Mouthy fish gets into Harvard

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – People may need top grades to get into Ivy League schools. But for a fish, all it took was two mouths to get into Harvard University.

The head of a double-jawed fish pulled from Holmes Lake will be off to Harvard next week. James Lee, a research fellow at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, contacted now-famous fisherman Clarence Olberding about donating his curious catch for research.

“I’m interested in seeing what the actual jaw anatomy is,” Lee said. He wants to determine whether the extra jaw is a result of an injury, or if it’s an actual jaw.

Olberding, 57, caught the two-mouthed rainbow trout last Saturday. After taking a couple of photos, he cut off the head and put both pieces in the freezer.

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission fisheries officials said the deformity may be a genetic mutation, but that the fish is fine to eat.

The fish head will eventually be on display, crediting Olberding with the donation and catch.

“I wish I would have kept it intact and had it mounted,” he said. “But I think it’s going to the right place.”

Rotten clam shows its pearly purple

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (AP) – A clam that a Portsmouth couple thought was rotten turned out to hold a rare gem: a purple pearl that could be worth lots of money.

It happened earlier this month when Barbara Krensavage brought home about four dozen quahogs from a Newport seafood restaurant. Her husband, Thaddeus or “Ted,” was shucking them when he came across one he thought was diseased. Upon closer inspection, the couple found the pearl.

“We’re finding out there’s only a handful on Earth,” Barbara Krensavage said. “We were excited, biting it and everything.”

Some experts estimate that only 1 in 100,000 quahog clams contains a pearl, and 1 in 20 of those pearls is of gem quality. That puts the odds on the Krensavages’ find at 1 in 2 million.

Pa. town bans druggie snowman

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) – Frosty’s still cool. It’s another snowman that officials in one western Pennsylvania school district say isn’t so hot.

Greater Johnstown Schools superintendent Barbara Parkins said she was forced to clarify a ban on one particular type of snowman garb – a T-shirt with a menacing snowman design – after some students and parents thought the ban extended to other holiday-themed clothing.

The design on the banned T-shirt was popularized by drug-dealer-turned-rapper Young Jeezy. The snowman with an angry look on his face symbolizes those who sell cocaine, which is known on the street as snow.

Some parents thought all snowman attire was off limits, and even believed the ban extended to snowflakes and other holiday designs, Parkins said.

“We aren’t letting our students wear the Young Jeezy T-shirt,” Parkins said. “Snowmen aren’t banned from our schools.”