A SHARP-eyed resident captured the terrifying moment when two ducks came face-to-face with a... well, is it crocodile? an alligator? a dog? a log?

Dan, from Eccleston, sent the Star the snap which he took last weekend at Taylor Park lake - and it got readers into a heated debate on social media as to the identity of the mysterious floating object.

Dan said: “The Taylor Park terror! Who needs Loch Ness?”

Online, reader Chris Pye said: “It’s the log-ness monster”; “Nessie,” agreed Sandra Jones, while Alan Griffiths suggested it could be an alligator, adding: “They've had them in there for years.”

Michelle Smith and Town Spy declared it to be a hippo - possibly escaped from Knowsley Safari - and Jackadee One suggested “an otter”. Elsewhere, it was identified as “a plank” and a “log-osaurus, terror of the deep”.

Andy Fagan refuted the Nessie theory, saying: “I pike fish (there) about three times a week and can officially say there's no Nessie... some huge pike.. half a dozen terrapins... but no Nessie.”