Jackalopes

In the slightly gross yet fascinating category, it seems that jackalopes are not entirely fictional things, but rather are just rabbits infected with a virus, the Shope papillomavirus, which seems to be spread by insect bites. Here are some pics of cute bunny rabbits made somewhat grotesque by this infection. The virus is limited to rabbits, however there is a human equivalent -- SideshowWorld.com has an article which tell more about the history of the jackalope as well as some pics of the human equivalent. This seems like it is not entirely implausible, as this recently Dugg story from the Yemen Observer about a 102 year old man who has had a horn that began to grow in his seventies, broke off, and kept growing back.