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, November 06, 2014

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: DEER- HORSE HYBRIDS?

Bob Skinner kindly sent me the following link which reports on unlikely hybrids,though on this occasion there is a photograph taken in Georgia, U.S of a horse-deer cross. There is also a quote from the Edinburgh New
Philosophical Journal (1827) mentioning such a hybrid in Berlin and Gerald of Wales mentions a deer-hybrid in the 12th century in his Journey through Wales. .

http://www.macroevolution.net/deer-horse-hybrids.html#.VAcb-MJdVOI

http://www.macroevolution.net/jumarts.html#.VAcd3sJdVOI

The bottom of the two links,above,is about jumarts, cattle crossed with an ass or horse, including a drawing of one in France in 1766 and a photo of the skull of one in the holdings of the French National College of
Veterinary Medicine.

This site:
http://www.macroevolution.net/cat-rabbit-hybrids.html#.VAcfKcJdVOI  concerns
the who cat-rabbit hybrid debate, including videos.
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FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES


What has Corinna's column of fortean bird news got to do with Cryptozoology?

Well, everything actually!
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.


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TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS

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. 

The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why sometimes you will read stories here that appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking.
  • NEWSLINK: Big cat seen chasing deer in NC
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  • NEWSLINK: NIVEA criticised for using white lion c...
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    BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF



    Bigfoot: science probe continues into elusive northern Quebec creature
    The photo which started it all: a photo that Maggie Cruikshank posted on Facebook, which shows what she believes to be the footprint of a bigfoot ...
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    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN TO THE RESCUE

    The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
    Yesterday got more and more complicated. I interviewed the legendary Corky Laing from Mountain about his relationship with the late bass ace Jack Bruce. I also did fifty more pages of corrections to the second volume of George Eberhart's Mysterious Creatures together with the ever lovely Andrea Rider, and Mother hand fed the tortoises. I also listened to the new Neil Young album which is much better than the reviews suggested.
    Steve Hillage, Supertramp, Jon Anderson, Yes, Joy Division,  Hawkwind, and Daevid Allen fans had better look out! The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#102) IS available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/.
    It has Steve Hillage on the cover, and features an interview with him inside. But there's more! There is news about Daevid Allen, Doug Harr critiques the Supertramp live DVD, and people make wild speculations about a new Galahad side project. Xtul are still in the deep woods, and Corinna finds a brilliant board game from the Swinging Sixties. Jon muses on Peter Hook's recollections of Joy Division, and we send Carl 'Blue' Wise to a desert island and Jon is very rude about the third album by The Ting Tings. There are also new shows from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the massively talented Jaki and Tim are back with their submarine and Maisie the cow. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and turtles having a snooze (OK, no soporific chelonians, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:

    All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
    You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
    http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/

    *  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 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa 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 infantile orange cat?
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    THE CRYPTODANE: The loneliest spider

    To most members of the general public, as well as newspaper reporters and other lower life forms, cryptozoology is all about hunting for monsters – and the bigger and more scary, the better. Every now and then, an alien big cat can be included, especially if somebody has been scared out of their wits, their dog has disappeared, or they are now to frightened to go outside. In a pinch, a supposedly extinct animal can be included, but there has to be something special about it, and of course dinosaurs are the best. This is all well and good, but they are also missing out of a considerable part of the action. Cryptozoology is about animals that are unexpected in some fashion. There is no size criteria involved. This is why I have become increasingly interested in what I have dubbed microcryptozoology, i.e. hunting for unexpected invertebrates and other forms of small fry. And the best thing is, anybody can do it. You could f.inst. do worse than spend part of your spare time hunting for a companion to the world’s loneliest spider (or maybe not the world’s, but then at least Denmark’s loneliest spider).

    Read on...
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    BREAKING NEWS: Badgers demand human cull to prevent spread of Ebola

    Revenge? Moi?
    Revenge? Moi?
    Increasingly concerned at the impending threat of the Ebola virus, badger community leaders have called for the introduction of a human culling programme.
    “We’re proposing an initial pilot programme,” Furry Rita told us yesterday, “by having marksmen to shoot the pilots of the planes that seem to be bringing in the virus into the country. The pilots may not have Ebola themselves, but they are obviously carriers so need to be eliminated for the good of everyone else.”
    “Of course we’ve no idea how much humans spread Ebola,” continued Rita, the co-leader of the Harold Woods badger colony, “but vaccinations are too much hassle, so it’s much easier to shoot some as an experiment and then we can see what effect this has on the rest of the population.”
    Fellow badger leader Manky Kevin warned that further slaughter may be necessary, but on the plus side he stressed that it would be scientific and humane.
    “Moving on, we’re proposing a broader cull but can assure people that it will be conducted scientifically,” he said, stereotypically wisely. “So we suggest that the cull is restricted to a geographical region around Heathrow, let’s say Middlesex to start with. Once we’ve wiped out a couple of million, we can take stock.”
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    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Thursday

    ON THIS DAY IN 1832 - Joseph Smith, III, was born. He was the first president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was also the son of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. 

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  • Plan bee: New measures to protect pollinators

    • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day)
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