Dead ‘alien’ of Nature’s Valley: Mystery solved by autopsy
Many disappointed as a mysterious corpse thought to be an alien-like creature turns out be be only a baby baboon… but some people are still not convinced.
Some residents of South Africa’s Garden Route thought that a strange-looking body with a long, thin torso found in the Eastern Cape on Monday belonged to an extraterrestrial creature.
Other ideas of what the discovery near the famous Bloukrans Bridge Bungee Jump could be included a donkey, a tokoloshe and a badly shrivelled “dead dog.” Some jokingly described it as a Die Antwoord groupie, an axed cabinet minister or “Kate Moss sunburnt in Plettenberg Bay.”
Speculation was rife until Dr Magdalena Braum of The Crags Veterinary Clinic carried out an autopsy and confirmed that it was a baboon.
“It was a newborn female baboon, with umbilical cord still attached to her body. It was most likely killed by a bite through her scull soon after birth, possibly infanticide, which is very common in some primate species when a new male takes over the troop,” she said.
Dr Braum explained that the body was misshapen and mummified because it had been carried by the mother after death, which is quite common in baboon troops, when females carry deceased infants sometimes for as long as three to four weeks by their tail section before finally discarding them.
“That explains the unusually long and narrow mid-body segment. Other measurements are normal for a baboon infant,” she added.
However, Dr Braum did not manage to convince everyone. SANParks ranger Llewellyn Dixon, whose 17-year-old son Curt-Leigh made the initial discovery, said that many residents “still wonder.”
“The teeth did not seem like a baboon. While the head was slack, the legs were still very rigid. Some people still don’t believe it is a baboon,” he said.
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