Yes, this is real.

At work Julie had a pile of patterns I was helping her transfer into Illustrator. Somehow I shuffled through the patterns quite a few times without seeing this:


Yes, a real fingernail in one of the bags. We think it is acrylic. Who looses an acrylic nail without noticing, then puts it into a bag and gives it to a coworker? We do not know. Nor have we asked. But we have thought of a lot of good things to do with the fingernail (none of which involves any of us actually touching it with our hands).