TEATOWN, NY- Not since Fraggles were found in the salad bar at a lower Manhattan Wendy's has there been such an uproar in the food industry. Snapple beverage company announced on Wednesday that it had received and was in the process of investigating numerous reports that individuals on the west coast had found live or slightly injured Snorks in bottles of Snapple Lemon Tea and Snapple Diet Kiwi Strawberry.

Just from watching the cartoon, it might be difficult to gauge the exact size of an average Snork, but empirical evidence suggests that typical specimens are approximately Snapple bottle sized.

According to Phineas Gage Lincoln, former director of quality control at Snapple, it is not uncommon for strange and exciting animals to occasionally make their way into the water supply at the Snapple factory. “One time we found a womprat floating in the lemonade tank. Boy did it stink!” Lincoln observed, “Another time I saw a gummy bear in the parking lot. Near a dumpster. He was covered in fur, and then he drank from a little flask that looked like raspberry Snapple and jumped over the building in a single bound.”

One of the individuals who claims to have found a Snork in their delicious (and refreshing) Snapple brand beverage spoke to a reporter for this publication by phone. The shock and awe was palpable in her voice. “I opened up the Snapple, and this little person thingy popped out - he had a lot of energy, which, like makes hella sense, right? Because he had been like drinking all of the ice tea, and it wasn't diet. Like half the bottle was gone. And I was like, whoa! that's a Snork!”

While Snorks were previously thought to be involved in a number of food tampering incidents (as well as for the sinking of the USS Maine and the Kon-Tiki raft) most evolutionary biologists maintain that the last known surviving Snork community was destroyed sometime in the late 1970's. However SCUBA divers and dolphins have continued to report occasional sightings over the last two decades.

In an early morning press conference famed Harvard professor E.O. Wilson commented that “... it makes a lot of sense, really, Snapple and Snork are genetically-phonetically linked.” Wilson also added that despite the long held claims of extinction, based largely on the unrelated and coincidental cancellation of a children's television show, in fact, at least 20% of the world's biodiversity, and at least $2.6 trillion in its economic ecological footprint was likely in Snorks. Wilson further hinted that since the total number of individual Snork species on the globe was literally “beyond calculation,” it's no wonder that a few of “nature's favorite Darwinian Snorkels” would end up in your drink. “I like to think of them as a bonus,” concluded Wilson, “or at least some sort of a drinking straw”, the Harvard professor admitted, enjoying his delectable sugary brand name liquid in an unconventional way.

There is no word yet as to when or whether Snapple will voluntarily recall bottles of their delicious (and refreshing) beverage from other states, but the New York Times has received reports from stores in Washington state, Oregon, and California claiming that many bottles of Snapple seem to have been mysteriously removing themselves. As a result, Snapple has arranged for CSI: Miami to be brought out to investigate.  HSP