Extinct

New Coelacanths On Display

Two new exhibitions of coelacanths are worthy of noting. The celebrated story of the coelacanth has made it one of the darlings of cryptozoology. It embodies a true tale of a “living fossil,” not verified as a “real animal” by science for 65 million years, then discovered off Africa in 1938 and rediscovered, with great fanfare, again in 1952 (as shown above). The coelacanth was a fish known to the natives, and eaten, with some slight disgust because it was too oily. It was a part of the menu of fishing peoples for centuries off Africa, long before it became [...]

New Little Skulls

A new species of monkey discovered in South America, larger than contemporary monkeys? A new hominid species found, perhaps as a link between erectus and sapiens? Two recent new fossil skull finds may have much to tell cryptozoology, as they become more deeply understood. A team of Argentinean and United States scholars have identified a new species of monkey that once roamed the rainforests of Patagonia, South America. The discovery of the monkey species, Killikaike blakei, was announced by Brooklyn College Associate Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology Alfred L. Rosenberger. The discovery, dated to 16.4 million years ago, was of [...]

Panthera atrox in the West

This is the introduction and the “western segment” of “APPENDIX I” from Mysterious America: The American Lion (Panthera atrox): Cryptid Black Panthers, Maned Cats, and Striped Felines Selected Sightings The first edition of Mysterious America (1983) detailed decades of large mystery felid sightings. This edition updates that work, gathering old records, as well as new ones. This revised volume also adds, for the first time, this appendix to support the added details in Chapters 12 and 13. In 1994, Mark A. Hall published a list of seventy specific cases to illustrate the black panther and maned cat data in his [...]

Head of Quagga Project Dies

The founder of the Quagga Project, South African taxidermist Reinhold E. Rau has died. Rau, who spent thirty years attempting to breed back into existence the quagga, an extinct zebra and nearly achieved it, died last month at his home in South Africa. Rau was born on February 7, 1932, and died on 12 February 12, 2006. Reinhold E. Rau at the South African Museum, a natural history museum in Cape Town, with the stuffed quagga foal that became the focus of his project. As Bernard Heuvelmans mentioned in his famed checklist of 1986, there continue to be reported sightings [...]

Thylacine: World’s Rarest Animal?

New Sightings, New Expeditions This January 2006, the most recent sighting of a Thylacine occurred. The Standard recorded probably what was the first cryptid sighting of 2006, that took place on January 2: “A Tasmanian tiger or thylacine ran across a road north of Colac about 12.50am…according to Warrion man Steven Bennett….The 24-year-old said the animal’s stripes, tail and hind legs convinced him it was not a dog, feral cat or fox.” So the Thylacine sightings continue. In a new article examining “The Thylacine Debate – Is the Tasmanian Tiger Really Extinct?” by Chani Blue, in Australia’s Epoch Times for [...]