John O’Reilly, a forest manager in western Ireland, could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the grainy video on his phone, sent to him by a truck driver. There, slinking through the woodlands of County Clare, in Ireland, was the impossible: a stocky, tan-coloured animal with a shaggy mane and tufted tail, lumbering into the trees and then out of view.

“You’re saying, ‘Christ, that couldn’t be what it looks like?’” O’Reilly recalled.

A lion? Here?

The video began spreading on news sites and social media in Ireland, prompting both speculation and scepticism.

After nearly a week, Ireland’s police force, known as An Garda Síochána, solved the confounding case. The creature was no apex predator. It was a shaggy Newfoundland dog. Its name? Mouse.

“Gardaí from Killaloe have concluded that

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