Expedition Reports

Johor Wars: How About All The Tracks?

The Malaysian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry Parliamentary Secretary Datuk Sazmi Miahis is fighting with Johor’s Tourism and Environment Committee Chairman Freddie Long over the “reality” of the “Johor Bigfoot.” The debate has turned ugly in the papers in Malaysia on December 16th. Forgotten in the debate, apparently, are all the footprints, confusing as the picture may be, that have been found, including ones dating back to the 1970s of the Orang Dalam. This track, photographed on November 17, 2006, is the “one” mentioned my Minister Sazmi. But what of the others? See below. According to the New Straits Times, [...]

The Real Lost World Revisited

This image of the movie poster may be clicked to enlarge it. The Real Lost World is set to re-broadcast on December 17th, after having recently premiered. Frankly, I thought the triple-layered treatment (old real expedition re-creations, clips from the movie based on Doyle’s book, and the new expedition) was visibly intriguing and worked well for television. I enjoyed the program, especially with regard to how Dean Harrison’s role as cryptozoologist was used for action, tension, and innovativations in some scenes. One link to The Lost World that I have been fascinated by is the fact the book served as [...]

Baiji Declared Extinct

A rare, nearly blind white dolphin that survived for millions of years is effectively extinct, an international expedition declared Wednesday after ending a fruitless six-week search of its Yangtze River habitat. The baiji would be the first large aquatic mammal driven to extinction since hunting and overfishing killed off the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s. For the baiji, the culprit was a degraded habitat — busy ship traffic, which confounds the sonar the dolphin uses to find food, and overfishing and pollution in the Yangtze waters of eastern China, the expedition said. * * * Randall Reeves, chairman of [...]

New Lizard Discovered in Borneo

A researcher from the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and a Louisiana State University (LSU) professor, using the LSU molecular genetics lab, discovered a new lizard during a 2006 expedition. Chris Austin, assistant curator of herpetology at LSU’s Museum of Natural Science, or LSUMNS, in Baton Rouge, and adjunct professor in biological sciences, recently discovered the new species of lizard while conducting field research in Borneo. Austin, along with colleague Indraneil Das from the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, will publish their findings and photos of the new species in the Journal of Herpetology. The article, [...]

The Real Lost World Screens

A reminder: The Real Lost World airs tonight on Animal Planet – December 10th and then again on December 17th, 2006. It screens on Discovery HD Theater on December 14th, and in Canada on OLN Cable, December 17th, 2006. The documentary’s director Peter von Puttkamer was also the director of the successful 2002 series, Monster Hunters, and my all-time favorite “people” documentary about the quest, Sasquatch Odyssey: The Hunt for Bigfoot. This image of the movie poster may be clicked on to enlarge.

NZ Black Panther Film

Using the phrase “Black Panther” covers many felines, from the above melanistic jaguar from South America, shown here in a public domain photograph, to melanistic leopards from Africa and Asia. The term has also been used to indicate the reported cryptids from many locations, including New Zealand. A new documentary film is being made in New Zealand, which will discuss the sightings of the “Mid-Canterbury panther.” The black cat has been seen by local residents around Mayfield, Mount Somers and Ashburton, New Zealand. No indigenous melanistic or black felids are known from New Zealand. But several reports exist, including from [...]

Emela-Ntouka: Killer of Elephants

Click on above image, by Corey H., to see full-size version Flashback and Update… The Emela-ntouka has been an unknown animal of some confusion in Africa. A few chroniclers have felt it was merely another named cryptid representing the sightings of the Mokele-mbembe. But as revealed by a carving (below) seen here for the first time earlier this year, it appears to be a beast unlike the saurapod-like Mokele-mbembe. On page 219 of one of my recent field guides, written with Patrick Huyghe, we noted, among several different kinds of alleged “dinosaurs” in Africa, “one animal is called by locals [...]