Public Forum

Monsters and the Monstrous: Call for Papers

6th Global Conference Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil Monday 22nd September – Thursday 25th September 2008 Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to investigate and explore the enduring influence and imagery of monsters and the monstrous on human culture throughout history. In particular, the project will have a dual focus with the intention of examining specific ‘monsters’ as well as assessing the role, function and consequences of persons, actions or events identified as ‘monstrous’. The history and contemporary cultural influences of monsters and monstrous metaphors will also be examined. Perspectives [...]

Pelicanism 1897

Pelicans historically have held a bizarre place in animal folklore. The Physiologus says of the pelican that it of all birds loves its young the most. The young pelicans in the Pieter van der Borcht (1545-1608) copperplate engraving (above) appear to be about to drink the blood of their mother; some versions of the story say that she feeds them her blood. The pose of the mother bird is known as “The Pelican in her Piety.” Another illustration of this pelican tale is shown in a woodcut (above) from Rome, 1577. “Pelicanism” is a term I wish to borrow from [...]

Milestone: 3000

The last posting was the 3000th blog published here at Cryptomundo. We reached 40,000 comments earlier in the week. Thank you all for making this the number one cryptozoology blog worldwide!

C2C’s Cryptid Canid

I’m playing catch-up from material published during the days I was out along the wilds of the St. Johns River. One item that has surfaced is a new mystery photograph of a strange-looking but familiar animal. Over at Coast to Coast, a image of an unusual canid (dog, coyote or wolf related mammal) was photographed along the Milwaukee River and then recently posted. The picture has raised several questions about what the animal might be. Is it a coyote with mange? Does the underlying musculature look too bulky for a coyote with this illness? Is it a well-fed coyote? A [...]

White Yeti & Mutant Ready

The Portland Phoenix’s Deirdre Fulton attended my talk today, and she just posted a flash review, here. It was a good crowd, and I appreciated the good introduction from local artist and library staff supervisor Michelle Souliere. Michelle Souliere views Swanson’s White Yeti (a/k/a “Killing Moon”), when it was at Bates College’s Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale. Fulton’s article reminded me of two things: 1) “All politics is local,” as longtime Speaker of the House in the U.S. Congress Tip O’Neill would said. He, of course, was talking about how the concerns and focusses of the rural areas, towns [...]

Crypto-Belfast Rocks!

Not just another night in Belfast: Above, the Wild Safari company’s Megatherium, the Giant Ground Sloth, is the 4.5 inch replica that David Oren used to ask the people of the Amazon about what they were seeing in the jungle. Mr. Orrin Harding, at my talk, showed a special interest in the model, and the irony of his name and Dr. Oren’s was not lost on him. Belfast is a city in Waldo County, Maine, with a population of 6,381 (2000 census). So close to the ocean, located at the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River on Penobscot Bay, you can [...]

Gobi Kulan Soon At Edinburgh Zoo

I have mentioned Przewalski’s horse before, regarding their presence in zoos (as above) and concerning their replica appearance (as below). The Przewalski’s horse, a Pleistocene megafauna survivor, extinct in the wild, can be called a “living fossil,” in the popularized employment of that phrase. Certainly, this horse is of interest to cryptozoologists, as mentioned earlier. The species (Equus ferus przewalskii, Equus caballus przewalskii, or Equus przewalski poliakov – classification is debated) is the last truly wild horse, first recognized by zoology in Mongolia in 1881. But if you live in or visit Scotland, you can see another unique wild horse [...]