Not cryptozoological, but considering what’s been discussed today, it seemed worth sharing: Japanese researchers said Sunday [November 4, 2006] a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of back legs, providing further evidence ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land. Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin off the coast of Wakayama prefecture in western Japan on Oct. 28 and alerted the nearby Taiji Whaling Museum, said museum director Katsuki Hayashi. Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos [...]
Fossil Dwarf Buffalo Discovered
Public release date: 17-Oct-2006 New dwarf buffalo discovered by chance in the Philippines First new fossil mammal from the Philippines in 50 years CHICAGO–Almost 50 years ago, Michael Armas, a mining engineer from the central Philippines, discovered some fossils in a tunnel he was excavating while exploring for phosphate. Forty years later, Dr. Hamilcar Intengan, a friend of his who now lives in Chicago, recognized the importance of the bones and donated them to The Field Museum. If not for the attention and foresight of these two individuals, science might never have documented what has turned out to be an [...]
Giant Camel Discovered
On Monday, October 9, 2006, the Associated Press was widely disseminating the news that a 13 feet tall camel — double the size of the modern-day camel — has been discovered in Syria. The bones, above, clearly show, compared to the modern camel, this animal was a big one. The giant camel apparently “poses a revolution in the world of archaeological discoveries,” according to Bassam Jammous, director general of the Antiquities and Museum Department in Syria. He also said the Syrian desert “is the first origin of the camel.” Dating back 100,000 years, the fossil bones were discovered by a [...]
By George: Schaller, A Misquoted Cryptozoologist?
Has Bigfoot’s newest spokesperson stumbled or been grossly misquoted? How factual is the popular reporting on what famous people say about cryptozoological topics or animals they discover? How much can you rely on the background facts apparently noted in a newspaper in India or a foreword in a book to tell us what famed mountain gorilla researcher and promoter George B. Schaller (above) thinks about Bigfoot? I guess it depends on what you feel is more closely reflecting George Schaller’s past statements and the actual realities. In a new biographical sketch of Schaller in The Hindu Times, examine this selection [...]
Rarer Than Thylacines
Only 30 exist in Maine and they won’t become visible for sightings until October 7, 2006. Overall, only 200 are known to be around, and some of those already have vanished into private hands. They are almost extinct, although just discovered, and the entire group will disappear soon, mostly into private collections. What in the world could I be talking about? Would you believe one of the rarest of rare books to be published on cryptozoology, the volume that contains the exhibition catalogue and essays from the Bates College program? If you are interested in having me pick up a [...]
The Search for Giant Woodpeckers
Are folks still interested in the search for the world’s biggest woodpeckers, the Ivory-billed and the Imperial Woodpeckers? According to reports being published on September 26, 2006, and summarized in the Mobile, Alabama Press-Register, a haven for ivory-billed woodpeckers has been discovered in Florida. Auburn University researchers published evidence today of what some are describing as an ivory-bill woodpecker “Shangri-La” in the Florida Panhandle, a couple of hours east of Mobile. Researchers said they’ve had 13 sightings of the ivory bill, long thought to be extinct, and have recorded some 300 distinctive calls and sounds associated with the giant woodpecker, [...]
Animals of Discovery
Intriguingly, the Toronto Star’s Rick Sznajder compiled and published a list on September 26, 2006, of animals, which were thought once extinct and rediscovered in recent years. These species are available in several books, of course, but it’s fun to see someone in the media highlighting these “animals of discovery.” Here’s Sznajder’s list: Northern bald ibis rediscovered in Syria in 2002. Giant Palouse earthworm, last seen in 1987, rediscovered 2006. Found along the Washington-Idaho border. Laotian rock rat, believed extinct for 11 million years, first seen by a western scientist in 2005. Chinese crested tern, thought extinct from 1937 to [...]
Was Lucy’s Child More Apelike?
Click on image for full size version According to a new study published on September 21st in Nature, what is being called "Lucy’s child" or "Selam," may change how human-like we consider some Australopithecus species. Has the picture of "Lucy" – Australopithecus afarensis – been too humanlike? Could some unknown hairy hominoid reports from Africa be relicts of australopithecines, after all? Tracy Press writing for the Associated Press, notes, in part: The 3.3-million-year-old fossil of a 3-year-old child could shed new light on the evolution of modern humans’ earliest ancestors. NEW YORK — In a discovery sure to fuel an [...]
Bigfoot Family Tree
Click image for full-size version François Vanasse and an associate (HP) have created the Bigfoot family tree shown above. Here’s Vanasse’s comment on it, followed by his colleague’s: +++++++ “First off, this is assuming that any of these creatures actually exist, and are biological…. To start with we placed all of these into the family of Great Apes, but have created a new subfamily called ‘Ferrisvirae’ which literally means ”wild men” and includes both imaginary genuses of Megapodapthecae and Capleoferrae. Sivapithecus is the ancestor of Gigantopithecus and hence the possible ancestor of Capleoferrae. However in our tree we chose to [...]
Sumatran Rhinos Are Living Fossils
Zoologist Darren Naish has written a thoughtful essay on “Are Sumatran Rhinos Really Living Fossil?” His blog is in response to my comments on the “living fossil” issue, discussed here. I disagree with Naish’s restrictive parameters, of course, as I see this more an issue of educational semantics influenced by zoology, not ruled by it. Darren Naish’s approach is worthy of your attention and he has every right to his very informed point of view. Needless to say, in this case, I was employing the “living fossil” definition that this rhino species is “a living species/clade with many ‘primitive’ characteristics [...]
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