Mississippi couple find 'strange animal' in toilet bowl

CLINTON, Miss., Sept. 25 (UPI) -- A Mississippi couple returning from their honeymoon shared pictures of a mysterious "strange animal" they discovered in the bowl of their toilet.

Carol-Anne and Ronald Morris said they had just returned from their honeymoon Sept. 18 when they looked into the toilet and beheld a bizarre sight.

"I didn't know [what it was]," Carol-Anne Morris told WAPT-TV. "I mean, I stood there for a second and I was like, 'I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing.' The whiskers, the ears, just right there."

Ronald Morris described the sight to WJTV as a "big brown mass, and beside this had ears and whiskers on it...it was very shocking."

The couple posted pictures of the creature to social media in the hopes of identifying it, and friends variously suggested it could be a rat, mole, squirrel or other small rodent.

Experts at the Jackson Zoo were equally stumped.

"It's just really hard to tell. I can't even give you a good guess," zoo director Beth Poff said after viewing the photos.

Plumbers said there are a number of ways the animal could have gotten into the toilet bowl, including coming up through the sewer.

"It's going to have to have traveled all through the sewer in your house, came up into your actual line for your house all the way through your front yard," plumber Wesley Brisendine said.

Ronald Morris said he and Carol-Anne have accepted that they might never know the identity of the creature, but he said the incident taught them both a valuable lesson: "Make sure to look before you sit down."