What's in these Images from Thailand?

Not a lot of text accompanying the pictures in the The Daily Express article but it appears the unfortunate animal was photographed in High Rock, Wanghin in Thailand, died shortly after birth and is thought to bring good fortune to the villagers.

Weird animal with 'body of buffalo and head of crocodile' baffles everyone

With scaly skin and calf-like hooves, the bizarre animal looks like a genetic mutation between a buffalo and a crocodile.

The creature, which was found in Thailand, appears to have the rough, scaly head of a reptile and limbs and hooves of a mammal.

Clearly hybrids of crocodiles and buffalo don't exist but what exactly are we looking at? The hooves do in fact look like those of a buffalo and I'm thinking the overall size is consistent with a newborn buffalo. My first thought looking at the hind legs is a genetic disease, perhaps some form of ichthyosis but I'm not entirely certain; the head looks almost like it's been charred somehow. In fact all of the affected areas are considerably darker but I suppose that could be pigmentation. There's also something that appears to be a dusting of a white powdery substance across its back, possibly some sort of caustic agent?

It's a Bisonator.
It will be back....

My first thought is some kind of deformed komodo dragon.

Really weird looking animal either way.

Throw it on the fire... See if it tastes like chicken... In that part of the world it is surely a cure for erectile dysfunction or fertility... Penis problem? Eat anything gross and weird.

Edit to add.... It is obviously a calf, look at the nose, look at the back legs where they were bound. They put the animal in the fire skin and all... Just getting ready for a feast of some sort.
oo it still has the tag on it's ear.

Mangled baby water buffalo with some kind of skin disease.

wow,that is one of the weirdest things ive ever seen! It looks to have mange or some strange skin condition.The head looks alot like a komodo dragon,and the hooves do look bovine in nature....Id say its a hoax of some sort to be honest though.

died shortly after death

Ummm..what?
Anyway, this animal is surely weird one..

I understand Thai somewhat and from what I can hear... The first guy says this isn't a Croc, there's no Croc that look like this. Lady chimes in and says Pha Yha Nak (Naga, serpent-like creature in Thai folklore.) then ask if someone can tie it. First guy again says he has never seen something like this in his whole life and at the end someone says the feet looks like Elephant's feet...

Rough translation, but thats basically it I think.

im sure DNA sample can be extracted and solved in mins.

If not legit then the "body" will "mysteriously" disappear.

a reply to: theantediluvian

The Mrs. and I both agree. It's either a calf with some sort of disease, like harlequin-type ichthyosis, or there's a mad scientist creating croco-bulls.

a reply to: wastedown

oo it still has the tag on it's ear.

I noticed that too but I wasn't sure if it was a fold of skin or a ring of some sort.

It kind of looks like a hippo to me.

a reply to: calstorm

i think you may be right...but are there hippo's in thailand?

Does that look like croc scales running from it's nose down to it's tail, yikes!

It has to be genetically manipulated, you just can't morph into looking like a completely different species of animal by chance, looks like a hypo or buffalo that has a croc head and what appears to be scales on it as well. Strange!

Makes one wonder why the Egyptians depicted glyphs of hybrid animals, possibly depicting what they saw and *cough* worshiped as gods.

a reply to: theantediluvian
Looks like a water buffalo calf that's been burned to me
Unable to upload an image on this device, but google water buffalo calf images and see for yourselves

originally posted by: luciddream
im sure DNA sample can be extracted and solved in mins.

If not legit then the "body" will "mysteriously" disappear.

Not in minutes, but surely solvable ..

By the way, how do they know this died shortly after birth and birth from what? Although, I think that lady said around the :28 - :29 mark that it's basically too big to be a (baby?) calf.

a reply to: theantediluvian

So in the 90's there was a movie called existenz. I don't know why but that movie came to mind when I saw that picture. Had some crazy restaurant in the movie and people would eat plate fills of crazy critters. Odd

a reply to: theantediluvian

Awww spit…. now waaay. Its a dog thats been blowtorched to death to improve the taste of the meat

Assholes

i think the length of the tail and the hoof pads give it away as a hippo....but again.....are there hippos in thailand....if the pic IS from there