Lehigh Acres, FL (News-Press) -- The gray and silver terrier mix may have fought and thrashed to escape before it died, but didn't have a chance.

The dog was found hanging from a large oak tree in Buckingham on Wednesday and police and animal services officials are seeking information from the public about the circumstances surrounding its death.

The dog may have been hanged while alive, according to the Lee County Domestic Animal Services incident report and Glenn Johnson, animal services operations manager.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office received two calls about 8 a.m. Wednesday from area residents and notified animal services, Johnson said. The animal was discovered in an area of dirt roads on the east side of Homestead Lane between Staley and Neal roads.

Its leash was tied to aOutfitted with glossy, swishing tails and fan-like fins, snailfish now come in delightful shades of pink, purple, and blue. But without the pressures of the deep sea to support them, their fragile, boneless bodies melt when they crest the surface of the sea.

This week, scientists from Newcastle University report the discovery of three new species of snailfish nearly 25,000 feet below the surface of the sea. The efforts were borne out of a collaboration between 40 scientists from 17 different nations trawling the waters of the Atacama Trench, a cavernous, rocky gash near the South American coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The trench is home to pressures approximately 750 times what we feel at sea level, and frigid temperatures just a hair above freezing.* But the newly discovered snailfish