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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Saturday, February 23, 2013

TERATOLOGY:Sheep delivers 'human' foetus in Minna

WITH what could be termed the aftermath of cross-breeding between man and animal, was recorded on Tuesday in Minna the Niger State capital, as a human-like creature was discovered in the uterus of a butchered ewe (female sheep) at the Kuta market.
The incident which occurred in the early hours of Tuesday is the second so far witnessed by livestock dealers in recent times, with the first incident in 2011.
According to the butcher Alidu Maiyanka "it was around 10:30 in the morning that I discovered the monstrous creature after slaughtering an ewe I bought on Monday from Kuta.”
Alidu, on becoming faced with the mystery, said he contacted his colleagues who came also to catch a glimpse of what had happened after which several people started trooping in from Minna and its environs.

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES (CFZ)

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 has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.



A PECULIAR EQUINE VIDEO COURTESY OF MY DARLING ELDER STEPDAUGHTER

GOODNESS ME

CRYPTOLINK: The bigger the Bigfoot claim, the bigger the need for evidence


meunierd_yeti_shutterstock
A researcher has published an article demonstrating the existence of Bigfoot. The paper was published in a new peer-reviewed scientific journal owned by the author of the paper.
Image: meunierd/shutterstock
Forget blurry pictures and casts of big foot-prints. A Texas veterinarian, Dr Melba Ketchum, and her collaborators have published an article, in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, proving the existence of Bigfoot.
It’s not the first peer-reviewed Bigfoot DNA paper. In 2004 an international team of geneticists, led by Michel Milinkovitch, published an analysis of “clearly identified … [yeti] hair”. They concluded the yeti, though genetically closer to ungulates, looks remarkably similar to primates.
A similar tongue-in-cheek paper, authored by Dave Coltman and Corey Davis from the University of Alberta, was published in a 2006 issue of TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution. And similar to the Milinkovitch paper the identification of the sample was not in question:
In July 2005, nine residents of Teslin, Yukon, witnessed through a kitchen window a large bipedal animal moving through the brush. The next morning, they collected a tuft of coarse, dark hair and also observed a footprint measuring 43 cm in length and 11.5 cm in width.
Coltman and Davis concluded that though Bigfoot, from eyewitness accounts, looked like Harry Henderson, genetically it was more closely related to bison. Of course, there is another explanation – the eyewitness account could have been wrong.
The problem with Ketchum’s paper? It’s not tongue-in-cheek. The authors are claiming to have sequenced not one but three Bigfoot genomes, concluding Bigfoot is a human hybrid. They even include HD footage of a sleeping Bigfoot (watch here).
As you might guess, I'm not convinced. Why?

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS BACK AGAIN

Only a few days ago it seemed that spring was here, but these last two nights have been colder than it has been all winter. I will do my best to get out to Huddisford today to see how the frogspawn is doing. If, as I suspect, it will all have been killed, it means that the two little tanks in Corinna's bathroom and the bucket in my friend Anne's garage are all that is left of this year's early spawning. Next year I shall have to do a larger scale rescue job. In other news.... ummmm there isn't any really.
 
 
 
The Adam Ant revival is one of the more welcome news stories of the year. Now there is a documentary
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/02/were-all-waiting-for-ants-invasion.html
 
 
 
Erik Norlander told me about this great feature on him in the latest 'Keyboard' magazine
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/02/erik-norlander-writes.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:
http://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 53 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. 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?

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today


Yesterday’s News Today

On this day in 1995 the author James Alfred Wright, better known by his pen name James Herriot, died. Herriot wrote several humorous memoirs of his life as a vet upon which the BBC drama series “All Creatures Great and Small” was based.
And now the news:
  • How Seals Sleep With Half A Brain
  • Caterpillars Build Leaf 'Houses,' Other Insects Mo...
  • Top Predators Have Sway Over Climate
  • Western Australia to reconstruct one of the world'...
  • Butterflies show signs of being affected by climat...
  • Carnivorous plant species glow blue to lure prey
  • Penis size matters to female golden moles
  • Eddie the arthritic otter shoots hoops

  • All creatures great and small: