(Original headline: Strange beast seems to have relatives )
Could it be? It looks like ... no, it can't be.
Well it's true: The mystery fox/Wampus cat/Australian dingo/baby kangaroo thing that surfaced a couple of years ago in Randolph County has kinfolk in Fuquay-Varina.
Workers at Tyco Electronics have seen a thin, long-eared animal with a spindly-looking tail, the Raleigh News & Observer reported Wednesday,
Employees call it the Tyco Animal.
People around here have another name for the pitiful-looking creature: a Sampson fox.
Bill Kurdian of eastern Randolph County photographed the animal in his back yard on May 20, 2004. Kurdian said he had seen the animal off and on for several months.
By early 2005, the state's Division of Wildlife Management in Goldsboro identified the UHO (Unidentified Hairless Object) as a fox, specifically a rare gray fox with a genetic condition.
A Sampson fox.
Mike Ratcliff, a corporate spokesman for Tyco in Harrisburg, Pa., said that's the conclusion Tyco employees received from a specialist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission this week.
He declined to let employees talk about their brush with the mystery creature.
"It's become a distraction," he said.
