In what is easy one of theweirdest press releasesNew Zealand ’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research ( NIWA ) has put out , the bureau herald it had unearthed a fully functioning USB effort from a cumulation of frozen leopard seal poop .

The photo scientist found on it are the only clues of its owner , and the agency is offer to return it to that person for a price .

take care , animals are prone to devour all sorts of thing . Theyslurp up peeandguzzle raspberry tears . But in the increasingly blue hellscape of modernity , human race have introduced animals to a wide grasp of deadlier daintiness , fromall form of plasticstoknivesandtoxic chemical . The USB drive is just the latest gain to the work of dystopian animal meal .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

The bizarre case of the USB drive began on Oreti Beach in November 2017 , a windswept stretch of grit flank by dunes on the southerly tip of New Zealand ’s South Island . There , NIWA says a vet decease to check on a emaciated Panthera pardus Navy SEAL and like any normal person , settle to trump a pile of nincompoop to send to researchers with leopardseals.org . The group relies on Volunteer to send it seal two so that they can get a handle on what the seals are eating . They have awhole pageon the right way to pull in and beam them discovery ( turn over out an icing pick container is the preferred vessel ) if rummage around for sealskin poop sounds like your idea of a undecomposed time .

NIWA is searching for the proprietor of a USB stick find in the poo of a Panthera pardus seal … Recognise this video ? scientist analysing the scat singing of leopard seals have come across an unexpected discovery – a USB stick full of photos & still in work order!https://t.co/2SZVkm5az4pic.twitter.com / JLEC8vuHH0

— NIWA ( @niwa_nz)February 5 , 2019

William Duplessie

This peculiar stool sampling was freeze for a twelvemonth before researchers finally found the time to dismantle it . NIWA offer a helpful description of the operation of how one take apart a sealing wax turd tower from one of the volunteers who unearth the USB ride :

“ [ W]e fundamentally have to sift it . You put it under the cold-blooded rap , get all the gross stuff off , smoosh it around a minute and severalize the pearl , feathers , seaweed and other stuff . ”

candidly , that all sound like double-dyed stuff . In any case , this sifting process turn up a USB ride that not only worked , but has telecasting and pic of sea lions . The only clues of who the USB owner ’s identity are footage of a patrician kayak and the fact that they were at some point likely hang out with leopard seals . If that go like you , well , NIWA is uncoerced to return your precious , excreta - incrust memories , but the agency tell it ’ll only yield the drive if you institutionalise them more leopard seal dookie , the skill equivalent of beam nude .

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Animals

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