Who? What?

Meet the Scientist: Lake Champlain—Home To A Mystery Animal?

Bio-acoustician Elizabeth von Muggenthaler will discuss her research that led to the discovery of bio-sonar signals in Lake Champlain. Only dolphins and whales echolocate underwater, as a form of communication and as a food searching technique, and there are none in this Lake. What creature is making this high frequency sound? Free with admission. 1-877-ECHOFUN, www.echovermont.org

Date: July 16, 2009
Time: 11:00 am Eastern Time

Where?

ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center
Leahy Center for Lake Champlain
One College Street
Burlington, VT 05401

For More Information…
Please Call, Write, Fax or Email:
info@echovermont.org
phone: 802-864-1848
fax: 802-864-6832

Colleague and Cryptomundo correspondent William Dranginis from Virginia emails me:

This talk is being presented by a good friend and team member bio-acoustician Elizabeth von Muggenthaler. Mike Frizzell and I were up at the Lake over the weekend conducting a site survey with Elizabeth to prepare for future work there. Elizabeth has really discovered something big, even if it was a number of years ago. We will be using the EyeGotcha video system there, only this time it will be underwater!

Elizabeth von Muggenthaler is a bioacoustician from the Fauna Communications Research Institute in North Carolina.

In 1998, Elizabeth von Muggenthaler and a group of colleagues announced that they had found evidence that giraffes use infrasound to communicate. In part, Muggenthaler had taken on the study — done on 11 giraffes at 2 zoos in North and South Carolina — because she had studied the use of infrasound by the Okapi, a relative of the giraffe. It would be natural, she thought, for the giraffe, which shares many behaviors with the Okapi, to also share the use of low sounds.
Rare, old postcard from the International Cryptozoology Museum archives.

In 1992, Muggenthaler documented the use of infrasound by rhinos. She was able to record the haunting whale-song of the Sumatran rhino (seen below, in a trail-cam photo).

The intriguing choice of some of Muggenthaler’s subjects ~ okapis and Sumatran rhinos ~ two animals significant in cryptozoology, and the unknown animals of Lake Champlain, points to an individual performing groundbreaking work on the frontiers of zoology. She is featured in MonsterQuest season 1′s “America’s Loch Ness.”

Muggenthaler is a hard-working, creative, intelligent model for young cryptozoologists-in-training worldwide. She is an inspiration to all who have studied her work.

I look forward to hearing more about her Lake Champlain results.