"I was shocked when I saw the photograph."

Such were the words of the young man above, who after going over his photographs just a few weeks later almost fell out of his chair.

The photograph appears to have captured teenager Chris Van Namen having a rather too close encounter with a large shark as he wake boarded on Lake Macquarie in Australia.

The picture was taken by his mother, Martina Van Namen, as Chris rose from the water to stand on his wakeboard.  Mr. Van Namen himself is firmly convinced that the object in the picture was the menacing fin of a large shark that was headed straight for him.  He was only saved because he stood up at just the right moment.

For those who doubt it was a shark, the photograph was taken within days of another photograph appearing in The Daily Telegraph of a shark swimming in Lake Macquarie.

Newcastle's former shark mesher Paul Grunsell says it's only a matter of time before someone gets attacked, as the number of shark sightings continue to grow.

"From the pictures," he said, "it looks like a seven or eight-foot (2.13m or 2.43m) shark.  I'm hoping to put a proposal to Lake Macquarie City Council to net part of the lake and try and catch it."

A wise proposal, indeed.

Three-Headed Frog Discovered
by Jonathan Drake
S: Local6.com (3-5-04)

If you're a subscriber to the Authority Explorer, you've read similar headlines like this before.  Another genetic mutation, and like the majority of mutations, this one wasn't beneficial either.

It's truly a freak of nature ... rather, they're truly a freak of nature.  Wildlife experts in Britain are stunned by the apparent discovery of a frog with three croaking heads and six legs.

Reportedly found at a children's day nursery in the English village of Weston Super-Mare in Somerset, the staff at the Green Umbrella nursery first thought it was three frogs huddled together.  After closer examination, however, they realized that the the frogs were joined together.

The frog(s) have apparently been able to survive thus far in the wild, and were said to have hopped away after some photographs were taken.

A wildlife biologist said a reason for the three-headed frog’s development could have been damage to the embryo.

Whatever the case, we truly hope the frogs are doing well.

Yellow Shark Is One In A Million
by Jonathan Robison
S: SMH.com (3-30-04)

It's the beautiful (though harmful) result of a rare genetic mutation;  a two-year-old bright yellow Port Jackson shark that is now delighting visitors at the Sydney Aquarium in Australia.  

The male baby shark, known as Mango, was caught by a fisherman who picked him up in a net on the Hawkesbury River about five months ago.  He was an even bigger catch, however, for the aquarium, his new home, where he is the first of his kind to be seen in 15 years.

According to experts, the chances of finding a florescent shark like Mango are one in a million.

"With the shark being such a bright color its chance of survival in the wild would be slim," said Hamish Tristram, an aquarist.  "The animal would not camouflage itself and hide from predators.  "In the future, hopefully we will be able to breed from him."

Mango is a "fairly-well adjusted shark" according to staff, and "tends to swim for a bit and then rest."  He's not expected to change color, and could reach up to about four and a half feet (1.4 meters) in length.

TOP