Woman ‘gives birth to frog with human features’

AN Iranian newspaper has reported the controversial story of a woman who claims to have given birth to a frog.

The Iranian daily Etemaad says the creature is believed to have grown from larva to an adult frog inside her body. It was reported the woman, who has not been named, unknowingly picked up the larva while she was swimming in a dirty pool.

The woman, from the south-eastern city of Iranshahr, is a mother of two children.

The "so-called frog", as the newspaper describes it, has yet to undergo precise genetic and anatomic tests.

Medical experts were quoted as saying that there are human characteristics to the animal.

Biology expert Dr Aminifard, who was quoted in the article said:

"The similarities are in appearance, the shape of the fingers and the size and shape of the tongue."

Medical history recounts stories of people who believed they had frogs or even lizards or snakes living and growing in their bodies.

One of the most famous was the 17th century case of Catharina Geisslerin, known as 'the toad-vomiting woman' of Germany. When she died in 1662 doctors are said to have performed an autopsy, but found no evidence animals had ever lived inside her body.