The mystery of the crocodile buffalo - with video

A weird looking buffalo calf in Thailand has the world wondering about exactly what it is looking at.

According to Stuff, the dead animal was born to a buffalo, and died shortly after it's birth. The village it was born into believes that the animal may bring them good fortune.

Okay so what are we seeing here? Is it a crocodile buffalo hybrid?

No. While hybridisation between species is possible - it only happens between species that are closely related.

So you can get for example a liger - a lion-tiger cross, but not a lawk (lion-hawk cross). Crocodiles as reptiles, are simply too far removed from mammals like buffalo for this to happen.

It could be a mutation, a hoax, or just really dirty.

The mutation in question would be similar to harlequin icthyosis - a very rare mutation that causes infants to be born covered in scales.

In humans this means that the infant has serious trouble breathing, as well as causing them to dehydrate very easily.

The fact that the calf doesn't have a sort of transition between scales and fur on its legs - and the scaling appears to cover its joints - militates for the second two hypothesis.

The scaling could be produced by burning the animals skin - and its large head could just be that it is a newborn.

Alternatively, it could have landed up getting trapped in mud and abandoned. The mud would have dried into looking like scales on its body - while its feet would still look relatively clean because that mud stayed wet.