Update: A coroner's official tells the L.A. Times the lungs were from an animal. First posted at 8:30 a.m. Monday.

Another possible chapter in the 2012 Zombie Apocalypse?

A pair of lungs was discovered by the side of the road in unincorporated South Los Angeles near Compton on Sunday afternoon, according to City News Service. A woman walking by the discarded organ reportedly snapped a photo, which she sent to her local sheriff's station later that night.

The case has since been transferred to the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau…

… meaning authorities strongly suspect the lungs could be human (although the L.A. County Coroner's Office says they have “not been examined yet”).

Creepy. But creepier still is that nobody reported this very conspicuous body part until almost an entire day had passed. Especially given their very public resting place:

The woman reportedly discovered them in the 13100 block of Avalon Boulevard, right in front of a CVS parking lot. Across the street is local dive bar The Boom Boom Room, and a Popeye's sits at the nearest intersection.


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“It was right there on the sidewalk at the start of a driveway,” Lieutenant Jack DeMello tells City News. “You'd think someone would see someone throw it out there.”

Yes, yes, you would. But amid this grisly new American apocalypse — crawling with zombies and cannibals and dismembered body parts— you never know what you'll find on a South L.A. sidewalk on a Sunday afternoon.

We've contacted homicide detectives for the latest.

[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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