Out of Place

Delphos Hyena

The following report recalls the historical stories of the Shunka Warak’in of Montana, as represented in the now missing taxidermy example above. Delphos, O., July 31. – Considerable excitement was created here yesterday when Isaac Good, who lives on the Noah Miller farm in Marion township, about a mile east of Delphos, came into town and reported that he had seen in the Pohlman woods, near the W. C. Baxter farm, between 8 and 9 a.m., a strange looking wild animal that had all the appearance of being a hyena. Mr. Good first saw the animal in the woods. It [...]

Dolphins in Baltic Sea – First Time In 200 Years

Add another one to this wild week of unusual animal sightings. Warsaw, Poland — Two dolphins frolicking near the Polish Baltic Sea port of Gdynia at the weekend thrilled Polish marine biologists, who say dolphins were last seen in the area more than two centuries ago. “Our records show dolphin sightings in this area in the 17th and 19th Centuries, so this really is a special event,” Professor Krzysztof Sikora, head of Gdansk University’s marine biology station on the Baltic’s Hel peninsula. Sikora identified the creatures as common dolphins and urged pleasure boaters and commercial shippers to keep their eyes [...]

Cryptic Sightings Roundup

Orange-bellied Parrot (Neophema chrysogaster). Photograph courtesy of Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife Service. There’s been nothing new on the Mystery Kangaroos in Mississippi seen along I-90, but that doesn’t mean people haven’t still been sighting them. We just haven’t heard about it. So what else has been going on? Here’s a weekend roundup of other recent appearances and sightings from around the world of cryptic animals and cryptids. Ignoring the more mundane news of big blue whale sightings off the coast of California, shark sightings near Cornwall, UK, and hundreds of Australian jellyfish encounters in the Gulf of Mexico, how about [...]

Fremont Lion Found Dead At School

When I was investigating mountain lion, puma, mystery cat, and black panther reports in the 1970s, many accounts from northern California were not believed. For example, in 1973, from Concord to Danville, California, people reported seeing a black panther. (Source: Vallejo Times-Herald, March 5, 1973.) I guess times have changed in those neck of the woods. A Fremont Unified School District employee received a very unusual greeting at work in Fremont, [California] Monday [August 13, 2007]: a dead 80-100-pound mountain lion sprawled in front of an elementary school parking lot. The animal appeared to have been struck by a vehicle [...]

Giant New England Devil Fish Found

Wire services are spreading the news worldwide of an unusual weekend find near Boston, a giant manta ray. Salem’s sea monster is really a manta ray Experts thought they were being fed a whopper of a fish tale – but when they got to Salem they were astounded to find locals had netted a giant monster from the deep. Marine biologists from the New England Aquarium were stunned when they set eyes on the corpse of a giant Atlantic manta ray, weighing more than 600 pounds and boasting an 11-foot wing span. Locals saw the sea beast’s lifeless body floating [...]

Mississippi ‘Roos On the Run

Mississippi is in the midst of a rash of kangaroo sightings. Here is a summary of what the wire services are reporting about the specifics. Bay St. Louis, Miss. (AP) – A kangaroo may be on the loose in Mississippi. Animal-control officers in Bay Saint Louis say there have been several reports in the past few days of a kangaroo hopping along U.S. 90. The mayor says he’s heard reports of people seeing a kangaroo four or five different times, and at first he wondered if someone was just joking around. Some officials suspect the animal was someone’s pet that [...]

Scientists Need Your Help: Identify This

Have you seen anything like the above, ever? This crustacean, found in the marine environment off Walpole and Portland, Maine, is not like anything researchers have seen before. Can you assist them with identifying it? (Photo courtesy Casco Bay Estuary Partnership) Reporter Ann S. Kim noted in The Maine Sunday Telegram on July 31, 2007, specifically about this unknown animal: A crustacean the size of a grain of rice was among the hundreds of specimens that researchers gathered in recent days from docks and piers from Cape Cod to midcoast Maine. The tiny crustacean, the marine version of a pill [...]

Kangahippomouse?

No, it’s not a new member of the Flight of the Conchords group, which already include performers with the pseudonyms of the Hiphopopotamus and the Rhymenoceros. No, the Kangahippomouse is the thing above. Mark Frauenfelder has blogged an entry entitled “Mystery creature photographed in Seattle — a kangahippomouse?” over at Boing Boing. A reader at BB recently sent in a photograph (above) of this whatever: “Just outside of Seattle, WA my roommate Ed recently took a photo of this . . . thing.” Mark is looking for help in identifying it. My first thoughts ran to that of the naked [...]