Eyewitness Accounts

New “Lion” Sighting in Tennessee

Adult female lion at Big Cat Rescue in Florida. I have just been contacted by an eyewitness, DJCB, regarding a new mystery cat sighting. On Friday, October 19, 2007, the witness saw a “female lion” on the shoulder of the northbound side of I-65 approximately .5 miles north of exit 98 (10 miles north of Nashville, Tennessee). As DJCB drove south, the large cat stood watching cars zoom by on the highway. The eyewitness described what happened next: I debated on whether or not to call local authorities. Three hours later, I called the TN Wildlife office. As expected, the [...]

Owasco Lake Monster

Loch Owasco? That is one of several questions raised by Chad Lewis in “Hidden Headlines of New York: Strange, Unusual and Bizarre Newspaper Stories of 1860-1910.” Among the strange tales Lewis amassed about the Empire State is that of two fishermen who reported seeing a large serpent-like creature in Owasco Lake on July 7, 1889. Fred C. Hayden and James O. Thomas noticed a dark form in the water at Buck Point, on the south end of the lake, that they initially thought was a tree trunk. As they approached it in their boat from a few yards away, they [...]

New Dwarf Manatee

A new small manatee has been discovered in South America. Please click on the poster above to increase its size for easier reading. For more information on the efforts underway to defend the manatee’s discoverer Marc Roosmalen against the allegedly fictional charges he is facing in Brazil, visit http://www.marcvanroosmalen.org/howtohelp.htm. Thanks to Darren Naish for alerting me to this new species and Marc’s new legal defense site.

First in Decades: South China Tiger Sighting

I’ve been away for parts of three days. Time to play a little catch up. This following report is interesting as this felid subspecies (Panthera tigris amoyensis) may not be extinct. (File photo of the South China Tiger.) Beijung — A type of tiger thought to be extinct in the wild for more than two decades has been photographed in a mountainous area in northwest China, state media reported Saturday. The endangered subspecies known as the South China tiger was spotted by a farmer on Oct. 3, the China Daily said. Experts confirmed that it was a young wild South [...]

New Bird Discovered in Brazil

A beautiful new species, Formicivora antwren from Brazil, has just been discovered. Intriguingly, this bird’s status as a new species was argued based on its distinct vocalizations. A new species of antwren from Bahia, Brazil has recently been described in the journal Zootaxa. Sincorá Antwren Formicivora grantsaui is found only in the campo rupestre vegetation of the Serra do Sincorá between 850 m and 1,100 m in the Chapada Diamantina region. This is an important area that holds other restricted range species such as Grey-backed Tachuri Polystictus superciliaris and Pale-throated Pampa-finch Embernagra longicauda. First observed in 1997, it is closely [...]

The Dover Demon Lives

Move over Ortiz, Manny and Beckett! Share the media airwaves Boston Red Sox! I will be on television around 4:15 p.m. on Boston’s “NewsDay Live,” this Friday, October 12th, on the New England Cable Network, speaking about Mysterious America and specifically, the Dover Demon. A figurine of the Dover Demon is displayed at the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. The strange creature was spotted in Dover, Massachusetts, in 1977. The Dover Demon sculpture is by artist Steve Goodrich of New York State. (Photograph: Amber Waterman/Sun Journal.) This weekend (see poster below), I will also be speaking about the Dover [...]