Thursday, March 12, 2020

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.

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.

THYLACINES IN THE NEWS

Never before seen footage of the thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) from the Tasmanian State Archives ...

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O.O.P MACROPOD

Dog walker stunned to find wallaby hopping about in Scottish countryside

A dog walker was left stunned after she came across a wallaby hopping about in the Scottish countryside.

Original post

THE LAST WEEK AT THE CFZ-USA BLOG

MUIRHEAD'S ,MYSTERIES: Freshwater jellyfish

I found the following on a web site titled A Small Jellyfish conquers the world https://www.aqualog.de/en/blog-en/a-small-jellyfish-conquers-the-world/ "The freshwater jellyfish was first seen in Europe in 1880, at Regent´s Park in London, where this delicate creature, which attains a diameter of only some 2 cm, turned up in a tank housing tropical water lilies. At that time there was far more interest in animals than there is today, and the freshwater jellyfish hit the headlines worldwide. This, the first and only freshwater jellyfish then known, was scientifically described in the same year as it was discovered – twice! – as Craspedacusta sowerbii LANKESTER, 1880 andLimnocodium victoriaALLMANN, 1880. The first name was published somewhat earlier and hence is valid. So the scientific name of the freshwater jellyfish is Craspedacusta sowerbii.

Detective work
But where did this creature appear from so suddenly? It was already known that jellyfishes are no more than the sexually reproductive stage of a polyp. Jellyfishes belong to the phylum Cnidaria and their closest relatives are the sea anemones and corals. Hence the normal habitus of a jellyfish looks like a small sea anemone. This can perhaps best be compared with toadstools and mushrooms. The normal state of these fungi is a network of filaments that live underground. The parts that appear above ground and can be made into tasty dishes (as long as they aren’t poisonous fungi) are only the fruiting bodies, not the fungus itself..".