Monster pig no hoax - 2009 deja vu!

Doing the rounds since 2009, this powerful porker has captured the imaginations of many web surfers, however its sheer size has lead many people to label it a hoax.

In fact, the photograph is genuine.

At least that is what The Mercury newspaper in Tasmania is saying about this photo, rumoured to be of Pilbara pastoralist John Anick and his 'catch of the day' photograph snapped three years ago.

The 220kg beast was reportedly eating a cow when first seen by workers mustering cattle in a helicopter in Western Australia.

The paper said Mr Anick saw the beast again on a trip to check windmills on the property and shot it.

"I can vouch 100 per cent that it (the photo) was taken in the Pilbara and it is who I said it is," a source close to the Anick family said.

Back in 2009, WA authorities were clamouring to declare the photograph a hoax. Funnily enough, the Pilbara-Anick connection was also made in 2009 by an equally mysterious source - so we're not sure why it's news again this week. Perhaps it just takes a little bit longer for some stories to filter down south!

Anyway, if it's legit, then big cats and yowies aren't the only creatures to look out for in the Australian bush!

New species of albino spider found in WA

A new species of trapdoor spider has been found near Northam in Western Australia, identified as a member of the Idiopidae family.

Nicknamed the albino trapdoor spider, it was spotted by Grass Valley resident John Cornish on his back veranda in July.

The white-headed, black and brown-legged spider about the size of a 50-cent piece was captured in a jar and handed to the Northam office of the Department of Environment and Conservation.

Read more here.

Cat or dog? A WA conundrum...

What is it? Felis or canid?

Aussie Ira Fehlberg, who shot the footage above, writes:

"A coupla years ago I was driving down a remote bush track doing some fishing exploring. Now I do a bit of travelling all round WA & Aus and much of it in pretty remote areas, like everyone I've heard the stories of big cat sightings and its something that I've always taken an interest in, its always in the back of your mind anyway...

So here I am early one morning, just after sunrise, driving down this bush track in the middle of now where. We hit some pretty goods corrugations and I happened to ask the mate (who shall remain nameless to protect his gumbyness) I was travelling with if he would mind getting my video camera out and getting a few shots of the corrugations for the home video I usually make of my fishing trips.

He got the camera out, took a bit of video and I said to him just leave the camera on for a bit in case there are some more good ones. The track was sorta random, okay in some spots but rough as in others, anyway the track came into a hard packed sand section and there is my mate with the camera in his lap switched on and rolling. We cruised on for a bit, I was prolly sitting on about 40ish and then all of a sudden bang there it was!

The first time it came into our view it was actually in the air, a metre and a half off the ground in mid air, halfway through a leap! It hit the ground halfway across the road, took a bound and it was off into the bush quicker than you could say what the hell was that! It crossed the road directly in front of us maybe 20-30 metres away.

Now I'll be totally honest and say that it all happened so fast that all I really saw was a big tan animal bound across in front of me! I didn't see the head or the tail, there was enough time to sorta see the main body and that was it, it was gone.

We both looked at each other and said what the %$#@ was that?! I braked hard and stopped right where it went off the track and we could see it running through the scrub to our left, "get out & get it on cam I yelled at my mate" as I was braking. The scrub was pretty high and before we even stopped I knew that the best chance I had of a clean shot was from an elevated position so as we stopped my mate got out and shot some video which looks like someone having a fit falling off a building, basically he tried to zoom right in and this bit of the footage is so shaky you cant see anything.

So I've done the whole stop the car, jumped out and in one motion (yes I can still move when I wanna) I've jumped straight up onto the bonnet and onto the roof of the 4WD. My mate threw the camera up to me and I quickly zoomed out and managed to get a few seconds of it running off. I was hoping it would stop and turn around of course but it never did. The footage you see of it running off is from this elevated position.

My gut feel initially was big cat, probably more just hope than anything but it was the right size and colour and the way it ran looked like a big cat but we both agreed we couldn't be sure positive as it never stopped or turned around and neither of us saw the tail or head.

We easily found the spot where it jumped across the road and I got some good shots of the prints it left.

To have any idea what it was I knew I'd have to show the tape to someone who knew about such things and I have a mate who has done a lifetime of hunting all around WA and he really knows his stuff. I showed him the tapes and he and his shooting buddy basically came to this conclusion. They say it was most likely a wild dog mainly because of the tracks it left, cats don't run with their claws out apparently. Do they come out when they jump but? I don't know...

However they both did concede that they couldn't say wild dog 100% for sure and that there was a small amount of doubt from two things that were a bit unusual about it. They said in all their hunting days in WA (100 years experience) neither of them had ever seen a wild dog that colour and they had never seen a wild dog yet that was all one colour like that, they reckon normally they are blotched or mixed colours sort of thing. They are pretty sure from the tracks that it was a dog but. I'm not expert but I think they are probably right.

Still it was a cool experience and it made me realise that even with a camera turned on in the car it happens so fast you've got to be so lucky to get it on video, if it did happen and the camera was turned off you'd be virtually no chance of getting it."

So readers, what do you think? Cat or dog?

Fossil hoard uncovered in WA

A treasure trove of fossils up to a million years old has been found in three caves under the Nullarbor.

Palaeontologists returned last month from their fifth expedition to Last Tree Cave, Flightstar and Leaena's Breath, on the WA side of the Nullarbor Plain, where about 100,000 bones were collected during the past two field trips.

Flinders University palaeontologist Gavin Prideaux said the caves, discovered in 2002, were littered with fossils.

"There were a lot of complete skeletons of megafauna species just sort of lying on the cave floors," he said.

One of the most impressive finds was an almost complete skeleton of a Thylacoleo carnifex, or marsupial lion - a prehistoric animal that was the size of a leopard, built like a bear and able to stand up like a kangaroo. It had huge claws and the most powerful bite of any known mammal.

WA Museum documentary director Clay Bryce, who has been involved in the project since its inception, described the caves as a treasure trove of extraordinary fossil material.

"From one skeleton we suddenly went to 11 Thylacoleo skeletons, tree kangaroos, koalas, Thylacines, giant wombats, untold numbers of birds, giant kangaroos, Procoptodons, smaller species of kangaroo, horned wallabies, the list goes on and on," he said.

Dr Prideaux said the caves had acted as an animal trap, catching animals that fell through the entrance and birds that could not find their way out.

On the most recent expedition researchers rescued two live birds that had become disoriented in the caves.

Dr Prideaux said at least eight confirmed new species had been found in the caves and that was likely to rise to 15 to 20 new species as more bones were analysed.

The research was part-funded by National Geographic.