Lake Creature With 'Legs' Stumps Central Floridians

local6 ^ | July 28, 2008

[stainlessbanner]

Shawna Mitchell said she was "freaked out a little bit" after pulling the creature to a pier.

[SolidWood]

[jwparkerjr]

Monster tadpole?

[Sacajaweau]

How big is the thing?? 4 inches or 6 feet long??

[eastforker]

And Bass and catfish love em. That big ol plastic worm fishermen use actually replicates these animals, only the smaller version.

[KeepUSfree]

Awesomely cool animals. I hope she didn’t kill it.

[Abathar]

Darwin would like this conundrum I think....

[JBR34]

It looks more like a politician to me.

[BenLurkin]

[Bob Buchholz]

Stories of Florida’s walking catfish have been around for years. I remember sitting on the couch with my mother, watching the old black & white news story and asking my mother what we were going to do if they made it to Oklahoma. She looked at me kind of puzzled then said ‘I guess we’d have to shoot the bastards’. I think this was only the first or second time I had ever heard my mother curse.

[andy58-in-nh]

It looks more like a politician to me.

Hmm... a scum-sucking bottom feeder with two legs and no apparent backbone or sex organs. You might be right.

[Salamander]

Barbarians!!!!!

[eastforker]

Many years ago we had a ditch not far from the house that stayed full of water except one year we had a severe dry spell. As the ditchstarted to dry up my boys was digging around in the mud and found one of these guys. Did some research on it back then, found out they are quite plentiful but rarely seen. Had an old fisherman tell me that yes they make excelent bait and stay alive on the hook for a long time.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I hope she didn’t kill it.

Me too. It's disturbing that the article didn't address that, as if it's irrelevant.

[Red Badger]

[fleagle]

[mnehring]

I don’t know why they are confused, it is a Lungfish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish

In addition to the little legs, it also has lungs.

[Little Ray]

Its a big salamander or a newt. No big deal. Except that it might be endangered - they they have problem.

[mad puppy]

Probably tastes like chicken

[VeniVidiVici]

Now THAT was funny!