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American Dime Museum Closes – Part I

We’re losing another great piece of Baltimore personality. It was esoteric and great and hilarious and very fitting for this city. Maybe it was just too good to be accepted by enough people. – John Waters, Baltimore filmmaker and director of Pink Flamingos Photo credit: Barbara Matteson. A tradition eight years in the making based on wonders, gaffs, and sideshow fakery going back hundreds of years is closing. The American Dime Museum first opened in Baltimore in 1999, but has gone the way of many such sites. The cost of keeping it open has become too much. It is no [...]

Hillbilly Cougars

Eric Drummond Smith, over at Hillbilly Savants, has done a great and fair job of rounding up several recent blogs and sites about the possible survival of eastern cougars. Hillbilly Cryptozoology: Cougars Some folks seem to think cougars are “back” in Appalachia, either having gradually migrated from the American West or down the chain from Canada or having survived in tiny insular populations in isolated hollows or on mountaintops. As for me, well, heck, I hope they’re back, but I’m not entirely convinced yet. Yet being the operative word. That said, a whole lot of people are damned and determined [...]

What Are People Thinking?

I was gone most of yesterday, on the road, and returned very late last night. Yes, I don’t live here in front of this screen. I came back to find an email inbox filled with the strangest messages. Two topics with similar themes popped out. First, one group was about someone in the field who had put a “bounty” on me despite the fact that what this person was disturbed about had nothing to do with me, wasn’t posted by me, and the foundation for any concern was not coming from me. But since it was here on Cryptomundo, I [...]

“Monster Shark” Off Sydney

Breaking News – Some reports say a 15 ft long shark is patrolling off Sydney. I’ve not heard any shouts of “Megalodon” or “Meg” (which I hear will be a movie in 2008) but something big is being seen…. Here’s a news story from “tomorrow” – yes, it is already February 8th there: It was like a scene out of Jaws, as swimmers rushed from the ocean after sightings of a “monster” shark. The drama happened yesterday morning [Wednesday, February 7, 2007] at Sydney’s La Perouse beach, just minutes before another alert just a few kilometres away at Bondi. The [...]

Extinct SE Asia Vulture Found

The only known colony in Southeast Asia of slender-billed vultures (Gyps tenuirostrishas) – shown above – have been discovered in Cambodia, along with other endangered bird species. The vulture colony was discovered in January 2007, in the rainforests east of the Mekong River in Cambodia’s Stung Treng Province, according to Michael Casey’s Associated Press Bangkok-based dispatch for February 7, 2007. The slender-billed vultures were believed extinct throughout Southeast Asia, including Thailand and Cambodia, and only having been found in northern India recently. Some call it the world’s rarest vulture. We discovered the nests on top of a hill where two [...]

2000+ New Species!

Thousands of New Sea Species Found A French-led marine expedition team has discovered what is believed to be thousands of new species of molluscs and crustaceans around a Philippine island. The announcement was made by officials and scientists on Monday [February 5, 2007]. Some 80 scientists, technicians, students and volunteers from 19 countries led by Philippe Bouchet of the French National Museum of Natural History surveyed waters around Panglao island, 400 miles south-east of Manila from 2004-2005. The Panglao Marine Biodiversity Project turned over more than a hundred “holotype” or representative specimen of the rare finds to the Philippine National [...]