CHINESE LAKE MONSTER

Richard Freeman sent this, commenting that it looks like a huge eel or python. The YouTube blurb reads: 'This video is provided by Liupanshui TV,showing a lake monster spotted in Zangkejiang River flowing through Liupanshui,a small city located in the southwest of China.Rumors say the monster sank a cargo ship,leaving a crewman dead. A witness estimates the monster is about 8-meter long.

It looks like a giant python,dosen`t it?'

I don't know about sinking cargo ships but it is certainly an interesting piece of film and more convincing than many of its type.

THE CURSE OF THE MONTAUK BLOODY MONSTER

It is a recurring paradigm in contemporary forteana that whenever an unfortunate creature dies, falls in the water, and is washed up, hairless and bloated by decomposition it is hailed as a monster.


Well not, according to this story sent to us by our favourite Australian news-sleuth Rebecca (I am doing my best to stop calling her Ruby) Lang. What is most ignominous is that the whole sordid affair took place in Bude, seventeen miles away from the CFZ HQ, and we have to get a second-hand report from the Antipodies.

"A TV station in Britain has been left red-faced after mistakenly reporting that a polar bear had washed up on a beach in southern England. Presenter Naomi Lloyd astonished viewers of the ITV network's West Country Breakfast bulletin with a report that a polar bear had mysteriously travelled several thousand kilometres from the Arctic Circle to surface on the shores of Cornwall. "A walker in Cornwall has caught an extraordinary sight on camera. A polar bear has washed up on a beach near Bude," Miss Lloyd told viewers."


A polar bear? Could such a thing be? Well despite walruses and several other Arctic pinnipeds having turned up in British waters on occasion, and despite a comic strip in Look and Learn magazine during the early 1970s (if anyone can find the name for me I would be monumentally grateful), which featured such a thing as part of its storyline, no polar bears have ever (as far as I am aware) swum or drifted into British waters of their own volition.


It was a cow, with coat bleached white by the sun and sea. Never mind. Better luck next time.


http://www.iinet.net.au/customers/news/articles/7978035.html

CASSIE MORISSON'S CRYPTOFILM REDUX

A couple of days ago I posted this film by Cassie Morrison, and for some reason the bloody thing disappeared (and I also screwed up the links on the front page). So here it is again...

THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PATAGONIAN TAPIR

Max often finds interesting things whilst he is pootling about the Internet, and he usually sends them to me to pass on. Today's interesting thing is from the excellent Patagonian Monsters blog that we have visited before and is all about the mysteries surrounding the tapir....
http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2010/01/patagonian-tapir.html
However, whilst doing a bit of internet pootling myself in search of a suitable illustration for this piece I found this. Either LIFE magazine have made a monumental cockup or there is a hitherto unknown member of the Tapiroidea (the young of which look somewhat like a Dartmoor pony).

PAUL BITAKARA'MIRE: The Manx Loaghtan

Looking like some distant relative of the Golden Fleece out of Jason and the Argonauts, this curious four-horned ruminant known as the Manx Loaghtan has wound its way from its ancient origins in Scotland, the Hebrides and Shetland Islands only to find itself with an ‘at risk’ designation and sheltered under the Protected Designation of Origin scheme owing to its appetising flesh, which has attained the gourmet status of a delicacy. With its population having dwindled to less than 1500 registered breeding females it can’t be that long before the only place you may be able to catch sight of one of these Isle of Man natives will be at your local zoo.

A cursory search of the web, though, turns up a few sites dedicated to the propagation and protection of the species, which should provide some hope that its potential fate may yet be some way off.

COMMUNIQUE RECEIVED FROM GREENPEACE TUESDAY NIGHT

Hi there,

At 11.30am this morning, a team of Greenpeace activists started taking action against a massive oil drilling ship, stopping it from drilling a deep water well off the Shetland Islands. Using speedboats to reach the huge 228m long drill ship, they climbed up the giant rungs of the anchor chain, and are now preventing the ship from moving to its drill site.

Get the latest updates and find out how you can tackle the money financing Chevron and other oil companies on our website.

The ship is operated by oil giant Chevron, and was due to sail for a site 200km north of the Shetland Islands and drill a well in deep water, 500m down. More than 10,000 of us have sent an email to energy secretary Chris Huhne calling for a moratorium on deepwater drilling in UK waters. On top of that, last month we sent a letter to the government threatening legal action in an effort to stop new permits being granted for deep water drilling.
We also need to challenge the money that's behind the big oil companies like Chevron and BP. Our pension funds are often invested in these companies, which means you can use your power as a pension holder to make them go beyond oil.

Find out if your pension is invested in dirty oil, and tell your provider to push for a move towards cleaner energy sources..

If you don't have a pension, please write to Legal & General, one of the largest pension providers in the UK.

Thanks again for your support,
James Sadri, on board the Esperanza 21 September 2010

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1889 Nintendo was founded, starting off life as a company producing card games. Nintendo is most famous these days as the company behind Pokemon, the latest generation of which, Pokemon White and Black, has just been released in Japan. Now begins my long agonising wait for the British version to be released. Talking of Pokemon, if any of the other Pokemon fans reading this want to challenge my Pokemon teams then message me on facebook.
And now, the news:

'Lost' frogs found after decades
Mapping the flight of the bumblebee
How animals made us human
Construction crews unearth fossil 'treasure trove'...
German scientists discover rare ape species in Asi...

Song time, take it away Mr Zevon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2O91T6ZeW0