Last week, National Georgraphic News did a little article on that mysterious, wonderful creature who appeared in Tyco's back yard in North Carolina.

The slender creature has a kangaroo-shaped head, big upright ears, and a long ratlike tail.

I think it sounded prettier when I described it a couple of weeks ago, but never mind. National Geographic probably knows more about what animals look like than I do.

In any case, the prestigious source of animal news has come down on the Sampson Fox side of the what-is-it debate. They even quote a biologist, one Perry Sumner, of the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission. Ah, but just what is a Sampson fox? It's a fox with a genetic condition that causes the absence of a layer of fur called guard hair, making the little fox look bald.

Without this thick outer coat for protection, the normally nocturnal fox would be forced to hunt during the day when it's warm and sleep under heated buildings at night.

Sumner says this genetic disorder probably affects less than one percent of the fox population, so it still makes the Tyco animal a rare creature, even if not the mythical beast we'd all been hoping for. But different folks have different ideas when it comes to animal mysteries.

"Half the people want to hunt it and study it postmortem," Durazo [a Tyco employee] said. "The other half says it looks skinny and we need to feed it."