Jun 06 (soranews24.com) - On 22 May, 80-year-old office worker Eiji Okamoto was out enjoying that natural scenery of Yanaizu Kokuzoson, a Buddhist temple in the mountains outside Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture.
On his way back to the parking lot, Okamoto felt a presence behind him, turning around he saw a very unusual animal standing 30 meters away
“I thought it was a sign from God,” Okamoto told the local news, who determined that the image was not doctored and because of the horn and fur, it can only be a single animal rather than two juxtaposed with each other.
Luckily the Tohoku Wildlife Conservation and Management Center in nearby Sendai City had a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. This animal is a Japanese serow, a type of goat found in many parts of the country.
A notable feature of these majestic beasts are their subocular glands which secrete a substance that the goats use to mark their territory by rubbing on rocks or trees. The goat in this photograph apparently hasn’t been doing enough marking because its glands have swollen to such a size and sheen that they resemble an extra pair of eyeballs.
