“I woke up and heard a strange scratching sound. I turned on the light and saw this monster working its way along the wall using his claw,” said Mrs Duan of Suining, southwest China.
Mrs Duan said she was so scared she grabbed a shoe and beat the snake to death before preserving its body in a bottle of alcohol.
Telegraph (thanks,SuZi)
Sure it’s not it’s last meal trying to escape?
This has been covered elsewhere. It’s worth noticing that it’s not 100% clear from the photo that the foot is actually the snakes – it *could* simply have swallowed a reptile and the foot has subsequently punctured.
On the flip-side, since snakes were originally with feet, this could simply be a retrograde somatic mutation which reactivated the homeobox genes controlling differentiation in development, resulting in a foot growing.
Either way, it’s a very interesting photo which challenges our perceptions
Thats a frogs foot, kicked its way out of the snake while it was being swallowed.
Death by shoe. Muntadar al-Zaidi would be proud.
This is most cool. Trouble is, even in the bible snakes started out with feet, so this wont trouble creationists.
Mutation, it is the key to evolution. In our case caused even us to evolve from a single celled organism to the the most dominante lifeform on the planet. The process is supposed to be slow, usually taking thousands of thousands of years; but every few millenia, for atleast one species, evolution is bound to leap forward.
Even creepier (sorry) is the undigested meal just above the limb.
she killed a snake that has a claw?!?! how evil
Hmm, admittedly I’ve never tried to climb a wall with one hand, but… that seems a little difficult. Real or not though – freaky picture!
wow that is amazing – most be a genetic throw back – shame it was killed
WTH?
‘Oh it’s just a snake. I’ll just open the window here and guide it alon- A OH MA GOD IT’S GOT A FOOT!!!?1!?’
*Takes a shoe and beats it to death with it*
….that’s how I see that situation. :/
God’s curse stopping working on snakes then?
Must be getting on a bit, poor omnipotent being.
Shame she killed it, I would still rather like to see an x-ray though.
Wow, that’s cool. It’s a damn shame she killed it though…
There is a possibility this may be a snake that has eaten a lizard which has managed to punch a leg out of it’s stomach. It looks like it could be in pain and the story about it managing to use such a vestigial limb to climb across a wall does seem a bit far-fetched.
How strange. Where the foot is, there seems some sort of growth within the snake there as well. Bizarre…..
And I know it must have been frightening to see that in your bedroom but did she really have to kill it?? Then again, I’m not sure what I would have done though!
LC x
Aww poor creature. . .pretty cool though. Do you think that it stole that foot? i wouldn’t be surprised snakes are notouriously sneaky!!!
that looks like a snake ate a small croc and its foot just cut through it
I suspect that the foot belongs to something the snake ate.
Looking at the shape of the snake it\’s probably just eaten a lizard and the leg is poking out of the side
it says she took the pic after she clobbered it to death. this snake (a) seems to be alive [the head is reared up] and (b) the foot part just seems to have been plonked on it..
but mainly (a)
That must be a mutation, because if it is faked then why would it be using the limb to climb a wall?
and @AAAAAAA dont know many frogs with claws
What I personally find amazing, is that even though the snake has been without feet for thousands of years, the DNA still has it in there, programmed, ready to switch on… knows how to connect it, and make it work.
It makes you wonder what we, as human beings could ‘switch on’ with the right mutation. Do we have wings, claws, gills, who knows buried inside our DNA. I’m no biologist, so I’m sure someone might correct me, but I find it quite amazing.
It’s either some horrible genetic mutation caused by polution (they’ve found frogs with extra legs in poluted Chinese waters,) or, as people are saying, the leg of a lizard the snake was digesting that punctured through. Looks more like the latter; you can see the lump in the snake’s body.
what a shame…it could be a great ecological discovery…but it would only ever be able to go round in a circle…
I need more info about the picture before I can make up my mind, when and where the picture was taken. Is the snake dead or alive? More importantly it looks like it could be done with a bit of time on Photoshop. I would need to see the snake studied in a lab by a professional scientist and the results confirmed by an independent party to believe this is real.
Ooh, is the the start of the dinosaurs….eeek
It is commonly known that snakes have two little bone like attachments (very visible with boa constrictors) where “legs” had been attached in their earlier forms (at least what scientists speculate).
This is where we assume have the Chinese dragons have their traditional snake like figure form.
This “claw” could be mutation of a gene that caused it to grow again. The thing is I hate snakes, snakes with legs make me even more wary! Brrr…
Sad that they killed it. It seems to have been capeable to get around with it for quite some time.
What an arsehole! It was only a tiny little snake the width of a finger, how on earth does having an extra limb justify beating it to death. Fascinating one of a kind creature and it’s instantly killed for looking unusual. I hate humanity so much sometimes.
Am I the only one who finds its mouth kinda freaky? Christ this thing looks part leech!