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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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Saturday, February 16, 2013

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: A PALE BLUE SHREW IN BRITAIN


Hi all,

About 2 weeks ago at a friend`s house in Surrey, I found the following in J.L. Knapp`s  The Journal of a Naturalist (1830)


“ I think we have reasons for suspecting, that a shrew new to Britain exists in this neighbourhood, A pale blue shrew (Sorex Daubentonii? Cuvier) has been seen about the margins of our reens (ϯ) ,and the deep marsh ditches cut for draining the water from the low lands of the Severn; and something of the same kind , in a half digested state , has been found in the stomach of the heron If it exists with us, a similar tract of land in more fenny countries may contain it plentifully , though it has yet  escaped attention.” (1) I`ve not been able to find out any more about this anywhere, including in a comprehensive book on shrews in the Zoological Society of London library. I`ve been telling people this was a “water-shrew”, which is wrong, the text just says shrew. An encyclopaedia published in 1819 mentions a blue shrew in Java, but that`s hardly anywhere near the Severn!!


Knowledge Nov. 1898 refers to the Irish “Connagh” worm – any ideas anyone what that might have been? (2) Another book, whose title I cannot recall, but published I think c. 1940s or `50s, refers to Irish white trout with magical powers (3)

1.  J.L. Knapp`s The Journal of a Naturalist. p  142 (1830)
2. Knowledge Nov 1898
3. Unknown. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sorex Daubentonii is an archaic synonym for Neomys fodiens the water shrew, which is a well known British species. It is not blue.
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