THE BIG THREE: Richard Freeman

A FEW WEEKS AGO WE ASKED VARIOUS BLOGGO REGULARS TO TELL US WHAT WERE THEIR TOP THREE FAVOURITE MYSTERY ANIMALS... AND WHY. AND NOW WE ARE INTO THE LAST THREE.....

And now its time for Richard Freeman, my closest collaborator in the CFZ. WEe have been working together now for thirteen years, and lived together for much of that time. He is the Zoological Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology and an all round good egg...


The Dragon

No prizes for guessing this would be my number one choice. Dragons and their literal existence is somewhat of an obsession with me. But `wait` I hear you cry, dragon legends worldwide are probably based on a number of different creatures. Well yes, in that sense I suppose this choice is a bit of a cheat. The dragon is indeed many things in many lands.

• In Europe it is a bat-winged flame spewing, knight devouring monster with scales of steel or a poison-spewing serpent large enough to coil about a hill or crush a church.
• In Asia it is an antlered celestial rain god whose breath brings life.
• In Africa it is an elephant devouring, blood-sucking monster with a crested head.
• In Australia it is a swamp dwelling, man-eating lizard from dreamtime
• and in the Neo-Tropics it is a feathered serpent that brought music to mankind.
  

But what of the dragon today? Dragon sightings still occur around he globe. Asia in particular has a rich tradition. From eyewitness accounts I have built up a picture of a serpentine monster of vast length. It has scales of dark green or black that have rainbow sheen like oil on water or crystals refracting light. It has a head shaped like a horse’s in outline with an errectile crest on top. Some witnesses speak of four short legs and two bat-like wings. It appears to be some kind of huge reptile.

The Thylacine

This creature has interested me ever since I saw he famous film of ‘Benjamin’ as a boy. It looks just amazing, a wolf with stripes that is actually a marsupial! Like everything else in Australia it is wonderfully weird.

Called the healthiest extinct animal in the world there have been over 4000 recorded sightings since he date of it’s supposed ‘extinction’. These have come not just from Tasmania but from mainland Australia and also New Guinea. It has been seen by a zoologist and a park warden and has also been filmed. How many other cryptids can boast that? The late Peter Chappell (an excellent zoologist and bushman who had seen the animal himself) showed me a frame-by-frame brake down of a thylacine filmed in 1971. It was no fox or dingo.

If only one cryptid exists then this is it. Not only is it the most likely to exist it is also an icon of conservation and mankind’s inhumanity to his fellow creatures. A magnificent beast.

The Yeti

The best known of the mystery apes but one of the least encountered due to the remoteness of its habitat. There may be three distinct kinds: a small one possibly related to the Sumatran orang-pendek, a medium size one that may be a mainland for or orang-utan and a giant for that may be a surviving Gigantopithecus blacki. It is this last, giant form that is the most interesting to me. Imagine coming face to face with a ten-foot bipedal ape able to hurl a boulder with the east that you would throw a cushion. The giant yeti is the very essence of wildness and remoteness and this is why I chose it. The thrill of knowing there are still unexplored places inhabited by amazing creatures. The wind piping down from the Tibetan peaks and stirring the dark forests. A high pitch mournful, cry echoing down the remote valley. The finding of giant tracks and the uneasy murmuring of the Sherpas. The yeti is the lifeblood of adventure and discovery.