Forensic Science

What Is A New Species?

This is the latest new mammal discovered in Europe, Mus cypriacus or the Cypriot mouse, which was described last year in the journal Zootaxa. How does one determine that a new species has been discovered? How is it that one location has one species of salamander and thirty years later there are said to be many new species in that area? From where do all the new species come? The Naung Mung Scimitar-Babbler (Jabouilleia naungmungensis) was discovered in the pre-montane rainforests of northern Myanmar (Burma) in 2005. Their discovery, however, was not announced until 2006. It is a unique new [...]

Mystery Beast Thrice on Top Ten

The Lewiston Sun Journal has posted, in the midst of their current home page, a new listing (with links) of their most viewed news articles for 2006. Their earlier listing of the general story of Turner, Maine’s mysterious monster as number six was based on unknown criteria. This new online-based ranking of individual articles reinforces the common knowledge of those working at the paper – the Mystery Beast stories last summer sold the most newspapers for the L/A media organization over the most days in the reporters’ recent memory. As you can see below, story numbers 1, 5, and 9, [...]

Top Twelve Black Bobcat Hot Spots

UPDATED: January 14, 2007. Photograph of a cryptid black felid taken late in 2005 in Florida, by a Georgia professor (credit Ben Willis) that probably is a melanistic bobcat (Lynx rufus floridianus). Based on one of yesterday’s melanistic bobcat blog comments, here are my promised suggestions for the hot spots to go observe these black felids. Top Twelve Locations To See Black Bobcats 1-10. South Florida. If there’s one place that has produced the most melanistic bobcats, it would be this south central east Florida coast county that lies next to the Okeechobee Swamp region, specifically, Martin County, Florida. Ten [...]

Relict Skull Results: Khwit and Relative?

There’s news out of German cryptozoology site about new DNA results on the skull of Khwit (shown above) and another new find. In August, 2006, the Russian newspaper Komsomol’skaja Pravda (1) reported on the examination of a skull assumed to be from a “relic hominoid” from Abkazia. Most have talked about their relationship to the Almasty mystery. Igor Bourtsev, who found the skull, was invited to visit the USA for its analysis. (2) Click on the Khwit news item for a full-sizer view of the skull. Bourtsev wrote in the Mugamir Russian website that he was in New York from [...]

Mystery Tusk: Definitely Mastodon Not Mammoth – Perhaps

This mastodon (Mammut americanum) is the life-sized bronze representation at the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, the home of the “Mastodons.” As you will recall, on the 8th, you first read here about the “Mystery Tusk.” Now comes a “confirmed” answer. Or is it? Therein lies the tale behind the splash on the television screen. The video is running on the local news this morning and WCSH-6 has run a backup item on their website by Peter Weyl. The mystery tusk was discovered by Tim Winchenbach of Cushing. He found it in a scallop net brought up from the Georges [...]

Never Stop Asking Nessie Questions

Before this bit of news gets too old, I want to mention the seemingly funny media mentions last week about tourists in Scotland asking silly questions. The media had a bit of laughter over some questions from visitors, and, of course, Nessie was right up there at the top. According to a Travel Connect article entitled “Tourists Ponder Loch Ness Monster’s Feeding Times,” the tourism agency VisitBritain compiled “some rather puzzling queries from befuddled travellers.” As the headline to their article gives away, one inquiry they highlight dealt directly with the topic: One such visitor was evidently unfamiliar with the [...]

Mystery Tusk: Not A Circus Elephant

Fisherman Tim Winchenbach poses outside his home in Cushing, Maine, with a mysterious prehistoric tusk that was pulled up with a load of scallop shells on a New Bedford vessel fishing off Georges Bank in December 2006. Photos by Joel Page. Does this tusk come from a ten-thousand-years or older, long gone mammoth or mastodon? Along the coast of Maine, the news of this find has been a strange but popular story in the papers, on the local television channels, and of some note to lovers of curios and fossils. It is, needless to say, not especially cryptozoological, unless the [...]