Thursday, April 12, 2007

Interesting picture . . .

croc with hand

Wow . . . there's a shot you don't see everyday, some amazing stuff. Not only did the guy live and they re-attached his arm, the croc lived.

Here's the story:

Surgeons have reattached a Taiwanese vet's forearm after a 200-kilogram Nile crocodile chomped it off.



The male crocodile severed Chang Po-yu's forearm at the Shaoshan Zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung when he tried to retrieve a tranquilliser dart from the reptile's hide so he could give it medication, zoo officials said.



The Liberty Times newspaper said Dr Chang failed to notice that the crocodile was not fully anaesthetised when he stuck his arm through an iron rail to medicate it.



A zoo worker shot the crocodile twice in the neck so colleagues could retrieve the arm.



It was reattached yesterday in an operation that lasted for seven hours.



"The crocodile was unharmed, as we didn't find any bullet holes on its hide," zoo official Chen Potsun said.



"It probably was shocked and opened its mouth to let go of the limb."



The 17-year-old reptile is one of a pair of Nile crocodiles kept by the zoo. Known as a man-eater because of its voracious nature, the Nile crocodile is listed as an endangered species, and is rapidly disappearing from its native African habitat.



Mr Chen said the zoo bought the crocodile 10 years ago from a local resident who had kept it as a pet.


The photo is from Reuters and here's a link to the page the story is on . . .





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