Dead animal on 13th street?

Possible identifications

Speculation in published reports included theories that the Montauk Monster might have been a turtle without its shell—even though a turtle's shell cannot be removed without damaging the spine[9][10]—a dog, a raccoon,[11][12] or perhaps a science experiment from the nearby government animal testing facility, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.[13] The creature's appearance was believed to have been altered through immersion in water for an extended period before coming to rest on the shore, making it difficult to identify.[11]

William Wise, director of Stony Brook University's Living Marine Resources Institute, interpreted the photo along with a colleague; they deemed the creature a fake, the result of "someone who got very creative with latex." Wise discounted the following possibilities:[14]

* Raccoon. ("The legs appear to be too long in proportion to the body.")
* Sea turtle. ("Sea turtles do not have teeth")
* Rodent. ("Rodents have two huge, curved incisor teeth in front of their mouths.")
* Dog or other canine such as a coyote. ("Prominent eye ridge and the feet" don't match.)
* Sheep. (Sheep don't have sharp teeth).

On August 1st, Gawker[15] published pictures and X-ray images of a water rat, an Australian rodent with several similarities to the Montauk Monster, such as the "beak", tail, feet, and size. On the same day, Jeff Corwin appeared on Fox News and claimed that upon close inspection of the photograph, he feels sure the "monster" is merely a raccoon or dog that has decomposed slightly.[11] This was backed up by Darren Naish, a British paleontologist, who examined the images and agreed that, if real, the creature was a raccoon. Naish says that "claims that the limb proportions of the Montauk carcass are unlike those of raccoons are not correct", and on his blog he furnishes an illustration of an intact raccoon corpse drawn over the corpse in the photograph.[11]

On August 5, Fox Channel's Morning Show repeated speculation that the beast is a decayed corpse of a capybara, even though capybaras do not have tails.[16] The next day, the same program reported that an unnamed man claimed that the animal's carcass had been stolen from his back yard.[17]

From August 5, the promoters of the independent horror film Splinterheads announced that the creature was a prop they had made, and that the story was an intentional viral marketing promotion.[18] The film's website included the claim "We have the Montauk Monster", but this was taken down a few days later.[19]