Out of Place

Dog-Sized Toadzilla Captured

The Associated Press is reporting in breaking news dispatches this morning that the environmental group Frogwatch has found a toad the size of a small dog. They captured the 15-inch-long cane toad (Bufo marinus) during a raid on a pond outside the northern city of Darwin, Australia, late Monday, March 26, 2007. Frogwatch says the toad is the size of a football (they don’t identify what kind, but the Australian organization’s spokesperson is probably talking about what we Americans call a “soccer ball.”) The toad weighs 2 pounds, and is among the largest specimens ever captured in Australia, according to [...]

New Beast of Bexley Encounter

The Richmond & Twickenham Times of Surrey, England is reporting there has been a new sighting of the big black panther of the area. Called the “Beast of Bexley,” the accounts of this panther have now spanned almost 20 years. Here’s an extract about the latest encounter: Beast of Bexley may have been spotted again reportedly scaring a paddock full of horses. Neil Arnold, founder of the Kent Big Cat Research Group, said a black creature was seen around two weeks ago in Cold Blow Crescent. He thinks the animal could have been a black leopard. An eyewitness saw all [...]

Pink Bird Wonders Sighted

An archival painting of the Pink-footed goose (Anser brachyrhynchus). The legs are stunning. They are bright pink, almost bubble-gum pink. It’s very exciting….They are beautiful geese. Most people had never seen these geese before….What we are looking at is whether the pink-footed geese, with their westward shift [in Greenland] are now migrating with some of the white-fronted geese. It could be theorized that all of these geese have arrived together. It’s an interesting ornithological puzzle.Rachel Farrell, Rhode Island’s leading bird expert, while observing the pair of pinked-foot geese at Hammersmith Farm in Newport. The pink-footed goose, a bird that is [...]

New Cayman Croc Sightings

As was detailed here, an eight-foot long crocodile was captured near Old Man Bay in the Grand Cayman on Saturday, December 30, 2006. This despite the fact that crocodiles, according to the media and authorities, were suppose to be extinct in the Cayman Islands for 200 years. Now comes reports of new crocodile sightings from the Caymans: According to one eyewitness, Cayman Brac seems to have an unwelcome visitor. Earlier this week, Albertha Bodden was on the shore in the Stake Bay area picking whelks, when she spotted, what she believes was a crocodile in the shallow waters near the [...]

Where’s Wallie?

“Residents report wallaby on the loose in eastern Pa. town”, according to the Centre Daily Times, published in Centre County, Pennsylvania. In Fleetwood, Pennsylvania, the locals are asking “Where’s the wallaby?” That’s what officials at the Berks County Humane Society are wondering after residents began seeing a foreign creature hopping around town. The accounts came in on Monday, January 22, 2007. The agency received its first report of a wallaby sighting on Monday from a man who had seen the animal in his backyard over the weekend. No one has come forward missing a pet and 20 miles away, at [...]

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 [...]

Nature Will Find A Way

"The effort to eradicate pythons in the Everglades resulted in 170 being removed last year, up from 95 in 2005, national park spokeswoman Linda Friar said." – Naples Daily News Naples reporter Jeremy Cox, on Saturday, January 20, 2007, details (in part below) the real story about giant snakes being found in Florida: Deborah Jansen plopped the white plastic trash bag onto the grass and reached inside to reveal its contents: a Burmese python, flattened the night before along U.S. 41 East. Blood dripped from the snake’s mouth as Jansen, a wildlife biologist, uncoiled the snake to its full length [...]

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 [...]