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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.

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Sunday, February 15, 2009

IN BRIEF: WORLD'S OLDEST HUMAN HAIR FOUND IN HYENA DUNG

A new study has suggested that strands discovered in fossil hyena poop found in a South African cave, could be the oldest known human hairs. Researchers discovered the rock-hard hyena dung near the Sterkfontein caves, where many early human ancestor fossils have been found.

Each coprolite, is roughly 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) across. They were found embedded in sediments 195,000 to 257,000 years old. The sizes and shapes of the coprolites and their location suggest they came from brown hyenas, which still live in the region's caves today.

Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9,000-year-old Chilean mummy.

It's not clear which species the newfound human hairs are from, since the human fossil record for this time span is exceedingly limited, the researchers say. But, the hairs' age covers just before when we think modern humans emerged, and overlaps with the existence and end of Homo heidelbergensis.

"The hairs could belong to either of them, or of course to a species not yet recognized," Said Lucinda Backwell, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Backwell and her colleagues used tweezers to extract 40 fossilized hairs resembling glass needles from one of the hyena coprolites.

Scanning-electron-microscope images revealed wavy bands of scales on the hairs-a pattern typical of modern primates, with human hair being the closest match. Modern brown hyenas are known to hunt baboons and other large mammals when they are rearing cubs, according to the researchers. According to Backwell, the hairs in this particular coprolite did not yield any DNA. But, she noted that there seem to be hundreds of fossil droppings in the one South African cave alone and plenty more in sites across the region. "The contents of such dung could shed light on the ancient environments where early humans and their ancestors once lived," she said.

"It would be extremely interesting if this work kicked off some concerted effort to go back to sites where fossil dung has been found before," said Pat Shipman, a paleoanthropologist at Pennsylvania State University. "This could give us more evidence to answer questions being debated these days on how and when and where and why modern humans arose".

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