The real Moby Dick, an ancient cannibal

When a group of palaeontologists stumbled on a few large bones in a desert in Peru, they thought they were elephant tusks.

But it turned out the bones, some the size of a human shin bone, were teeth.

Further excavation revealed an almost complete three-metre-long skull and mandible, or lower jaw, that belonged to the mammoth mouth of a newly found but extinct species of sperm whale.

European researchers discovered the fossils, believed to be about 13 million years old, in the Pisco-Ica Desert in southern Peru while on an expedition in 2008.

The whale, nicknamed Moby Dick, was between 13 and 18 metres long and lived during the Miocene epoch - when sea levels could have been more than 50 metres higher than today.

The extinct species, dubbed Leviathan melvillei after Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, were raptorial feeders which caught their prey individually.

Their bite, from more than 30 teeth, some more than 10 centimetres wide, could be the biggest of any animal that has swum or roamed the planet.


With teeth so big, the whale probably wasn't a gentle giant of the ocean. It is quite possible their main source of food was other cetaceans, such as baleen whales, said the researchers, whose findings were published in the journal Nature.

"This sperm whale could firmly hold large prey with its interlocking teeth, inflict deep wounds and tear large pieces from the body of the victim," the researchers said.

Leviathan melvillei differ from modern-day sperm whales which, despite being one of the world's largest predators, feed mainly on squid. Modern sperm whales, which have small teeth in their lower jaw and are almost toothless in their upper jaw, use a suction technique to catch their dinner.

Scientists believe this ancient species of sperm whale died out as a result of the global cooling at the end of the Neogene period, less than 5 million years ago.

The fossil bones will be displayed in the Museo de Historia Natural in Lima.

New Montauk Monster sighting? Bizarre creature washes up in small Ontario town

Locals in a small Canadian town have been stumped by the appearance of a bizarre creature, which was dragged from a lake.
The animal, which has a long hairy body with bald skin on its head, feet and face, has prompted wild internet speculation that it is a more evolved version of the famous 'Montauk monster'.
The creature was discovered by two nurses in the town of Kitchenuhmaykoosib in Ontario, Canada, while out on a walk with their dog.

When the dog began sniffing in the lake, the two women started investigating, before the dog pulled the dead animal out.
After taking some photographs of the odd animal, the nurses left it alone. When locals decided to go back and retrieve the body, it has disappeared.

The photographs have now been posted on a local website, with an explanation which reads: 'This creature was first discovered by Sam the Dog, a local dog. 'It was discovered first week of May in the creek section of town, hikers noticed Sam sniffing something in the water and they approached to see in what the Sam had detected and they noticed the creature in the water face down.

'The dog jumped in the lake and pulled the creature to the rocks and dragged it out for the hikers to see and these are the photos they took. 'The creature's tail is like a rat's tail and it is a foot long.'
There has been much speculation about what kind of species the animal is. The body of the creature appears to look something like an otter, while its face - complete with long fang-like teeth, bears a striking resemblance to a boar-like animal. Even the local police chief Donny Morris is baffled, saying: 'What it is, I don't know. I'm just as curious as everyone else.'

The pictures of the animal have caused mass speculation online, from bloggers who are all stumped as to what the creature could be.
One internet blogger wrote: 'That certainly is a face only a mother can love. It looks like some sort of otter, weasel-type thing.'
While another added: 'Some kind of mustelid - I thought otter first.
'Being in the water and bashed around has made the fur on the face and tail come off so clean like that.'
Many people have suggested the animal could be a new 'Montauk monster' - due to the similarities between these photographs and those of a different creature which washed up in Montauk, New York, in 2008.

The animal, which quickly earned the nickname the 'Montauk monster', thanks to the beach's location to a Long Island government animal testing facility, has never been officially identified - although the general consensus is that it was some kind of racoon.
However, other bloggers have speculated that the new creature discovered is a type of chupacabra, or 'goatsucker'.

The chupacabra is rumoured to inhabit parts of the U.S. , with many several hundred eyewitness accounts over the past few years.
But despite these sightings, the majority of biologists and wildlife experts believe the chupacabra is a contemporary legend.

Strange ‘Oriental Yeti’ creature found in China’s Sichuan province

Hunters in the Sichuan province of China are reported to have trapped the strange animal in the picture above, but no one seems to know what it might be. The news has dubbed the creature an “Oriental Yeti”.

Hunter Lu Chin spoke about the “yeti’s” behavior to press:

“It looks a bit like a bear but it doesn’t have any fur and it has a tail like a kangaroo.”

“It also does not sound like a bear – it has a voice more like a cat and it is calling all the time – perhaps it is looking for the rest of its kind or maybe it’s the last one?

“There are local legends of a bear that used to be a man and some people think that’s what we caught.”

The Oriental Yeti is now en route to Beijing so scientists can DNA test it and try to determine its origin.

The Thylacine or 'Tasmanian Tiger' - Native Australian marsupial dog

The Thylacine (binomial name: Thylacinus cynocephalus; Greek for "dog-headed pouched one") was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger (because of its striped back), the Tasmanian Wolf, and colloquially the Tassie (or Tazzy) Tiger or simply the Tiger.

Native to continental Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, it is thought to have become extinct in the 20th century. It was the last extant member of its genus, Thylacinus, although several related species have been found in the fossil record dating back to the early Miocene.

The Thylacine had largely become extremely rare or extinct on the Australian mainland before European settlement of the continent, but it survived on the island state of Tasmania along with several other endemic species, including the Tasmanian Devil.

Intensive hunting encouraged by bounties is generally blamed for its extinction, but other contributory factors may have been disease, the introduction of dogs, and human encroachment into its habitat. Despite its official classification as extinct, sightings are still reported, though none proven.



Like the tigers and wolves of the Northern Hemisphere, from which it obtained two of its common names, the Thylacine was an apex predator. As a marsupial, it was not closely related to these placental mammals, but because of convergent evolution it displayed the same general form and adaptations. Its closest living relative is thought to be either the Tasmanian Devil or Numbat.

The Thylacine was one of only two marsupials to have a pouch in both sexes (the other being the Water Opossum). The male Thylacine had a pouch that acted as a protective sheath, protecting the male's external reproductive organs while running through thick brush.





Extinction in Tasmania

Although the Thylacine had been close to extinction on mainland Australia by the time of European settlement, and went extinct some time in the nineteenth century, it survived into the 1930s on the island state of Tasmania. At the time of the first settlement, the heaviest distributions were in the northeast, northwest and north-midland regions of the state.

They were rarely sighted during this time but slowly began to be credited with numerous attacks on sheep. This led to the establishment of bounty schemes in an attempt to control their numbers. The Van Diemen's Land Company introduced bounties on the Thylacine from as early as 1830, and between 1888 and 1909 the Tasmanian government paid £1 per head for dead adult Thylacines and ten shillings for pups. In all they paid out 2,184 bounties, but it is thought that many more Thylacines were killed than were claimed for.

Its extinction is popularly attributed to these relentless efforts by farmers and bounty hunters. However, it is likely that multiple factors led to its decline and eventual extinction, including competition with wild dogs introduced by European settlers, erosion of its habitat, the concurrent extinction of prey species, and a distemper-like disease that also affected many captive specimens at the time.



Whatever the reason, the animal had become extremely rare in the wild by the late 1920s. Despite the fact that the Thylacine was believed by many to be responsible for attacks on sheep, several efforts were made to save the species from extinction. Records of the Wilsons Promontory management committee dating to 1908 included recommendations for Thylacines to be reintroduced to several suitable locations on the Victorian mainland.

In 1928, the Tasmanian Advisory Committee for Native Fauna had recommended a reserve to protect any remaining Thylacines, with potential sites of suitable habitat including the Arthur-Pieman area of western Tasmania.

In 1930 Wilf Batty, a farmer, killed the last known wild Thylacine in Mawbanna, in the northeast of the state. The animal, believed to have been a male, had been seen around Batty's house for several weeks.


"Benjamin" and searches

The last known Thylacine photographed at Hobart (formerly Beaumaris) Zoo in 1933. A scrotal sac is not visible in this or any other of the photos or film taken, leading to the supposition that "Benjamin" was a female, but the existence of a scrotal pouch in the Thylacine makes it impossible to be certain.

The last captive Thylacine, later referred to as "Benjamin" (although its sex has never been confirmed) was captured in 1933 and sent to the Hobart Zoo where it lived for three years. Frank Darby, who claimed to have been a keeper at Hobart Zoo, suggested "Benjamin" as having been the animal's pet name in a newspaper article of May 1968.

However, no documentation exists to suggest that it ever had a pet name, and Alison Reid (de facto curator at the zoo) and Michael Sharland (publicist for the zoo) denied that Frank Darby had ever worked at the zoo or that the name Benjamin was ever used for the animal. Darby also appears to be the source for the claim that the last Thylacine was a male; photographic evidence suggests it was female. This Thylacine died on 7 September 1936.

It is believed to have died as the result of neglect—locked out of its sheltered sleeping quarters, it was exposed to a rare occurrence of extreme Tasmanian weather: extreme heat during the day and freezing temperatures at night. This Thylacine features in the last known motion picture footage of a living specimen: 62 seconds of black-and-white footage showing it pacing backwards and forwards in its enclosure in a clip taken in 1933 by naturalist David Fleay.

National Threatened Species Day has been held annually since 1996 on 7 September in Australia, to commemorate the death of the last officially recorded Thylacine.

Although there had been a conservation movement pressing for the Thylacine's protection since 1901, driven in part by the increasing difficulty in obtaining specimens for overseas collections, political difficulties prevented any form of protection coming into force until 1936. Official protection of the species by the Tasmanian government was introduced on 10 July 1936, 59 days before the last known specimen died in captivity.

The results of subsequent searches indicated a strong possibility of the survival of the species in Tasmania into the 1960s. Searches by Dr. Eric Guiler and David Fleay in the northwest of Tasmania found footprints and scats that may have belonged to the animal, heard vocalisations matching the description of those of the Thylacine, and collected anecdotal evidence from people reported to have sighted the animal. Despite the searches, no conclusive evidence was found to point to its continued existence in the wild.

The Thylacine held the status of endangered species until 1986. International standards state that any animal for which no specimens have been recorded for 50 years is to be declared extinct. Since no definitive proof of the Thylacine's existence had been found since "Benjamin" died in 1936, it met that official criterion and was declared officially extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is more cautious, listing it as "possibly extinct".

Unconfirmed sightings

The Australian Rare Fauna Research Association reports having 3,800 sightings on file from mainland Australia since the 1936 extinction date, while the Mystery Animal Research Centre of Australia recorded 138 up to 1998, and the Department of Conservation and Land Management recorded 65 in Western Australia over the same period.

Independent Thylacine researchers Buck and Joan Emburg of Tasmania report 360 Tasmanian and 269 mainland post-extinction 20th century sightings, figures compiled from a number of sources. On the mainland, sightings are most frequently reported in Southern Victoria.

Some sightings have generated a large amount of publicity. In 1973, Gary and Liz Doyle shot ten seconds of 8mm film showing an unidentified animal running across a South Australia road. However, attempts to positively identify the creature as a thylacine have been impossible due to the poor quality of the film.

In 1982 a researcher with the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service, Hans Naarding, observed what he believed to be a Thylacine for three minutes during the night at a site near Arthur River in northwestern Tasmania. The sighting led to an extensive year-long government-funded search.

In January 1995, a Parks and Wildlife officer reported observing a Thylacine in the Pyengana region of northeastern Tasmania in the early hours of the morning. Later searches revealed no trace of the animal.

In 1997, it was reported that locals and missionaries near Mount Carstensz in Western New Guinea had sighted Thylacines. The locals had apparently known about them for many years but had not made an official report. In February 2005 Klaus Emmerichs, a German tourist, claimed to have taken digital photographs of a Thylacine he saw near the Lake St Clair National Park, but the authenticity of the photographs has not been established.

The photos were not published until April 2006, fourteen months after the sighting. The photographs, which showed only the back of the animal, were said by those who studied them to be inconclusive as evidence of the Thylacine's continued existence.




In late 2002 researchers had some success in extracting replicable DNA from the specimens. On February 15 2005, the museum announced that it was stopping the project after tests showed the DNA retrieved from the specimens had been too badly degraded to be usable. In May 2005, Professor Michael Archer, the University of New South Wales Dean of Science, announced that the project was being restarted by a group of interested universities and a research institute.

In what they describe as a world first, researchers from Australian and U.S. universities extracted a gene from a preserved specimen of the doglike marsupial, and revived it in a mouse embryo.

In 2008 researchers Andrew J. Pask and Marilyn B. Renfree from the University of Melbourne and Richard R. Behringer from the University of Texas reported that they managed to restore functionality of a gene Col2A1 enhancer obtained from 100 year-old ethanol-fixed thylacine tissues from museum collections. The research enhanced hopes to eventually restore the population of thylacines.

That same year, another group of researchers successfully sequenced the complete thylacine mitochondrial genome from 2 museum specimens. Their success suggests that it is feasible to sequence the complete thylacine nuclear genome from museum specimens, and their results were published in the journal Genome Research in 2009.

The International Thylacine Specimen Database was completed in April 2005 and is the culmination of a 4-year research project to catalog and digitally photograph all known surviving Thylacine specimen material held within museum, university and private collections.

 Above and below, a Thylacine family

 Stuffed specimen at National Museum of Australia in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

 Possible Aboriginal cave painting of a Thylacine and its cub in the Pilbara region of Western Australia dating back 6,000 years.

 One of only 2 known photos of a Thylacine with a distended pouch, bearing young, Adelaide Zoo, 1889.

Thylacine stripes

 

Fish with transparent head

Since 1939, scientists have thought the "barreleye" fish Macropinna microstoma had "tunnel vision" due to eyes that were fixed in place. Now though, Monterey Bay Aquarium researchers show that the fish actually has a transparent head and the eyes rotate around inside of it.

Video from MBARI's remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to study barreleyes in the deep waters just offshore of Central California. At depths of 600 to 800 meters (2,000 to 2,600 feet) below the surface, the ROV cameras typically showed these fish hanging motionless in the water, their eyes glowing a vivid green in the ROV's bright lights. The ROV video also revealed a previously undescribed feature of these fish--its eyes are surrounded by a transparent, fluid-filled shield that covers the top of the fish's head.

Most existing descriptions and illustrations of this fish do not show its fluid-filled shield, probably because this fragile structure was destroyed when the fish were brought up from the deep in nets.

The researchers were able to bring a net-caught barreleye to the surface alive, where it survived for several hours in a ship-board aquarium. Within this controlled environment, they were able to confirm what they had seen in the ROV video--the fish rotated its tubular eyes as it turned its body from a horizontal to a vertical position.

Strange Florida Lagoon creature video, the 'Muck Monster'

WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- There's something lurking just under the surface of the Lake Worth Lagoon.

Greg Reynolds of LagoonKeepers.org recalls, "Channel marker ten is the first time we saw the unknown creature." "I hollered out...and said what is that? We followed it, started taking video."


Don Serrano was with Reynolds. "I didn't know what it was….I was like HEY LOOK! And we moved over and saw it. It was different, very different."

"Little wakes and just kind of moving like this…real long ones too, just like that."

Reynolds remembers, "We sped up on it to catch up to it and we got up on it, it dove down." "Every time we get 10 feet from it, it would just disappear."

What could it be?

"Who knows? I have no idea, but it was something that’s for sure, without a doubt," said Serrano.

Thanks to the LagoonKeepers, until it's identified, it has a name:

Reynolds calls it, "The elusive muck monster!"

Thomas Reinert, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Marine Biologist studied the video and said: "This appears to be one animal moving in this direction…nothing's breaking the surface. Typically dolphins break the surface, sea turtles, manatee, a large school of fish, if it were a shark at that level you would see a fin."

"I cant definitely say what it is." "I can speculate but we need more evidence to determine the identity of the Lake Worth muck monster," said Reinert.

"We spend a lot of time out here on the water and seen a lot of different creatures out here and this is the first time in three and half years that I’ve ever seen anything out here that didn't know what it was," Reynolds said.
"We see dolphins out there, sharks, we always see a fin."

Whatever it is, it certainly has people talking, and watching.

The 'Ropen' - Are there giant flying creatures on the remote islands of Papua New Guinea?

Shortly after World War II, as Western missionaries began to penetrate the deep jungles and remote islands of Papua New Guinea, stories of a flying creature called the Ropen ("demon flyer") began to be reported. 

Described as a nocturnal creature, the Ropen possesses two leathery wings like a bat, a long tail with a diamond-shaped flange on the end, a beak filled with teeth, and razor-sharp claws. The creatures inhabit the caves that dot the islands of New Britain and Umboi, located in the Bismarck Archipelago and are known to the locals of the area as Indava, Duwas, Seklo-bali, Kundua or Wawanar.

Reports seem to fit the presumed-extinct Rhamphorhynchus, a pterodactyl with a wingspan of 3-4 feet. Like the Kongamato in Kenya, the Ropen is said to have a taste for decaying human flesh and has even harassed native funeral gatherings with western missionaries present.

Carl E. Baugh of the Creation Evidence Museum has conducted two Ropen expeditions to New Guinea. He observed one of the creatures through a monocular night scope and snapped a picture of a strange print in the sand the next morning.

In 1987, Tyson Hughes, an English missionary, began an 18-month contract to assist the Moluccan tribespeople of Ceram Island, Indonesia to develop efficient farms. Tyson heard stories about a terrifying creature called the Orang-bati ("men with wings") that possesses enormous leathery wings like a bat and live in the caves of Mount Kairatu, an extinct volcano situated in the center of the island.

According to the book Searching for Ropens, a'Ropen' it is "any featherless creature that flies in the Southwest Pacific, and has a tail-length more than 25% of its wingspan."

On Umboi Island the word "ropen" refers to a large nocturnal creature that glows briefly as it flies. The ropen is the subject of folklore (like a man but also like a spirit) but it's believed by some natives to be a real animal. Descriptions vary, but it is often said to be batlike, and sometimes, Pterosaur-like; although pterosaurs are believed to have been extinct for 65 million years.

The ropen is believed to be nocturnal and to exhibit bioluminescence. Purportedly it lives on a diet of fish, though there have been some reports of the creature feasting on human flesh, especially grave robbery.

Investigations

As an attempt to discredit mainstream scientific views on the age of the Earth, several expeditions have been embarked upon by American creationists, including Carl Baugh, Paul Nation, Jonathan Whitcomb, David Woetzel, and Garth Guessman.

In late 2006, Paul Nation, of Texas, explored a remote mountainous area on the mainland of Papua New Guinea. He videotaped two lights that the local natives called "indava." Nation believed the lights were from the bioluminescence of creatures similar to the ropen of Umboi Island. The video was analyzed by a missile defense physicist who reported that the two lights on the video were not from any fires, meteors, airplanes or camera artifacts. He also reported that the image of the two lights was authentic and was not manipulated or hoaxed.

In 2007, cryptid investigator Joshua Gates went to Papua New Guinea in search of the Ropen for his TV show Destination Truth. He and his team also witnessed strange lights at night and could not confirm what they were.

In 2009, the television show Monster Quest conducted an expedition in search of the "demon flyer" but found no evidence of the creature. Later, they had a forensic video analyst examine the Paul Nation video. The analyst could not definitely conclude what was causing the lights, but ruled out vehicles and campfires believing the footage was of a pair of bioluminescent creatures perched in a tree that later take flight.

Identity

As is often the case with cryptids, the Ropen's true identity is subject to debate. Some believe it to be a pterodactyl-like creature, while others suggest that the Ropen is a misidentified bat (e.g. flying foxes, which are large fruit bats than can have wingspans up to two metres (six feet), or frigatebird.

Flying lights in Papua New Guinea have been reported by not only natives but by Western visitors. Evelyn Cheesman, the entomologist, mentions them in her book The Two Roads of Papua (published in 1935): "baffling" lights that lasted "about four or five seconds."

Giant Snake in Amazon

IT SOUNDS like an Indiana Jones adventure. After 23 years of research including the detailed study of ancient art, cultures spanning 3000 years and three continents to the latest in satellite imaging technology, a father and son make an extraordinary trip deep into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon to confirm their theories that this is where a giant anaconda with a difference lives.
But that's precisely what Lisburn man Mike Warner (73) and his son Greg (44) have done, seeking evidence that this was the home of the Yacumama and actually capturing a picture of the creature. A leviathan of the jungle, which reports say reaches 40 metres in length and two metres in diameter, it dwarfs any snake known to science.

This anaconda is not green but dark brown and is known by the locals as the 'black boa' or 'Yacumama'.

"Yacumama is translated as Mother of the Water and reports of this giant snake abound throughout the Amazon basin and history."
Mike, who is partially sighted, has spent 23 years researching the beast but it was only six months ago when his son discovered his research documents and they decided to take part in the incredble journey.

Cryptozooologist Mike of Hillhall spent his life savings setting up the expedition with Greg to find out more about the snake, which reports say can engorge water then shoot a monkey out of a tree like a water canon.

The team spent 12 days in March using the latest satellite equipment to take images of the huge reptile and were able to officially announce the discovery on May 2.

The explorers were dogged by hazardous weather conditions in the middle of the rainy season but eventually managed to take off by hydroplane from the Amazon River on day five of the expedition.

"Despite being buffeted by a freak storm we managed several flyovers at an average altitude of 400 feet recording video footage from two cameras at either side to the rear of the aircraft and Greg, located in the front with the pilot, taking around 300 still photographs" said Mike who had his 73rd birthday while in Peru.

After an exhausting 12 days in the jungle and a 30 hour trip back home the father and son team were finally able to examine their photo evidence in more detail, over 700 photos and five hours of video

"The data is immense and will take months to fully appreciate but already it supports our theories of 'channels' created by these giants as they make their way through the dense jungle knocking down trees 90 feet tall, but more importantly we managed to catch one of these reclusive giants on camera as it made its way through one of its watery channels."

It was Colonel Percy Fawcett, who was commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society of London in 1906 to map an area of the Peruvian Amazon in a dispute over rubber production who, after an encounter with a giant anaconda, first documented large 'trails 6 feet wide' or what are now called 'channels'.

And according to Greg it was the link made between his account and the evidence of large irregular 'channels' at the site they visited that led to the discovery.

They have now shared their findings with the Peruvian government, the National Geographic Society in Washington and Queens University in Belfast.

The team will now spend months analysing the footage and plan to return to same location in October to get thermal imagery which will help find the numbers of anacondas. This time they hope to bring with them a television crew.

Greg concluded: "The real hero is my father. It must be incredible to have spent 23 years researching this and then to succeed in an expedition where others had failed."
There was an amazing postscript to their trip when an anaconda, believed to be the one they located in March, is thought to have been responsbile for smashing the house of an elderly couple in a small village in Peru earlier this week.

The Minhocão

In the late nineteenth century, many sightings surfaced from South America of a creature called the minhocão. This creature was reputed to be similar to a huge earthworm. An article by Auguste de Saint-Hilaire in the American Journal of Science was the first published reference to this shadowy creature of southern Brazil. Its name, he said was derived from the Portugese minhoca (earthworm). Sainte-Hilaire recorded several instances, usually at fords of rivers, where livestock were captured by one of these creatures and dragged under the water. Instances he recounted took place at the Rio dos Piloes, Lake Padre Aranda, and Lake Feia, all in the province of Goyaz.

A possible parallel with the Brazilian beast was described in 1866 by Paulino Montenegro. He described a creature in the folklore of Nicaragua called sierpe. This animal was described as "like a large snake," and lived in ponds called chaquites.

Legends of the Minhocão were nearly forgotten until 1877, when another article was written on the creature, this time for the German publication Zoologische Garten by zoologist Fritz Müller. He provided further data on the monster, including accounts of trenches dug by the subterranean creature which were so large as to divert rivers, and which destroyed entire orchards. This article also included, unlike Saint-Hilaire's, an actual sighting of the monster. The sighting took place sometime in the 1840s near the Rio dos Papagaios in Paranà State.

A black woman going to draw water from a pool near a house one morning ... saw a short distance off an animal which she described as being as large as a house moving off along the ground. ... In the same district a young man saw a huge pine suddenly overturned ... he found the surrounding earth in movement, and an enormous worm-like black animal in the middle of it, about twenty-five metres long, and with two horns on its head.

He also mentioned a sighting which took place in 1849. Lebino José dos Santos heard tales of a Minhocão which had been found dead near Arapehy, Uruguay. The creature was found lodged between two rocks. It was reputed to have skin "as thick as the bark of a pine-tree" and was armored with "scales like those of an armadillo." One was also seen near Lages, Brazil in approximately 1870.

Francisco de Amaral Varella ... saw lying on the bank of the Rio das Caveiras a strange animal of gigantic size, nearly one metre in thickness, not very long, and with a snout like a pig, but whether it had legs or not he could not tell. ... whilst calling his neighbours to his assistance, it vanished, not without leaving palpable marks behind it in the shape of a trench ...

Two possible theories were proposed for the identity of the Minhocão. One, which is generally the most popular, holds that the creature was none other than a surviving glyptodont (a prehistoric South American animal which resembled an armadillo). Another held that it was a large species of lepidosiren (serpentine South American lungfish).

Karl Shuker debunks the glyptodont theory in his discussion of the creature by pointing out that glyptodonts were not burrowing animals (in addition to their lack of adaptations for burrowing, such as massive claws, their well-developed defenses were evidence that they lived much of their life above ground and near predators) and that they were presumably not nearly as aquatic in nature as the Minhocão is supposed to be. In addition, he points out that, contrary to what may be thought, the armored carapace of the glyptodonts was not terribly similar to that of an armadillo.

He goes on to debunk the lepidosiren theory and to endorse an identification of the creature as a species of caecilian. Caecilians are wormlike amphibians native to Mexico and South America, among other places. They physically resemble earthworms, and unlike most amphibians, live their lives nearly entirely below ground. Two sensory organs on the animals' head which, at times, resemble horns. Caecilia can also grow quite large (one Colombian species grows to nearly 5 feet).

The giant caecilian theory is certainly an enticing one and one which could yet prove to be true, although doubtless the creature would prove to be much larger than any known caecilian. In my view, though, Shuker's dismissal of the lepidosiren theory does not sit well. This possible identity should not be ruled out entirely. Given the evidence, we may conclude that the glyptodont theory, although appealling, does not account for the sightings.

But the case may never be proven, as the Minhocão has not been sighted since the 1870 sighting recounted above. It may be that the creatures have become extinct since the "heyday" of reports, unless one considers certain reports, usually passed off as being of a Sucuriju gigante or giant anaconda, of horned water serpents.

The Mongolian Death Worm

Trudging carefully across the arid sands of the Gobi desert, Czech explorer Ivan Mackerle is careful not to put a foot wrong, for he knows it may be his last. He scours the land and shifting valleys for tell-tale signs of disturbance in the sands below, always ready for the unexpected lurch of an alien being said to kill in one strike with a sharp spout of acidic venom to the face. A creature so secretive that no photographic evidence yet exists, but the locals know it’s there, always waiting in silence for its prey, waiting to strike – the Mongolian Death Worm.


Reported to be between two and five feet long, the deep-red coloured worm is said to resemble the intestines of a cow and sprays a yellow acidic saliva substance at its victims, who if they’re unlucky enough to be within touching distance also receive an electric shock powerful enough to kill a camel… or them.



Given the latin name Allghoi khorkhoi, the Mongolian Death Worm was first referred to by American paleontologist Professor Roy Chapman Andrews (apparently the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character) in his book On the Trail of Ancient Man, in 1926 but he didn’t appear to be entirely convinced about the whole idea. Even though locals were desperate to relay events of when the dreaded worm struck, Andrews writes: “None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely.” But it wasn’t to stop other inquisitive adventurers taking up the investigative mantle when Andrews was no longer interested, or able to pursue the matter.



Only a few years ago, in 2005, a group of English scientists and cryptozoologists spent a month in the hostile Gobi desert searching for the fabled creature, and although they spoke to a number of Mongolians in the area, all of whom regaled wondrous stories of the worm, no one could verify they had seen the creature first-hand. Even still, after four weeks the team had gathered enough verbal evidence to be convinced that the worm really does exist. Lead researcher, Richard Freeman, said: “Every eyewitness account and story we have heard describes exactly the same thing: a red-brown worm-like snake, approximately two feet long and two inches thick with no discernable head or back (tail).”

Today, it is Ivan Mackerle, a self-made cryptozoologist who travels the world in search of scientific evidence that proves creatures like the Loch Ness monster and Mongolian Death Worm exist. As a boy he read the stories of the Russian paleontologist Yefremov, who wrote about a worm, which resembled a bloody intestine, that could grow to the length of a small man and mysteriously kill people at great distance, possibly with poison or electricity.



Mackerle says: “I thought it was only science fiction. But when I was in university, we had a Mongolian student in our class. I asked him, ‘Do you know what this is, the Allghoi khorkhoi?’ I was waiting for him to start laughing, to say that’s nothing. But he leaned in, like he had a secret, and said, ‘I know it. It is a very strange creature.’”

So Does the Mongolian Death Worm really exist, and what if it does?

This insistence by locals that worm is a reality will continue to fuel inquisitive minds and as long as open-mindedness remains a fair virtue, we’re prepared to wait a little longer for empirical proof of its existence.

Just remember, if you do decide to go Death Worm hunting in the Gobi desert, don’t wear yellow, seemingly that’s the color that sends our wrinkly friend into one its trademark electrifying, spitting freak outs. Don’t say we didn’t warm you.

The giant snakefish

In 2002, the snakefish (or Channidae) was described as “something from a bad horror movie” by US Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

Some describe snakefish as having ”a voracious appetite, often consuming all other fish in a lake or pond and even eating its young. It can slither across land, staying out of water for up to three days, to find new sources of food.”

Norton also warns that once on land ”snakeheads can eat almost any small animal in its path…. They have even attacked people in China who got too close to snakeheads’ egg nesting areas.” According to Wikipedia, snakefish can be up to over a metre in length and over 6 kilograms in weight.



Most snakefish are 2-3 feet long. They’re also fast reproducers with no natural enemies outside of their native environments. Within their native environments, small snakefish are preyed upon by bigger fish, while full-grown snakefish are consumed by crocodiles and alligators.

Because of their ability to move into new habitats and wipe out local ecosystems (and to cross from one body of water to another and repeat the process) snakefish have been prohibited in 13 American states and other countries (e.g. Australia).

Black Shuck

Black Shuck or Old Shuck is the name given to a ghostly black dog which is said to roam the Norfolk, Essex and Suffolk coastline.


The legend

For centuries, inhabitants of East Anglia have told tales of a large black hellhound with malevolent flaming eyes (or in some variants of the legend a single eye) that are red or alternatively green. They are described as being ‘like saucers’. According to reports, the beast varies in size and stature from that of simply a large dog to being the size of a horse.

There are legends of Black Shuck roaming the Anglian countryside since before Vikings. His name may derive from the Old English word scucca meaning “demon”, or possibly from the local dialect word shucky meaning “shaggy” or “hairy”. The legend may have been part of the inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Sometimes Black Shuck is referred to as the Doom Dog. It is said that his appearance bodes ill to the beholder, although not always. More often than not, stories tell of Black Shuck terrifying his victims, but leaving them alone to continue living normal lives. In some cases it has supposedly happened before close relatives to the observer die or become ill.


Sometimes Black Shuck has appeared headless, and at other times he appears to float on a carpet of mist. According to folklore, the spectre often haunts graveyards, sideroads, crossroads and dark forests. Black Shuck is also said to haunt the coast road between West Runton and Overstrand.


Appearance in Bungay and Blythburgh

One of the most notable reports of Black Shuck is of his appearance at the churches of Bungay and Blythburgh in Suffolk. On 4 August 1577, at Blythburgh, Black Shuck is said to have burst in through the church doors. He ran up the nave, past a large congregation, killing a man and boy and causing the church tower to collapse through the roof. As the dog left, he left scorch marks on the north door which can be seen at the church to this day.



The encounter on the same day at Bungay was described in “A Straunge and Terrible Wunder” by the Reverend Abraham Fleming in 1577:
“ This black dog, or the divel in such a linenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all,) runing all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[n]gely dyed. ”

Other accounts attribute the event to lightning or the Devil. The scorch marks on the door are referred to by the locals as “the devil’s fingerprints”, and the event is remembered in this verse:
“ All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and, passing onward to the quire, he many people slew. ”

The appearance in Chignal St James/Chignal Smealy, small villages near Chelmsford, Essex are said to have occurred many years ago. All those said to have seen the devil dog are rumoured to have met an untimely end within a year of seeing the red-eyed devil dog, matching the legend that all that see Black Shuck will perish within a year of looking into his eyes.

These are of course all rumours and superstition, however, many websites exist acting as directories of sighting of Black Shuck, and these can easily be found on the popular search engines. In recent times, sightings of Black Shuck in the Chignal area have been put down to sightings of black dogs that belong to resisidents roaming the village, such as The Three Elms pubs large black labradoodle and the Gardening Express nursery terrier cross.

The Yowie

Yowie is the somewhat affectionate term for an unidentified hominid reputed to lurk in the Australian wilderness. It is an Australian cryptid similar to the Himalayan Yeti and the North American Bigfoot.

Rather confusingly, "Yowie" (or "Yowie-Whowie") is also the name of a completely different mythological character in native Australian Aboriginal folklore. This version of the Yowie is said to be a bizarre, hybrid beast resembling a cross between a lizard and an ant with big red eyes on the side of his head, big canine teeth and large fangs. It emerges from the ground at night to eat whatever it can find, including humans. This creature's characteristics and legend are sometimes interchangeable with those of the bunyip.

The earliest published reference to the word in its current usage is in Donald Friend's Hillendiana, a collection of writing about the goldfields near Hill End in New South Wales. Friend refers to the "Yowie" as a species of "bunyip", an Aboriginal term used to describe monsters said to dwell in many Australian rivers and lakes. Paranormal enthusiast Rex Gilroy popularized the word in newspaper articles during the 1970s and 1980s.



Reports of Yowie-type creatures are common in the legends and stories of Australian Aboriginal tribes, particularly those of the eastern states of Australia. The mid to late 19th Century saw a wealth of sightings, most describing a large, gorilla-like creature (albeit usually bipedal), which lived in remote mountainous or forested regions. Reports have continued to the present day with the trail of evidence following the pattern familiar to most unidentified hominids around the world – i.e., eyewitness accounts, mysterious footprints of hotly-disputed origin, and a lack of conclusive proof.



Some recently reported Yowie incidents claim that the death and mutilation of household pets, such as dogs, are the result of Yowie attacks. Other people claim that the animals' deaths can be attributed to attacks by wild animals such as dingoes.

Australian Rex Gilroy, a self-proclaimed cryptozoologist, has attempted to popularize the scientific term Gigantopithecus australis for the yowie. He claims to have collected over 3000 reports of them and proposed that they comprise a relict population of extinct ape or Homo species. There is, however, no evidence that Gigantopithecus ever existed in Australia.

unknown creatures in Kanas Lake 新疆喀纳斯湖现湖怪群

Kanas Lake lies near the Altai Mountains, in Xinjiang, China. It is China's deepest freshwater lake. About 117 different kinds of birds live along it.

There is a large population of Tuvans in the area.


These pictures were taken by a tourist on the morning of August 2, 2007, when a large flock of unknown creatures were swimming in the Kanas Lake in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In last June, similar cases were reported.

There have been sightings of large lake creatures in the waters. A video was taken and shown in the local Chinese media where numerous unidentifiable creatures can be seen.



According to CCTV10, the creatures living in the lake are speculated by Chinese scholar as giant Hucho taimen (salmon).

Chinese state-run television says China’s Loch Ness monster has been sighted. Not just one, but more than a dozen huge creatures can be seen churning across Lake Kanasi in remote western China, leaving a foamy wake more like an enormous motorboat than a big fish.

A rare video filmed by a tourist at the lake in the Heavenly Mountains of the wild Xinjiang region, has reignited debate over the existence of an underwater creature that can compete with the Loch Ness monster in both mass and mystery.

The grainy film shows about 15 objects moving at high speed just beneath the surface of the lake and whipping the smooth blue water into a bubbling white frenzy. Chinese Central Television broadcast the video on its news channel, describing the footage shot by a passing tourist on July 5 as the clearest ever seen of a legendary beast that has been rumoured for centuries to live in the depths of Lake Kanasi.

Local myth among the Chinese Mongolians living in the scenic mountains near the Russian and Mongolian borders has it that the animals have been known to drag sheep, cows and even horses from the shore and into the deep to devour them.

Yuan Guoying, of the Xinjiang Institute of Environmental Protection, told The Times that the video provided important proof in his more than two decades of research at the lake. “Only fish could make waves in this formation. I think the video is real.”

The television commentator described the sighting as the first since June 7, 2005 when two black creatures measuring more than 10 metres in length appeared on the surface swimming at speed from the shore to the centre of the lake. The newsreader described the latest appearance: “They sometimes gathered in a flock, sometimes spread about or moved shoulder to shoulder. The scene is grand and they looked like a fleet.”

State television made no attempt to identify the animals, saying only: ‘This time a large number of unidentified creatures emerged, bringing more mystery to Lake Kanasi.”

Professor Yuan has been on their trail since 1980 and has been gripped by the mystery since his first sighting in 1985 when he says he saw as many as 50 of what he called fish. “They looked like reddish-brown tadpoles because I could only see their heads on the surface. They opened their mouths to breathe and their length was about 10 to 15 metres.”

He spotted the animals again on May 28, 2004 when he was standing looking down at the lake from a nearby hill. “I thought there was a huge piece of black plastic in the lake and that someone had been polluting it. But then I released that it must be the back of a giant fish. I was shocked because they were just too big. Looking at them was like looking at submarines.”

When Mr Yuan got back to his office he tried to calculate the size of the animals by setting their proportions against those of the surrounding landmarks such as trees or the shape of the shoreline. “I didn’t dare say they were bigger than 20 metres because no one would believe me.”

Chinese researchers in the 1980s said the ‘monster’ was likely to be a huge member of the salmon family – one of eight species of fish living in the lake. Mr Yuan gave their name as Hucho Taimen, a freshwater salmon tht thrives in deep frigid waters. He says the biggest Hucho Taimen salmon ever captured was 2.1 metres long and was found in Russia.

The animals that roam Lake Kanasi live in an area about 24 kilometres by two kilometers and with an average depth of 122 metres and as deep as 188 metres at one point.

Mr Yuan believes that a lot more research is needed although China lacks the scientific equipment to make further studies. And it would be impossible to catch a fish of this size. “This fish will have tremendous strength.”

Other Chinese scientists have cast doubt on his findings, but Mr Yuan is adamant. “People will just say ‘You’ve got to be kidding’. But I saw them with my own eyes. I am a scientist. I have no choice but to believe what I saw.”

The Yeti

The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is a mythological creature and an ape-like cryptid said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology. Stories of the Yeti first emerged as a facet of Western popular culture in the 19th century.

The scientific community largely regards the Yeti as a legend, given the lack of evidence, yet it remains one of the most famous creatures of cryptozoology. The Yeti may be considered a sort of parallel to the Bigfoot legend of North America.



History
19th century

In 1832, James Prinsep's Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published trekker B. H. Hodgson's account of his experiences in northern Nepal. His local guides spotted a tall, bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, which seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson concluded it was an orangutan.

An early record of reported footprints appeared in 1889 in Laurence Waddell's Among the Himalayas. Waddell reported his guide's description of a large apelike creature that left the prints, which Waddell thought were made by a bear. Waddell heard stories of bipedal, apelike creatures but wrote that of the many witnesses he questioned, none "could ever give ... an authentic case. On the most superficial investigation it always resolved into something that somebody had heard of."


20th century

The frequency of reports increased during the early 20th century, when Westerners began making determined attempts to scale the many mountains in the area and occasionally reported seeing odd creatures or strange tracks.

In 1925, N. A. Tombazi, a photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society, writes that he saw a creature at about 15,000 ft (4,600 m) near Zemu Glacier. Tombazi later wrote that he observed the creature from about 200 to 300 yd (180 to 270 m), for about a minute. "Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It showed up dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out, wore no clothes." About two hours later, Tombazi and his companions descended the mountain and saw the creature's prints, described as "similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide... The prints were undoubtedly those of a biped."

Western interest in the Yeti peaked dramatically in the 1950s. While attempting to scale Mount Everest in 1951, Eric Shipton took photographs of a number of large prints in the snow, at about 6,000 m (20,000 ft) above sea level. These photos have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate. Some argue they are the best evidence of Yeti's existence, while others contend the prints are those of a mundane creature that have been distorted by the melting snow.



In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while scaling Mount Everest. Hillary would later discount Yeti reports as unreliable. In his first autobiography Tenzing said that he believed the Yeti was a large ape, and although he had never seen it himself his father had seen one twice, but in his second autobiography he said he had become much more skeptical about its existence.

During the Daily Mail Snowman Expedition of 1954, the mountaineering leader John Angelo Jackson made the first trek from Everest to Kanchenjunga in the course of which he photographed symbolic paintings of the Yeti at Tengboche gompa. Jackson tracked and photographed many footprints in the snow, most of which were identifiable. However, there were many large footprints which could not be identified. These flattened footprint-like indentations were attributed to erosion and subsequent widening of the original footprint by wind and particles.

On March 19, 1954, the Daily Mail printed an article which described expedition teams obtaining hair specimens from what was alleged to be a Yeti scalp found in Pangboche monastery. The hairs were black to dark brown in colour in dim light, and fox red in sunlight. The hair was analysed by Professor Frederic Wood Jones, an expert in human and comparative anatomy. During the study, the hairs were bleached, cut into sections and analysed microscopically. The research consisted of taking microphotographs of the hairs and comparing them with hairs from known animals such as bears and orangutans. Jones concluded that the hairs were not actually from a scalp. He contended that while some animals do have a ridge of hair extending from the pate to the back, no animals have a ridge (as in the Pangboche "scalp") running from the base of the forehead across the pate and ending at the nape of the neck. Jones was unable to pinpoint exactly the animal from which the Pangboche hairs were taken. He was, however, convinced that the hairs were not of a bear or anthropoid ape. He suggested that the hairs were from the shoulder of a coarse-haired hoofed animal.

Sławomir Rawicz claimed in his book The Long Walk, published in 1956, that as he and some others were crossing the Himalayas in the winter of 1940, their path was blocked for hours by two bipedal animals that were doing seemingly nothing but shuffling around in the snow. Rawicz's entire account has since come to be regarded as fictional.


Beginning in 1957, wealthy American oilman Tom Slick funded a few missions to investigate Yeti reports. In 1959, supposed Yeti feces were collected by one of Slick's expeditions; fecal analysis found a parasite which could not be classified. Cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans wrote, "Since each animal has its own parasites, this indicated that the host animal is equally an unknown animal."

In 1959, actor James Stewart, while visiting India, reportedly smuggled remains of a supposed Yeti, the so-called Pangboche Hand, by concealing it in his luggage when he flew from India to London.

In 1960, Hillary mounted an expedition to collect and analyze physical evidence of the Yeti. He sent a supposed Yeti "scalp" from the Khumjung monastery to the West for testing, whose results indicated the scalp was manufactured from the skin of a serow, a goat-like Himalayan antelope. Anthropologist Myra Shackley disagreed with this conclusion on the grounds that the "hairs from the scalp look distinctly monkey-like and that it contains parasitic mites of a species different from that recovered from the serow."



In 1970, British mountaineer Don Whillans claimed to have witnessed a creature when scaling Annapurna. According to Whillans, while scouting for a campsite, he heard some odd cries which his Sherpa guide attributed to a Yeti's call. That night, he saw a dark shape moving near his camp. The next day, he observed a few human-like footprints in the snow, and that evening, viewed with binoculars a bipedal, ape-like creature for 20 minutes as it apparently searched for food not far from his camp.

In 1984, famed mountaineer David P. Sheppard of Hoboken, New Jersey, claims to have been followed by a large, furry man over the course of several days while he was near the southern Col of Everest. His sherpas, however, say they saw no such thing. Sheppard claims to have taken a photograph of the creature, but a later study of it proved inconclusive.

There is a famous Yeti hoax, known as the Snow Walker Film, created by Fox television network, in an attempt to deceive the public. The footage was created for Paramount's UPN show, Paranormal Borderland, ostensibly by the show's producers. The show ran from March 12 to August 6, 1996. Fox purchased and used the footage in their later program on The World's Greatest Hoaxes.


21st century

In 2004, Henry Gee, editor of the prestigious journal Nature, mentioned the Yeti as an example of a legend deserving further study, writing, "The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth ... Now, cryptozoology, the study of such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold."

In early December 2007, American television presenter Joshua Gates and his team (Destination Truth) reported finding a series of footprints in the Everest region of Nepal resembling descriptions of Yeti. Each of the footprints measured 33 cm (13 in) in length with five toes that measured a total of 25 cm (9.8 in) across. Casts were made of the prints for further research. The footprints were examined by Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, who believed them to be too morphologically accurate to be fake or man made. Meldrum also stated that they were very similar to a pair of Bigfoot footprints that were found in another area.

On July 25, 2008, the BBC reported that hairs collected in the remote Garo Hills area of North-East India by Dipu Marak had been analyzed at Oxford Brookes University in the UK by primatologist Anna Nekaris and microscopy expert Jon Wells. These initial tests were inconclusive, and ape conservation expert Ian Redmond told the BBC that there was similarity between the cuticle pattern of these hairs and specimens collected by Edmund Hilary during Himalayan expeditions in the 1950s and donated to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and announced planned DNA analysis. This analysis has since revealed that the hair came from the Himalayan Goral.

On October 20, 2008 a team of seven Japanese adventurers photographed footprints possibly made by a Yeti. The team's leader, Yoshiteru Takahashi claims to have observed a Yeti on a 2003 expedition and is determined to capture the creature on film.

.. See also Bigfoot