It’s a mystery as hard to grab hold of as the slippery serpents supposedly at its centre: were the 43 unidentified eggs found in a sandpit at a school on the New South Wales mid-north coast snakes, or something less sinister? Snake social media went into meltdown on Tuesday when reports emerged that wildlife rescuers had been called in to remove a dozen mystery eggs from a sandpit at a school near the coastal town of Laurieton, 350km north of Sydney. The eggs caused a stir when they were widely reported as belonging to one of Australia’s deadliest reptiles, the eastern brown snake.

But now doubt has been cast over whether they were snake eggs at all, with experts questioning whether a snake could bury its eggs in the sand.(theguardian)…[+]