Strange things are found in animal’s stomachs all the time, but this bizarre discovery could reopen a 50-year-old cold case.
Only in Australia
The Koorana Crocodile Farm in Queensland, Australia has been open since 1981. They pride themselves on having happy, healthy, and enormous crocodiles that can live up to 70-years-old and can grow up to 20 feet long. This is a sanctuary for crocodiles, to shield them from the harms of pollution and poachers.
The Man Who Knows
John Lever is the owner of Koorana Crocodile Farm, and he is the resident expert on these saltwater crocodiles. He has seen plenty of strange things come through his crocodile farm, but nothing quite like what was in the stomach of his favorite crocodile, MJ…
MJ the Beast
MJ was the largest and oldest crocodile in the sanctuary. She had lived there for the back half of her life, nearly 20 years. Lever took a liking to this crocodile because she had been there for so long, and she considered herself to be the guardian of the sanctuary.
Disaster Strikes
One day, while relaxing in her bog, another crocodile got aggressive and attacked MJ while she wasn’t paying attention. Neither of the crocodiles were mortally wounded, and they stopped fighting almost immediately, but the minor injuries that MJ sustained proved too much to deal with for the old croc…
How the Mighty Fall
MJ stopped eating, she stopped moving around as much, and she stopped being active when John Lever would enter her pen. Lever knew that she was about to pass away, so he made sure she was comfortable in her final days. When the time came, MJ passed away peacefully at the age of 50-70.
For Science
John Lever called some of his friends to come and perform an autopsy. He liked to do this with the older crocodiles because it gave him more insight into the lifestyle of the particular croc. Since MJ had been living in the sanctuary for so long, Lever wanted to learn what she was doing beforehand. When cutting open her stomach, Levy made a discovery that completely baffled him…
Down the Hatch
Lever pulled a surgical plate out of MJ’s stomach. This steel surgical bar with six screws likely was attached to the bone of a human or a domesticated animal, which raised a ton of questions. MJ had been living within the 100-kilometer radius around the sanctuary her entire life before capture, so if this did belong to a person, they would have had to be from Queensland.
Who Done It?
Since MJ was 50-70 years old, it is very possible that she had eaten someone in the distant past when crocodiles roamed freely around Queensland. It is also likely that MJ sneakily consumed a local domesticated dog, but that was unlikely since the steel plate was sized for a human leg…
These Are the Facts
So, the last fatal crocodile attack to happen in Australia was in October 2018, when a woman who was digging for shellfish ran across a saltwater crocodile, which immediately attacked and ate her. A year prior to that, a 79-year-old dementia patient escaped from a nursing home and wandered into a bay, where she was eaten as well.
The Chances are Low
Fatal crocodile attacks are very infrequent in Queensland, but since the crocodile population has been springing up exponentially since the 1970s, there is a slight chance that this could have been the fate of a missing person who never returned…
Who Can it Be Now?
There were no human bones or flesh digesting in MJ’s stomach when she was given the autopsy, which tells us that if she did eat a person, it had been a very long time since then. Bones can take anywhere between one and 20 years to break down in crocodile stomach acid.
Taking a Shot in the Dark
Knowing that, the Queensland police decided to open some of the missing person’s cold cases from the past. Many theories were made, and multiple lines were drawn, but in the end, one piece of empirical evidence changed the perception of this situation indefinitely…
They Found Nothing!
There were no missing persons in Queensland that had any history of receiving a surgical implant. That means that this plate either belonged to a non-reported missing person, or it could have just been in the trash floating around where MJ previously lived.
No Way to Explain it
John Lever identified that this object was most likely in MJ’s stomach for 30-50 years. So, even if this surgical plate belonged to a person, their flesh and bones would have completely digested by the time of MJ’s death. There are a few theories as to how this went down, but one is more scientific than the others…
Gastroliths
Many reptiles, birds, and some mammals swallow rocks and other hard objects to aid digestion. Prior to contrary belief, lizards are actually pretty stupid. It’s easy for a human to differentiate a steel plate from a rock, but everything is a rock to crocodiles. There is a high chance that MJ swallowed that steel plate for this reason, but why would the steel plate even be in a bog in the first place?
Potential Foul Play
Although there are no missing persons from Queensland that had and surgical implants, there is potential that someone from somewhere else brought a body to Queensland and fed them to a crocodile to get rid of the evidence. This would make sense, but it would be borderline impossible to prove that anyone actually did this…
Nothing We Can Do Now
Due to the lack of evidence, and the fact that this steel plate was potentially inside MJ for up to 50 years, it doesn’t really make sense to speculate upon this too much. John Lever, for one, is not particularly worried about it.
Janitors of the Bog
When crocodiles, like MJ, start to get comfortable in their dwellings, they tend to like to keep them clean. Any trash, creatures, and sediment that floats around in their homes usually get scooped up and deposited somewhere else, or eaten. This is the most likely theory of the bunch…
Following Up With John
John Lever is sad his favorite croc is gone, but this mystery is still perplexing him. Since there is nothing that anyone can do, he turned all the evidence over to the Queensland police in hopes that someday he can get to the bottom of this bizarre event.
Strangely Enough…
People finding unusual items in the stomachs of animals isn’t too uncommon. There have been a ton of reported cases over the years, and some might totally shock you…
A Squid
When gutting a squid, a Chinese fisherman struck a live bomb with his knife. Thankfully, the bomb didn’t go off, and authorities were called. A bomb specialist team removed the object from the scene and confirmed that it was a live explosive that could have blown up at any time.
A Tiger Shark
In 1994, a tiger shark was dissected and an entire suit of armor was found in its body. This armor was complete with a helm, shield, and a sheathed dagger. Nobody knows how this happened, nobody has any plausible theories.
A Lake Trout
A fisherman in Wyoming found a severed human thumb in the stomach of a trout that he caught. The thumb was eventually traced down to belong to a man named Robert Lindsey, whos digit was severed by a boat propeller, a year earlier.
A Tortoise
A tortoise that was living in a pond next to a tourist attraction in Thailand was found wit nearly 1,000 coins in its stomach. It is theorized that these coins were consumed when tourists threw coins into the lake for good luck. The money was successfully extracted but later killed by the metallic poisoning.
A Dog
A Florida dog named Hooch was unable to eat, so his owners took him to the vet. An x-ray unveiled that there was a cluster of nails and staples in his stomach, which the doctors were successfully able to remove.
An Ostrich
For some reason, an ostrich had a human glove and multiple handkerchiefs in his stomach. Those were the objects that killed him, but there were also various pieces of metal, a rope, and coins in his stomach. This ostrich was in captivity at a zoo, and these items were reportedly thrown into his cage.
Jumbo The Elephant
This famous circus attraction was dissected when he passed away, and an entire scrapyard was found in his stomach. He had an entire antique store’s worth of miscellaneous objects in his stomach including keys, a police whistle, a baseball bat, and a sack of pennies.
A Frog
A frog was found dead with an abnormality in its stomach. When brought to a vet for observation, the vets found that there were 12 pebbles in the frog’s stomach. Nobody knows why he would have done this.
An Alligator
Only in Alabama could this have happened, an entire live deer was found inside the stomach of an alligator. The deer weighed 100 pounds and was full grown. In addition to that, two undigested squirrels were also found in the stomach of this gator.
A Mako Shark
A mako shark was being dissected for an ecology class in a master’s program. When the stomach was opened, the group of classmates found an entire sea lion in the gut of this beast.
A Gray Whale
This one makes the least amount of sense. A Gray Whale was found dead on an ice flow in the south pole. Upon dissection, a singular golf ball was found inside its stomach.