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Town officials recently confessed that Wiarton Willie, Canada's beloved groundhog prognosticator, died weeks before his big day on Tues., Feb. 2. The discrepancy has tainted the somber mourning of a small town--scandal and suspicion that Willie's fame may have been a farce all along have replaced the customary rites reserved for the dead.

Newspaper photos that appeared the day after Groundhog Day showed
a clean Willie, face-up in his cof-
fin, but other reports described his
body as decomposed and indicated
that he had probably been dead for several weeks.

For more info--and a great laugh--surf over to http://www.wiarton-willie.org, where Mother Nature assures the world that Willie "did not suffer," and insists that "the hog himself requested that his early death be concealed." Those Canadians must be lacing their beer with some good stuff if they believe a groundhog has been talking to them.

When porcupines attack

An army of several hundred ravenous porcupines invaded a palm oil plantation in the center of the Indonesian island of Borneo on Mon., Feb. 8. The creatures devoured hundreds of trees and frightened visitors. Officials have not yet determined the cause of these predations.

Naturalists said the porcupines had never been known to attack trees and preferred to spend their time in the road popping tires with their quills.

Don't touch the glass

Two extra-legged crocodiles kicked their way out of a glass case at a zoo in Thailand and proceeded to terrorize tourists. No one was bitten, but the torrent of water swept two boys about six yards away from the tank.

The reptiles, one with six legs and one with five, were the centerpiece of a 50th anniversary celebration at Samut Prakarn on Mon., Feb. 8. Despite their extra appendages, the crocodiles did not escape quickly enough to avoid re-capture by zoo workers. Better luck next time, boys.

--Compiled by Andrew Swan from Reuters and the Toronto Star.

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