Extinct

New Unknown Fossil Great Ape

To many, the reconstructions of Lucy (above) and other Australopithecus species appear to look rather apelike. However, until recently, fossil finds for the ancestors of the great apes have been lacking. That all seems to be changing. The nine fossil teeth (below) from Ethiopia are being announced in Nature, as gorilla-like and said to be from a previously unknown species of great ape. Here’s more from the BBC: The 10 million-year-old fossils belong to an animal that has been named Cororapithecus abyssinicus by the Ethiopian-Japanese team. This new species could be a direct ancestor of living African great apes, say [...]

First Zanzibar Coelacanth Caught

Small coelacanth from Tanzania caught in February 2007; it is not the one discussed below. Photo courtesy dinofish. The known range of the coelacanth is expanded with this new discovery, and hope remains high that the “living fossil” fish may exist in some surprising locations around the world. Zanzibar, Tanzania – Fishermen have caught a rare and endangered fish, the coelacanth, off the coast of the Indian Ocean archipelago of Zanzibar, a researcher said on Monday [July 16, 2007]. The find makes Zanzibar the third place in Tanzania where fishermen have caught the coelacanth, a heavy-bodied, many-finned fish with a [...]

Extinct Echidna Rediscovered

Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi), thought extinct since 1961, appears to not be gone, after all. Researchers have found burrows, tracks, and nose pokes made by the long-beaked echidna, recently in Papua’s Cyclops Mountains. Also, locals had said they have seen the animals as recently as 2005. “The month-long expedition by scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) involved travelling to parts of the mountain range, covered by thick jungle, which had remained unexplored for more than 45 years,” reported the BBC News. This echidna was named after TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough. The species is only known to [...]

Flash Frozen? Siberian Baby Raises Old Questions

Fifty years ago, Bernard Heuvelmans collected and published reports of modern sightings of supposedly extinct mammoths seen alive today, in the boreal forests of Siberia. Thoughts that mammoths had survived probably stemmed from finds of extremely fresh specimens thawing out of the tundra’s permafrost. Two questions, one cryptozoological and the other Fortean, nevertheless, are raised whenever there is new talk of such discoveries: (1) Did these mammoths live during contemporary times with modern humans, as discussed by Heuvelmans and others? (2) Were they frozen in a quick “flash freeze” incident, as first noted by Ivan T. Sanderson? In Sanderson’s 1960 [...]

Tazelwurm – Part Ic

During the next few days, I will be passing along the complete contributions of Austrian cryptozoologist Luis Schönherr on the cryptid Tatzelwurm. The beginnings of this, through incomplete portions first published in Pursuit, will now be fully shared by the author with the cryptozoology community. My sincere thanks to the efforts of French cryptozoologist Michel Raynal, for bringing this material to light. Please refer to sources and references in the final installment, as well as full credit to Luis Schönherr’s son, Martin Schönherr. S O M E R E L A T E D A S P E C T [...]

Going Dodo Over Tassie Tiger Doodoo and Dodo Bones

While it is a long shot, there are still people today who report sightings of Dodo birds. Needless to say, even when new fossil remains are found of these avian wonders, the media tends to go a little dodo itself. Reporter Ed Harris of Reuters learned from Julian Hume, a paleontologist at Britain’s Natural History Museum, of the new discovery of a nearly complete skeleton from a dodo dig on Mauritius, and the news is centering the globe. The new find, Hume shared, is bound to tell more about the elusive bird than perhaps ever known before. The discovery was [...]

March of the Giant Penguins

March Of The Giant Penguins: Prehistoric Equatorial Penguins Reached 5 Feet In Height Science Daily — Giant prehistoric penguins? In Peru? It sounds more like something out of Hollywood than science, but a researcher from North Carolina State University along with U.S., Peruvian and Argentine collaborators has shown that two heretofore undiscovered penguin species reached equatorial regions tens of millions of years earlier than expected and during a period when the earth was much warmer than it is now. Paleontologist Dr. Julia Clarke, assistant professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State with appointments at the North Carolina [...]

A Pterodactyl in the Pool Cabana

There’s a Pterodactyl in the Pool Cabana So Brian passed it along, With a pat on the nose and a song. From Freaky Links in the South, Yikes, look at that mouth. Thanks Patrick for taking the family heat With the head in your passenger seat. To some, it’s a bizarre abomination, Seeking love, far from its final destination. The thing is in search of its new home. The creature has more miles to roam. Does it appear as an unwelcome louse? Nay, now it’s in the pool house. No need for further trepidation, Or even swimmers’ consternation. No reason [...]