“Wildlife Officials Share ‘Tricky’ Mystery Animal Photo – Can You Guess What It Is?”

On April 30, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) posted two trail camera photos on Facebook, inviting the public to identify a mystery animal. The first image showed a small, furry creature with short legs, prompting guesses ranging from capybara to baby hippo.

“Wildlife is fascinating, cool, and amusing, but sometimes it’s also a bit tricky!” the NYSDEC captioned the post. Many users shared their thoughts, with some suggesting the animal was a capybara or a baby hippo.

However, the second photo revealed the truth. The image was the same, but with added arrows that pointed out key features, revealing that what looked like a pig’s head was actually the tail of a gray fox. The post explained that the fox’s tail had created the illusion of a pig’s head.

The playful challenge reminded followers of the complexities of wildlife identification and highlighted the importance of keen observation in nature.

The arrows in the second photo point to the fox’s bushy tail and to where the animal’s head is, which is pointed down out of sight in the picture.

“Gray foxes have a black stripe down their tail, and it’s that marking that appears to be a pig’s face. The face of the gray fox is bent down away from the camera,” the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation wrote in its Facebook post. The agency ended the post by encouraging others to share the photos with friends to see how others identify the animal in the first photo.

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation is not the first to go to Facebook with a strange animal shot. In October 2024, the Bristol Zoo Project shared a photo on Facebook of a “winged and horned creature” filmed lurking near the zoo’s perimeter. The zoo admitted to being a “little stumped” by the creature before revealing the animal’s identity.