Eyewitness Accounts

Cryptid Giant Snake Shot & Sank

Chad Arment, author of Boss Snakes: Stories and Sightings of Giant Snakes in North America, passes along this intriguing new case. The python [sic - no actual scientific identification occurred] snake that was spotted on Lake Sinclair [Georgia, USA] earlier this spring [2008] was killed by a Putnam County Sheriff’s Department deputy last Thursday [apparently June 12th, 2008; as June 19th, probably would have been referred to as "yesterday"]. The deputy shot the snake three times with a shotgun and the creature then sank to the bottom of the lake. No pictures were taken. Repair crews were in the Twin [...]

Black Panther Roundup

Panthers, the mysterious felid kind, have been in the news of late. Here’s a roundup. In Mississippi, the encounters are becoming so frequent the media is comparing them to Sasquatch sightings. Fancy that. Jamie Daughdrill of Brooklyn, Mississippi, is one of those area residents who claims to have proof that a black panther roams the southern part of Forrest County. He has a photo (above) of a black feline walking across his food plot that he took with his game camera. But he couldn’t find any tracks near the game camera. “All I’m saying is that it’s big and black [...]

Errant Kangaroo Alert!

Okay, out-of-place alligators are one thing, but things are getting serious now. Here is the first report in a long time of an out-of-place encounter of the Mystery Marsupial kind. This cryptid kangaroo sighting is from Florida, with the first sighting taking place during the second week of June 2008. No news about these cryptid critters has been heard since those sightings of Mystery Kangaroos in Mississippi, last August 2007. Of course, other Mystery Kangaroo reports from past years on Cryptomundo can be found from Austria, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Or who can forget the “Killer Kangaroos” of 1934? Accounts of [...]

Pig Still On The Lamb

Jerry Hart gets ready to toss another dog treat to a wayward pig that showed up Thursday at the home of his mother, Pam Hart, on West River Road in Waterville. David Leaming/Blethen Maine News Service First seen running free last month at Colby College, the swine shows up four miles away and gets some cat and dog treats. Wow, the authorities can’t even catch a pig? How are we to expect them to capture Bigfoot? Amy Calder of the Blethen Maine News Service updates the search for the little pig that can’t be caught in the June 20, 2008, [...]

What Did A Dodo Look Like?

Besides my recent Cryptomundo postings on the dodo and the moa-nalo, I have written other past entries here, which have reviewed the following often cryptic flightless bird species: elephant bird, more dodo, terror birds, more terror birds, moa, more moa, and takahē. In line with a question during an earlier discussion about how might have the dodo really appeared, the famed artist and Hollywood special effects man Bill Munn, well-known for his reconstruction of Gigantopithecus (below), contacted me. Munns wrote: “I have done scientific reconstructions of the Dodo (of how they may have looked) with all coloration based on actual [...]

Found After 80 Years: Caatinga Woodpecker

Caatinga Woodpecker, Celeus obrieni , the first sighting since 1926. Photo by Guilherme R C Silva. One of Brazil’s long lost birds, known only from a single specimen collected in 1926, has been rediscovered after an absence of 80 years. The rediscovery of the Caatinga Woodpecker (Celeus obrieni) has delighted conservationists worldwide and gives hope for other “lost” birds feared extinct. The single specimen has been considered a subspecies of Rufous-headed Woodpecker also known from South America. However, recently a recent review by ornithologists involved with the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithologists’ Union concluded that dramatic differences [...]

Call For Cryptozoology Papers

The Association Belge d’Etude et de Protection des Animaux Rares (ABEPAR) asbl have organized its 8th Symposium at Engreux, to be held in The Ardenne, south of Belgium, on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th September 2008. The thema is “Mysterious Animals from Waters and Woods.” They have opened, for consideration, a call for papers of fifty-minute long presentations (maximum lecture + questions/answers) in English, but best in French if possible. (They will not be paying for your travel expenses, even for accepted speakers. You must find your way to Belgium. I would love to give a formal analysis of Bigfoot [...]

Long-Tailed Bobcats?

In Amazing Indeed: Strange Events in the Black Forest Vol. 2, Robert R. Lyman, Sr., 1973, The Potter Enterprise, Coudersport, PA, on page 70, can be found this intriguing passage: Bobcats with Long Tails September 1951. Strange animals appear at times and no one can say for sure what they are. Such an animal was caught in a fox trap south of Wharton by Lynn Wycoff. Since it was an unusual specimen, Wykoff [name is rendered both ways in the article] decided to keep it alive. With the help of his father, he managed to free it from the trap [...]

Extinct: Caribbean Monk Seal

The news is sad. Until 1995, there was no concerted effort to establish the status of the population of the Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis). While there had been only sporadic sightings, many were unconfirmed. Now, it appears, these pinnipeds exist no more. The above image is the only known photograph of a Caribbean monk seal, taken at the Bronx Zoo in 1909. The species was formally declared extinct in 1996, according to some reports. The history of the Caribbean monk seal and its relationship with humans remains unclear, though we have found some evidence to suggest that native tribes [...]