Last year it was a wandering manatee playing peekaboo in the Chesapeake Bay. This year, a Baltimore teen-ager hooks a caiman in the Patapsco. I know it's been hot enough lately to make a Floridian feel right at home, but really, is this weird, or what?

Erick Hammack Jr., 16, of Pumphrey, told the Sun's Frank Roylance he snagged the 2 1/2 to 3 foot caiman - a cousin of the alligator - on a line baited with chicken wing. The critter turned up in a pond off Belle Grove Road in Patapsco Valley State Park.

Climate scientists have predicted Maryland could eventually warm up enough to rival Daytona for hosting spring break. But this wayward tropical reptile has a more mundane reason for showing up here, most likely. Even though alligators and caimans are illegal to have as pets in Maryland, people bring them in anyway, it seems.  Authorities say they find one or two in the wild practically every year, released (also illegally) after the owner decides the it's grown too big or nasty to keep.

At least it wasn't another snakehead, the toothy Asian fish that sparked a media frenzy several summers ago.

(Photo by Thea Hammack)