Mountain Lion With Unsettling Deformity Puzzles Biologists
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - An Idaho mountain lion with an unusual deformity has people across the country talking.
An unidentified hunter legally harvested the lion last week near the border between Utah and Idaho. According to Idaho Fish and Game, the lion was originally spotted on December 30 attacking someone's dog. The dog survived.
A hunter went out that same day and killed the lion.
As was immediately apparent, this particular lion had a slightly unsettling deformity.
Yes, authorities believe the lion had fully-formed teeth growing out of its ear.
Fish and Game believes the teeth could be the remains of a conjoined twin that died in the womb and was absorbed into the other fetus. Biologists also think the deformity could be a teratoma tumor, a kind of tumor that allows teeth, hair, fingers and toes to grow.
Reports of mountain lions near human settlements have been steadily increasing, like in Sacramento where a bobcat wandered into the heart of the city in 2014.
