The digital recordings of Iraq’s supposedly cryptid Garta (“The Muncher”) look like “badgers,” of course. But what is a badger? Why would American and British troops in Basrah think these were unusual badgers? Some clarification needs to be shared on what is a badger? Most Americans visualize the badger differently than how most Europeans do. In Africa, when you say “badger,” Africans think of another animal, as well. The Honey Badger or Ratel. Badger is the common name for any animal of three subfamilies, which belong to the family Mustelidae: the same mammal family as the ferrets, the weasels, the [...]
The Garta: Creatures Seen Near Basrah, Iraq
Sightings Spread Horror, Conpiracy Theories Among Locals By Zeyad Kasim, July 6, 2007 For over a month now, people in Basrah have been circulating rumors about a “strange,” bear-like deadly creature that attacks people at night with its strong claws. Locals in rural areas around Basrah claim it has killed three people and injured six others, and that it usually pounces on its victims as they are sleeping outdoors during hot summer nights, when electric power outages are common. Farmers at Garmat Ali, Abu Skheer, Jisr and Shikhatta were so alarmed, they assigned guarding duties at night to prevent its [...]
Cryptozoology Animal of Discovery: Pygmy Hippopotamus
(Photo by Jacques Brinon) Posting a baby picture is always a good idea on a Sunday on the first day of the month. Here, Anais, the mother hippo, keeps an eye on her son Aldo, a three-week-old pygmy hippopotamus, (Choeropsis liberiensis), at the Vincennes zoo, outside Paris, on Tuesday, June 26, 2007. Aldo looks, eats and takes it easy like a hippopotamus. But he is only about as big as a human baby, at 21 inches. This pygmy hippopotamus, born on June 5, is one of only a few dozen in Europe, bred in a special program to boost the [...]
Loren & Loch Ness on Video
Someone has uploaded parts of the History Channel’s recent repeat of an episode of “Deep Sea Detectives” featuring great archival footage of recent cryptozoological discoveries, the program’s hosts diving at Loch Ness, and yours truly in my home-research office-museum. Corrective footnote: Yes, I know that Loch Ness is six miles from the ocean, although I misspoke during one of the tapings, and too quickly said “mile” instead of “a few miles.” I do get excited in these interviews to try to share my down-to-earth passion for the topic. For more on this subject see: The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, [...]
Famed Cryptozoologist to Prison: 14 Years
Marc van Roosmalen, as a zoologist and cryptozoologist, has used Ivan Sanderson’s and Bernard Heuvelmans’ classic cryptozoological fieldwork techniques, trusting the locals, listening to the native tales, and tracking down new animals. Now comes shocking news from his adopted Brazil that is anything but good. According to breaking press accounts, Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen faces 14 years in a Brazilian prison. An apparent victim of bureaucracy, he has been convicted of failing to apply for a license for the monkey refuge at his home in the Amazon region of Brazil. He is appealing the sentence. Time Magazine in 2000 [...]
Pygmy Giant Panda Skull Found
Bill Munns stands next to his model of a Gigantopithecus. Russell L. Ciochon, the anthropologist who is responsible for most of the contemporary writings on Gigantopithecus, which some think is the best candidate for Bigfoot/Sasquatch, or for others, the Yeti, has announced a remarkable fossil find today, June 18, 2007. The skull of the ancestor of the giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, has been discovered. This ancestor species is the pygmy giant panda, Ailuropoda microta. Funding for the project was made possible by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation and the University of Iowa. Russell L. Ciochon holds the jaw of [...]
Men of Cryptozoology: Chad Arment
Chad Arment (1972 – ) is the creator and moderator of the first specifically cryptozoology email list, founder of a publishing company, and author/editor/publisher of cryptozoology books. His interest in cryptozoology began in the fourth grade when he read Marian Place’s On the Track of Bigfoot (Dodd Mead, 1974). He casually studied the subject until high school, then began actively to investigate reports of unusual animals wherever he was living. Specific cryptids he has tracked include a mystery cougar, giant snakes, and an unknown hairy biped, all in Maryland, and a mystery cat in Ohio. Chad Arment self-published a pamphlet [...]
Dragon Kills Boy
Dragons on display at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. Dragons do roam the Earth. Less than 100 years ago, a population of dragons was discovered hidden away off the coast of mainland Asia. In 1910, it is said, a Dutch pilot crashed-landed on Komodo, a rugged, volcanic Indonesian island. After his rescue he claimed to have seen an incredibly large lizard, about thirteen feet long [4 meters]. Another story, equally murky in origin, has it that in 1912, a pilot who had safely landed on Komodo returned with stories of monstrous dragons which ate goats and [...]
Two New Wolf Species
New research indicates there are two distinct and separate Indian wolf species, Canis himalayensis and Canis indica. Here is the abstract of the breaking journal article about this: Two small endangered populations of Indian wolves were recently shown to be distant from other wolf and dog mtDNA lineages characterized so far. None of the inner branches in the tree of canid species based on partial hypervariable D-loop sequences were, however, statistically supported by the data raising the question whether the two Indian wolf lineages represent two new species, occupying an intermediate position between Canis latrans and C. lupus or have diverged from the [...]
Mystery Fish Postcard Solved? Megamouth?
Could the solution of the mystery fish photograph on an antique postcard (first noted at Cryptomundo on November 29, 2005) be at hand? Could this postcard reveal evidence of a beached megamouth shark decades before the species was officially verified? (Click on image to see full size version the Mystery Fish Photo postcard, enhanced by shockbeton) Mystery Fish head, click to enlarge. Does the head of the megamouth look similar to that of the Mystery Fish’s head from the old postcard? The above photograph (and the one below) of this 2004 megamouth are courtesy of Ton & Marjan of the [...]
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