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b'As we get closer and closer to Halloween, the monsters get weirder and weirder! This week let\\u2019s look at two mystery animals from Scotland, one of which is supposed to break into coffins and eat the bodies! That\\u2019s disgusting!\\n\\nA stoat in its winter ermine coat:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe Russian desman:\\n\\n \\n\\nShow transcript:\\n\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\n\\nWe\\u2019re one week closer to Halloween and things are getting spookier and spookier. This week, we\\u2019ll learn about two mystery animals from Scotland. One of them poisons the water it lives in, and the other breaks into coffins to eat dead bodies. oh my gosh that\\u2019s horrible\\n\\nThe lavellan was supposed to be a rat-like rodent but bigger than a rat with an oversized head, and with a venomous bite. It lived in marshes and in deep pools along rivers, and its presence was enough to poison the water it lived in. If cattle drank the water, they would die.\\n\\nIt\\u2019s possible that the lavellan was just a story to keep children away from marshy areas and deep water. But it\\u2019s also possible that it might be based on a real animal.\\n\\nThe name lavellan is the same name used in Scottish Gaelic for the water shrew and water vole. The water shrew is big for a shrew, but small in comparison to a rat, only 4\\u201d long, or 10 cm, not counting its long tail. The water shrew does have a venomous bite, but it\\u2019s not powerful enough to kill a cow. It eats small fish, snails and small crustaceans, insects, amphibians, and small rodents. The water vole is about twice the length of the water shrew, but with a relatively short tail. It mostly eats plants, although it sometimes also eats frogs and tadpoles. It\\u2019s also not venomous.\\n\\nBut before we talk any more about the lavellan, we need to learn about the earth hound.\\n\\nThe earth hound, or yard pig, is supposed to be a rat-like animal that lives in burrows and is occasionally unearthed when plowing. It\\u2019s the one that is supposed to dig into graveyards, break into coffins, and eat the dead bodies.\\n\\nWe know more about the earth hound than the lavellan, largely due to a letter in the archives of the Natural Museums of Scotland.\\n\\nThe letter was written by a man named Smith of Wartle, who in 1917 wrote to James Ritchie in Edinburgh. Smith\\u2019s letter said that the father of a local gardener had dug up an earth hound while plowing in 1867 or thereabouts. The animal bit his boot when he kicked at it, biting so hard that it cut through the leather. The man beat it to death with the plow\\u2019s singletree.\\n\\nSmith reported that the animal was dark brown, the size of a ferret but shaped roughly like a rat with a more doglike head, and a bushy tail that was about half the length of a rat\\u2019s tail. The head was long and the nostrils piglike, and it had white tusks\\u2014probably incisors. And it had feet like a mole\\u2019s, which makes sense if it is a burrowing animal.\\n\\nStories of the earth hound are still around in parts of rural northern Scotland. The animal is said to be seldom seen, often lives in churchyards, and likes areas around rivers. But is this a real animal, maybe one that\\u2019s either rare or now extinct? Or is it just an interesting bit of folklore?\\n\\nEarth hound and earth pig are local names for the badger, but it\\u2019s clear this animal isn\\u2019t a badger. In Smith\\u2019s letter, he mentions that \\u201cAt a casual glance it would be mistaken for a rat, but was quite unlike on close examination.\\u201d\\n\\nThe first thing I did was make a drawing, going by the description given of the 1867 animal. It turned out to look like a small, skinny-tailed otter with rat teeth\\u2014but while otters do dig burrows, do live near water, and are carnivorous and might occasionally snack on carrion if they happened upon a fresh body, they\\u2019re also much larger than the earth hound. Plus, everyone knows what an otter looks like. Plus, no one could look at an otter and mistake it for a rat.\\n\\nThe lavellan is a folktale reported from Caithness and Sutherland in the highlands of Scotland,'