A couple of photos of an alleged creature are being shared widely on social media with a claim that it is a dangerous animal which has been spotted going from Gujarat to Rajasthan. Farmers are being warned to stay alert and safe. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photos of a dangerous animal which was spotted going from Gujarat to Rajasthan.
Fact: The creature in the photos is not real. It is a hyper-realistic silicon sculpture made by an Italian artist – ‘Laira Maganuco’. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When the photos were run through Google Reverse Image Search, similar photos of the same creature were found to be uploaded on Instagram by a user (‘Laira Maganuco’). She has posted the same photo in July 2019 with the description – ‘armadillo hybrid’. She calls herself – ‘Hyper Realism Silicon Sculptor’. Many other hyper-realistic sculptures can be seen on her profile. Also, she posted a video and other pictures of the same sculpture on her Facebook account in October 2018.
The same sculpture is also for sale on the ‘Etsy’ website. In the product description, it can be read that it has been ‘carved entirely by hand in acetic silicone paste’.
The information regarding the ‘real’ Armadillos can be found on the ‘National Geographic’ website.
To sum it up, the photos of a hyper-realistic silicon sculpture are falsely shared as those of a dangerous animal roaming in Gujarat-Rajasthan.
