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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Thursday, October 31, 2013

SAMHAIN: Corinna's Hallowe'en Story

Ely Cathedral, proud and strong, stands atop her island surveying all below her.  In the bright sunshine she can be seen from miles away but when the mist rolls in and wraps its vaporous fingers around the fenlands, she is like a galleon in full sail riding atop the mist; she becomes the ‘Ship of the Fens.' 

The fenlands were once a place full of foreboding, and the boundaries – where the land gave way to the water-logged marshes – became the stamping ground of many a thief who lay in wait for unwary pilgrims on their way to the Isle of Ely to give thanks to God in the great cathedral, or for travellers who were hoping to sell their wares, make deals or just rest awhile before continuing on their journey.  The threat of eternal damnation in the fires of hell that many victims warned of whilst their meagre purses were emptied affected these robbers not. Travellers and merchants were easy prey, and the clergy were as much to be despised as the conquering Norman invaders. Such things caused these robbers no concern, for in their eyes the Lord had long since banished them from his charity.  They were already damned; the raging fires had already scorched the soles of their feet.  And when offered salvation they would merely crack a disdainful smile and laugh in the face of those who presented such weak and panic-stricken last deals. 

Read on

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.














I AM NOT SURE WHETHER THIS IS INAPPROPRIATE ENOUGH FOR INAPPROPRIATE CORNER, OR JUST SILLY

YER GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS INTRIGUED

The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
 
I always believed that I have something
important to say and I said it.
 
                              Lou Reed
 
Today is Samhain, the day when the worlds of the living and the worlds of the dead are closest together. Or the feast day of All Hallows, which roughly means the same thing. When I lived in Exeter with Gothboy, we used to buy lots of cheap sweets and Richard used to dole them out to visiting youngsters from a real human skull that we happen to have kicking around the place. He also wore black robes and muttered something about Great Chthulu, which I think added a certain frisson to proceedings. However, as we are the weirdos who live at the end of a largely unlit lane at the corner of the village we don't seem to get Trick or Treaters any more, but we shall buy sweets just in case.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*  The Gonzo Daily is a two-way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at  jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work or even just say hello, please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow....

*  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link:
www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
 
* We should probably mention here that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

*  Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others), is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon, which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus... did we mention the orange cat?

A RATHER DODGY PIECE OF JOURNALISTIC PRESTIDIGITATION


I don't like having a go at The North Devon Journal because on the whole I have had a pretty good relationship with them over the years. But this article cannot be let go without a comment. At the moment, especially in Devon and Somerset, Bovine Tuberculosis is one of those buzz words sure to cause a reaction, being the main rationale between this current government's ethnic cleansing of the badger population. So the immediate reaction many people will get from this headline is 'Poor curly-haired farmer driven into insolvency by those nasty disease-ridden mustelids.'

But that isn't what the story says at all.

Mr Pile's farm tested positive for bTB in March but 'even though the farm has gone clear after recent tests Jim has decided to wind down the cattle enterprise and concentrate on his prize-winning Border Leicester sheep'. He states that he doesn't know whether it has anything to do with badgers because he isn't a scientist and admits that he was already thinking about reducing the number of cattle he was keeping so he could concentrate on sheep.

Good luck to him.

But the way the story is presented gives a totally wrong impression.

Check out the original story

HIT PARADE FOR OCTOBER (CFZ PRESS/FORTEAN WORDS)

UK


1. The Universe next Door by Judge Smith (2)
2. The Great Yokai Encyclopaedia by Richard Freeman (3)
3=. Dragons: More than a Myth by Richard Freeman (-)
3=. Monster! by Neil Arnold (-)
5=. Dark Dorset: Calendar Customs by Robert Newland (-)
5=. Haunted Skies Volume Five by John Hanson and Dawn Holloway (-)
5=. A Daintree Diary by Carl Portman (-)
5=. The Mystery Animals of the British Isles: London by Neil Arnold (-)


5=. The Inhumanoids by Bart Nunnelly (-)

5=. Sea Serpent Carcasses: Scotland by Glen Vaudrey (7)

US

1. Orang Pendek: Sumatra's Forgotten Ape by Richard Freeman (-)
2. The Great Yokai Encyclopaedia by Richard Freeman (3)
3=. The Journal of Cryptozoology Volume One edited by Karl Shuker (7)
3=. Big Bird by Ken Gerhard (5)
5. Monsters of Texas by Ken Gerhard and Nick Redfern (2)
6. Those Amazing Newfoundland Dogs by Jan Bondeson (-)
7. Tetrapod Zoology Book One by Darren Naish (-)
8=. A Daintree Diary by Carl Portman (-)
8=. Wildman by Nick Redfern (-)
8=. Extraordinary Animals Revisited by Karl Shuker (5)


Last month's positions in this pinky colour, which I think is called cerise. Sales in the US were about normal, but in the UK they were terrible - possibly the worst October ever. Hopefully they will improve as we approach what is euphemistically known as the "Festive Season"....

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

Yesterday’s News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

Happy Halloween. Have a good one.
And now the news:
  • Exotic pet market cancelled in UK but animal group...
  • Chinese Bats Likely Source of SARS Virus
  • Rat Island cleared of rats after 230 year infestat...
  • Here come the cavalry – Protecting Chad’s elephant...
  • Entomologist Finds Possible New Tick Species... Up...
  • Green Flame Moths: Scientists Discover Two New Lim...
  • Scientists Shine Light On World's Least-Studied Ba...

  • Scorpion-Eating Mice Feel No Sting

  • My recommendation for a horror movie to watch tonight is The Woman in Black; it's properly scary unlike most modern horror films that just shove a load of cheep actors in a house with really poor quality cameras and a vague plot outline then claims to be the scariest film of the year. Anyway The Woman in Black is a good film; watch it on lovefilm or something tonight:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPYMUnJGURI

    Wednesday, October 30, 2013

    International team hopes to settle thylacine mystery once and for all

    thylacine
    Thylacine expedition leader Mike Williams, left, and Rebecca Lang are part of the expert team hoping to fi nd evidence that could solve Tasmania’s great Tasmanian tiger mystery. Picture: Chris Kidd Source: Mercury
    THE thylacine has officially been put on notice: the hunt is on.
    An international team of naturalists from the Centre for Fortean Zoology has arrived in Tasmania for the first in a series of well-resourced and professional expeditions into Tasmania's wilderness to hunt for evidence of the Tasmanian tiger.
    Although the animal was officially declared extinct in the 1980s, reports of thylacine sightings are still common and expedition leader Mike Williams from NSW has high hopes that they can find something.
    "The problem with a lot of the sightings from members of the public is that they're generally caught by surprise, and their photos are taken on things like mobile phones and aren't very good," he said.
    "It will take really good quality video to really convince anyone and preferably a video shot by a person, so we've brought as much gear as we can to improve our chances of being ready if we do see one." Mr Williams is highly regarded in his field and has spent many years searching for evidence of the big cats that are said to roam areas of rural NSW and Victoria.
    He is careful not to be too specific about the regions they will investigate in Tasmania, but said they would focus on the state's northwest and southwest.
    "We're meeting up with some eyewitnesses to begin with and that will help us narrow down our search areas," he said.

    SEPARATED AT BIRTH: John Blashford-Snell and Franek Kluski



    DALE DRINNON: Australian Sea Monster, Hairy people, bigfoot, sasquatch and skunk ape, Frontiers of Anthropology, Benny's Blogs

    New at Frontiers of Zoology:

    FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

    In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.














    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS FED-UP

    I can, for once, get on with writing deathless prose, answering e-mails and generally trawling the few bits of social media to which I subscribe looking for people that I want to comment on something. Add to that the fact that I now have a pair of rather nifty studio monitors in my office, and I now no longer have to keep the music low enough so I can hear the telephone.

    I got an e-mail today from a regular reader of my inky-fingered scribblings, in which he told me that I shouldn't be so self-deprecating when I am writing. It would be much better if I came on more assertive. It was a very interesting e-mail and massively kindly meant, but I disagree with him, and I feel that I should explain why. The strapline 'Because some of us still believe that this stuff is important' really sets out our stall. Once upon a time the music and cultural issues about which I write each day were centre stage in Western society. Now they are not. We all have smart phones but we as a society have lost sight of the social and cultural issues some of us feel are important. This is basically what I am writing about and campaigning for with all the things that we do: musical, cultural, scientific and Fortean. I am not a big corporate dude in a commercial office; I am just what I say I am: a disabled bloke trying to change the world from a badly converted potato shed. I would like to quote Hawkwind at this point and say that culturally speaking I am an "Urban Guerilla, I make bombs in my cellar", but in the current sociopolitical climate that would be a very unwise thing to do.




    In One of his Final Interviews, Frank Zappa Pronounces Himself “Totally Unrepentant”
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/in-one-of-his-final-interviews-frank.html




    *  The Gonzo Daily is a two-way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at  jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work or even just say hello, please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow....

    *  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: 
    www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
     
    * We should probably mention here that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

    *  Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others), is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon, which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus... did we mention the orange cat?

    CFZ PEOPLE: Rosie Curtis


    Happy Birthday Honeypie

    INAPPROPRIATE CORNER: 'Once Upon a Time': The White Rabbit and Snow White's magical lady parts



    Does Snow White have a magical vagina on "Once Upon a Time"? Thanks to an unfortunately -- but hilariously -- timed promo for "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland," the White Rabbit made it look like Ginnifer Goodwin's lady parts were some sort of magical portal.

    The resulting image is kind of amazing.

    While the rabbit graphic is incredible on its own, Snow White's line just before the promo appears makes it even better:

    "You're searching for something powerful enough to vanquish the queen."

    Is ABC implying that Snow White is hiding that something in her pants?

    According to a "Once Upon a Time" showrunner, alas, the whole thing was a mistake and not some new sort of subversive advertising. "I never thought I would have so many emails about Ginny's vagina," Edward Kitsis told EW.com. "It's embarrassing, but at the same time, it's so silly it's hard to take serious. It's so obvious that somebody didn't realize what they were doing."

    Read on...

    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

    Yesterday’s News Today
    http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

    On this day in 1945 Henry Winkler was born, ayyy. Fun Fact: studio executives would not let The Fonz wear a leather jacket during the entire first season of Happy Days as they thought it would make him lookalike a criminal, rapscallion or ne'er-de-well. For season 2 they agreed that he could wear a leather jacket when he was with his motorcycle. During the entire run of season 2 The Fonz always has his motorcycle with him in every scene as a result.

    And now the news:
  • Plans to help the pine marten recover in southern ...
  • Critically Endangered Pacific gray whales get repr...
  • New species of gecko, skink and frog discovered in...
  • Echolocation: Bats and Whales Behave in Surprising...
  • Poached rhino’s skin grafts a failure
  • Giant Oarfish Dissected! Worms, Eggs Found Inside

  • Evidence of Europe's smallest rodent is big news f...

  • Fonzie jumps the shark:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZGKI8vpcg

    Tuesday, October 29, 2013

    OLL LEWIS: How awesome is this?

    Take a look at the BBC's new bit of camera kit! How awesome is this?

    Although at the moment it'll just be used for getting pretty pictures for news reports I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years it is not a mainstay in wildlife documentaries, and as the tech becomes more affordable and quieter drone-like cameras such as this could be used for observing, tracking and finding rare and elusive wildlife and maybe even cryptids.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24712136 

    CRYPTOLINK: Locals in the idyllic holiday town of Magnetic Island in Townsville have been left scratching their heads after a monster-like creature was spotted in waters off Picnic Bay on Friday.

    A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. 


    The picture that claims to be of the Loch Ness monster in waters off Magnetic Island, Townsville. (Supplied)Local marriage celebrant David "Crusty" Herron captured An image of the unknown visitor, who he claims resembles the Loch Ness monster.

    "I was walking along the beach looking for wedding locations of all things," Mr Herron told ninemsn. "Suddenly, somebody shouts out, 'what the heck is that? It looks like the Loch Ness monster!'

    Mr Herron said the object, which locals have nicknamed a UMOOT (unidentified marine object or thing), appeared to be moving and was about 250 to 300m from the shore. "I thought maybe Scotland had been too cold lately so Nessie decided to come and visit Maggie [Magnetic Island]" laughs Mr Herron.

    Read on...

    CRYPTOLINK: Giant ’sea serpent’ of an oarfish carried hundreds of thousands of eggs

    A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. 


    What in the world is that???
    LOS ANGELES — A 14-foot (4.2-meter) oarfish that washed ashore in Southern California last week was ready to become a mommy.
    The serpent-like fish — one of two discovered along the coast last week — was dissected Monday and marine biologists found that the healthy female was ripe to spawn, H.J. Walker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Tuesday.
    The silvery fish’s 6-foot (1.8-meter)-long ovaries contained hundreds of thousands of eggs that were nearly ready to be released, Walker said.
    The fish had lost its tail somehow while alive and it had disc-shaped wounds from cookiecutter sharks, but those injuries wouldn’t have been deadly, Walker said.
    In fact, it’s unclear why the creature died, although Walker said it was possible the deep-water fish came too close to the surface, where it may have been knocked around by waves.
    The oarfish washed up on a beach in the San Diego County coastal city of Oceanside on Friday. Several days earlier, a snorkeler found the carcass of an 18-foot (5.4-meter) oarfish off Catalina Island and dragged it to shore with some help.
    The cause of death for the larger fish also remains a mystery.

    TODAY'S BIG CAT ROUND UP



    The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.




    FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

    In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.





    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS EXTREMELY DILIGENT

    The Gonzo Daily - Tuesday
    www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/about.html

    I think that everything happens for a reason,
    everything happens when it's going to happen.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Lou Reed 

    Yesterday got mightily weird. As regular followers of my inky-fingered scribblings will be aware, a week or so ago I managed to knacker the office telephone. Graham tried to fix it but managed to make it worse with the effect that (although we didn't realise it at the time) we could receive incoming phone calls but wouldn't hear a ring. As both Graham (in one hire car) and Corinna and Mother (in another) were pootling around Barnstaple, returning said hire cars and doing other important stuff for which three-way communication was a must, this was mildly disconcerting. However, it all worked out in the end: they all came home, and Graham fixed the telephone system by the simple artifice of unplugging the wonky phone...whereupon the Broadband went down for the rest of the day. Strange Days, indeed (most peculiar, Mother).


    Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet 
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_29.html

    Today's Track of the Day is by Genre Peak
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-gonzo-track-of-day-hell-on-surface.html

    Issue 49 of Gonzo Weekly went out on Sunday (and I forgot all about posting about it)
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/gonzo-weekly-magazine-49-i-forgot-to.html

    Review: Steve Hackett at Newcastle City Hall
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/review-steve-hackett-at-newcastle-city.html

    ‘I keep going back and adding things’: Greg Lake’s book is overstuffed with memories of ELP, King Crimson 
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/i-keep-going-back-and-adding-things.html

    Classical review: Zappa piece is full of symphonic fun
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/classical-review-zappa-piece-is-full-of.html


    * The Gonzo Daily is a two-way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work or even just say hello, please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow....

    * The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

    * We should probably mention here that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest, guv!

    * Jon Downes, the editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon, which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus... did we mention the orange cat?

    KARL SHUKER: Bones of the Thunder Horse

    Karl Shuker reveals the fascinating connection between a long-vanished giant mammal and a terrifying storm beast of Sioux legend.

    Read on...

    OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

    Yesterday’s News Today
    http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

    On this day in 1618 the adventurer, explorer, privateer, trader and financial backer of several early attempts to found a British colony in North America, Sir Walter Raleigh, was executed on trumped up charges related to an assassination attempt on King James. Raleigh, unlike his cohorts Drake and Grenville, was the victim of living long enough to see England's enemy, Spain, which had been where Raleigh had “acquired” most of his fortune from, become an ally and this had made Raleigh's current attachment to his head a political stumbling block.

    And now the news:

  • Snared and beaten badger found on footpath in Scot...
  • Otter killed in illegal eel trap on Anglesey
  • Climate Change Has Silver Lining for Grizzy Bears
  • Britain’s rarest freshwater fish reappears in Bass...
  • Discovery of a new species of nectar-feeding bat f...

  • Dino impact also destroyed bees, says study

  • So how did the colonies Raleigh funded do?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p-bWA1FOqs

    Monday, October 28, 2013

    CRYPTOLINK: Sea monsters 'in distress' (Fiji Times)

    A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. 

    Are the bodies of two giant sea serpents that washed up on Californian beach last week a sign of a looming major natural disaster? THE appearance of two rare sea serpents washing ashore beaches on the Southern California coast in the past week has prompted fears it could be a sign that a natural catastrophe is coming.
    The giant oarfish were dead when they washed up on land, and some scientists believe they come ashore to die because they are 'in distress'.
    The first sea monster, measuring 18 feet, was discovered by a woman snorkelling off the coast of Catalina Island on October 13. It took 16 people to drag it up onto the beach. The second silvery creature, measuring almost 14 feet, came just a few days later on October 18 in Oceanside, California. Oarfish, which can grow to more than 50 feet in length, are considered the longest bony fish in the world.
    They typically dive more than 3,000 feet deep, which makes sightings rare and has fuelled various serpent legends throughout history. According to traditional Japanese folklore, oarfish rise to the water's surface before an impending earthquake. Scientists speculate it is because the bottom-dwelling fish are more sensitive to seismic shifts.

    TODAY'S BIG CAT ROUND UP



    The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.



  • UK SIGHTINGS: Panther sighting 04/05/2012
  • JAGUAR: YEAR OF THE CAT - Nature (full documentary...
  • NEW ZEALAND SIGHTINGS: Elusive 'panther' may be on...
  • Large Cat Sightings & Witnesses (Documentary)
  • FEATURE LINK: Wild cats
  • NEWSLINK: Feeding 100+ Tigers, Lions, Leopards...
  • UK SIGHTINGS: Wildlife expert believes big cats ex...
  • NEWSLINK: Two more tiger poachers held in Odisha -...
  • Mountain lion spotted walking Glendale hillside ne...
  • NEWSLINK: Nepal 'prioritised' for global effort to...
  • National Geographic - Wild Cats [HD Documentary]

  • US SIGHTING: Belmont Man Reports Mountain Lion Sig...
  • FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

    In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.









    ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

    News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

    From Nick Redfern's World of Whatever:
    From CFZ Australia:

    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN PLAYS CATCH UP

     We have issues with Corinna's computer, my e-mails, and other stuff (including having no car at the moment) so, although things are continuing apace, it will be a few days before we are completely back to speed. I would ask your indulgence during this time. One unfortunate side effect is that about 30 people who usually get the Gonzo Weekly only will be getting the Gonzo Daily as well until my e-mails are sorted. I hope that this is not too much of an inconvenience.
    I have just finished reading Morrissey's autobiography (entitled Autobiography) and I must say that I was very impressed. It was almost as good as he said it was. The most impressive writing is the first third of the book, which deals with his life prior to The Smiths. Some of his prose is so good, that you find yourself re-reading passages just for the sheer pleasure of immersing yourself in such exquisite language. The section about his life within his most famous band is fairly perfunctory, and actually both the least revealing and least enjoyable writing in the book. But the last half of the book, dealing with his life after the band imploded, is much more enjoyable, though I am afraid it never quite reaches the same heights of literature as the accounts of his early days. A bloody good book, though! Oh, Morrissey; so much to answer for.

    Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet who celebrates the life of Lou Reed.
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_27.html
    The Artie Lange Show - Eric Burdon and The Animals Performs Water
    http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-artie-lange-show-eric-burdon-and.html

    *  The Gonzo Daily is a two-way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at  jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello, please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow....

    *  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
    * We should probably mention here that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

    *  Jon Downes, the editor of all these ventures (and several others), is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon, which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus...did we mention the orange cat?