WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Sunday, January 25, 2009

FEATURED BOOK: Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals on stamps by Dr Karl Shuker

Welcome to a new feature on the CFZ Bloggo. Each week or so we are going to spotlight three of the books from CFZ Press, almost at random, in what could be seen as a cynical marketing ploy, or an attenpt by a tiny publishing house to give a little more exposure to their books. Remember that we are a non profit making organisation, and that any money we do make goes straight back in to fund our programme of research..

There has never been a more popular time for dinosaurs and all things dinosaurian. From blockbuster films packed with breathtaking CGI effects, children's television and video cartoons, computer games, CD-ROMs, animatronic museum exhibitions, and theme parks, to countless books, magazines, toys large and small, ornaments, collectabilia, and even fun lines in confectionery and other edibles, prehistoric paraphernalia continues to scale new heights of desirability worldwide. But nowhere is this more apparent than within the philatelic world - where the issuing in recent years by an ever-increasing number of countries around the globe of handsome, highly-prized stamp sets depicting a spectacular array of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals is matched only by the corresponding increase of thematic collectors eager to amass an eyecatching, comprehensive menagerie of palaeontological monsters that the custodians of Jurassic Park could only dream about!

It all began in 1951, when India issued a red 2-anna stamp depicting a pair of prehistoric elephants known as stegodonts, to commemorate the Centenary of India's Geological Survey. This was the very first stamp to illustrate a prehistoric species of animal. The following year, Algeria included a red 15-franc ammonite stamp in its issue celebrating the 19th International Geological Convention, held in Algiers. And in 1958, a highly significant philatelic milestone was reached, with the issuing of the world's first dinosaur stamp, by China, depicting a Lufengosaurus. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, well over 500 sets of stamps portraying all manner of dinosaurs and a multifarious assemblage of other archaic animals have been issued, with a substantial proportion of these having appeared within the last decade alone - confirming the escalating interest among collectors in this exciting thematic subject.

And who can blame them? After all, where else but in the pages of a stamp album could stegosaurs and plesiosaurs, tyrannosaurs and sabre-tooth tigers, brachiosaurs, mammoths, belemnites, ground sloths, giant birds, and ichthyosaurs jostle for attention with velociraptors and trilobites, dimetrodonts and diplodocuses, mosasaurs, woolly rhinoceroses, Archaeopteryx, titanosaurs, iguanodontids, ammonites, giant sea scorpions, and innumerable other fascinating denizens of our planet's distant past?

Following the long-established tradition of thematic stamp catalogues that have been produced by a wide range of publishers down through the years, it is hoped that this latest catalogue – which provides an exhaustive , definitive listing of stamps depicting dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals issued by countries throughout the world - will encourage new thematic collectors to pursue their interest in dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures not only on screen, in books, or in museums but also via the ever-fascinating world of philately.

Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: CFZ Press (7 Nov 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1905723342
ISBN-13: 978-1905723348
Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.5 x 1.8 cm



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