A slew of eggs unearthed at an elementary school in Australia has spawned something of a debate between wildlife experts who can't agree on what kind of creature left them there.
After a whopping 43 of the mysterious objects were removed by an animal rescue group in the town of Laurieton, concerns were raised when one of the workers announced that they were from brown snakes.
This news was met with profound fear from the parents of children who attend the school, since brown snakes are both highly venomous and aggressive.
However, the initial assessment, which was largely informed by brown snake sightings in the area and derived by shining a flashlight 'through' the eggs to see what was inside, has been called into question by animal experts.
Since snakes have never been known to bury their eggs, scientists say that the creature in question was probably the exotically-named, but relatively benign, reptile known as a 'water dragon.'
Despite this determination from experts, the wildlife group doubled down with a post on Facebook saying, "we believed at the time, and still do believe, that the eggs belonged to a snake."
Although one would think that this mystery could be easily solved by simply waiting for the eggs to open and see what springs out, unfortunately that is not possible since the group merely moved them to a safer location where they subsequently hatched before anyone could go back to investigate.
On the bright side, since we may never know exactly what kind of creature was responsible for the mystery, neither the wildlife group nor the experts who disagreed with them will wind up being left with egg on their faces.
Source: The Guardian