Eyewitness Accounts

CFZ Guyana Trek Begins

On Wednesday evening, November 14, 2007, a five-person party flies from London’s Heathrow Airport in search of more complete information on at least three South American cryptids (e.g. Giant Anaconda, Didi/Mapinguary, Water Tiger). The five individuals from the UK-based Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] are on the track of cryptid data and en route to Guyana. For more information, see their previous release (which is being recycled this week), here. CFZ misread early notices here about this being called a “publicity stunt” for the videogame company Capcom’s launch of their new video game Monster Hunter 3. In the USA, the [...]

Replica Cryptia: Giant Ground Sloths

Photographs of the replicas under examination, in most cases, are generously shared by Dave Plenn of The Dinosaur Farm, who retains all copyrights to the images. Today, at Replica Cryptia, the representations examined are those of the Giant Ground Sloth or Megatherium. In recent years, replicas of this species of Amazonian megafauna have become significant in the search for the Mapinguary. The Mapinguary has been discussed cryptozoologically since the 1950s-1960s, for instance, by Frank W. Lane in Nature Parade, by Bernard Heuvelmans in On the Track of Unknown Animals), and by Ivan T. Sanderson in Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to [...]

New Coelacanth Discoveries in Solomon Islands

More big breaking news from the oceans… The expedition results of Jerome Hamlin, Dinofish, have been filed, and the results appear certain that a new population of coelacanth has been discovered. He was able to gather very credible testimonies on the presence of coelacanths in the archipelago of the Solomon Island, in the Western Pacific. The findings positively indicate this new population moves the known range of coelacanths further east from Africa and Indonesia. This is exciting news, indeed, because it means that all deep-water sites similar to what is being found near the Comoros, the Sulawesi, and the Solomons [...]

Thylacines and More

Can we find any of these? Are some of the “extinct animals” merely today’s cryptids? Is this footage of a Thylacine? Compare it with all the known footage of living thylacines.

Megalania

Does a Komodo Dragon-type monitor roam the fringes of the Outback of Australia? Is there a surviving population of a huge species of the family Varanidae in Oz? Rex Gilroy thinks so, and he rolls the name off his tongue with ease, Megalania, the man eating giant lizard:

First Live Sightings of Shepherd’s Ziphiid

Shepherd’s beaked whale, Tasmacetus shepherdi. The oceans hold many natural history treasures and wonders. New animals are being discovered at a faster rate from the seas than in freshwater or on land. But these finds from the marine environment often get little attention from Homo sapiens versus, say, a new giant peccary or a new monkey. Overnight, famed marine biologist Bob Pitman shared with me breaking news about several new marine mammal species. The news will not get as much of a read as a fuzzy picture of a land mammal from the woods of Pennsylvania or of a rapid [...]

Dwarf Killer Whale Discovered in Antarctica

A new paper written by Robert Pitman of the NOAA Fisheries – Ecosystem Studies Program and his colleagues provides evidence that there is at least one new species of killer whale in Antarctica. In a new 2007 issue of Journal of Mammalogy, the article’s following abstract summarizes their findings: In the early 1980s, 2 groups of Soviet scientists independently described 1, possibly 2 new dwarf species of killer whales (Orcinus) from Antarctica. We used aerial photogrammetry to determine total length (TL) of 221 individual Type C killer whales—a fish-eating ecotype that inhabits dense pack ice—in the southern Ross Sea in [...]

Suttons, Flatwoods & Oompah-Loompahs

One reason [the Flatwoods Monster case] might remind you of the Kelly goblins is the name “Sutton.” It’s the town next to Flatwoods and the name of the family that was besieged one night by goblins, aliens, eagle owls or Oompah-Loompahs.Robert Schneck, November 6, 2007. Don Getty, River Otters, Grand Tetons. Used with full permission of Mr. Getty. Images and laughter sometimes are worth a thousand words.