RICHARD FREEMAN: RAREST GORILLAS FILMED FOR THE FIRST TIME

The rarest sub-species of gorilla, the Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) has been filmed for the first time ever by a German film company. NDR Naturfilm filmed two animals in a stand of trees at the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary in the Cameroons after weeks of searching. Less than 300 cross river gorillas are thought to exist in 11 locations in the Cameroons and Nigeria.
The Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary is a small reserve; only 19.5 square kilometres in size. Nevertheless, it contains a genetically important segment of the entire Cross River gorilla population; it is estimated that the sanctuary currently contains approximately 16 individual animals. While many populations of gorillas are threatened by poachers, the gorillas of Kagwene have been protected by the local belief that the apes are people, and therefore cannot be hunted or consumed.

“These gorillas are extremely wary of humans and are very difficult to photograph or film," said Dr. Roger Fotso, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Cameroon Program. "Eventually, we identified and staked out some of the gorillas’ favourite fig trees, which is where we finally achieved our goal."

"It's unbelievable that one great ape subspecies has never been filmed for TV so far," said Jörn Röver, Head of NDR Naturfilm. "We hope that our international production helps to raise awareness for these magnificent creatures and the work of the WCS."

"These extraordinary images are vital for the fight to save the world's least known and rarest ape as well as the mountain rainforest on which they depend," said Dr. James Deutsch, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Africa Program. "Over the past twenty years, local communities, the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria, funders, and committed conservationists have laid the foundation for a great conservation success story. We hope these pictures will introduce to the world the lead players in this story, the Cross River gorillas themselves."

It is indeed wonderful that the Cross River gorilla has been caught on film, but as every cryptozoologist worth their salt will tell you, a number of apes have never yet been filmed. I give you yeti, sasquatch, yeren and orang-pendek just for starters.

FRISWELL'S FREAKY FEATURES: MONKEY MAGIC

Some months ago Alan Friswell, the bloke who made the CFZ Feegee Mermaid and also the guy responsible for some of the most elegantly macabre bloggo postings, wrote me an email.

He had an idea for a new series for the bloggo. Quite simply he has an enormous collection of macabre, fortean, odd and disturbing magazine and newspaper articles, and he proposed to post them up on the bloggo.

Although I'm not exactly--to say the least--unfamiliar with taxidermy techniques, and consequently, cannot be too overly critical of those who practice it on a regular, professional basis, there is, I have to admit, something revolting about the image of an animal--particularly an endangered species--that has been stuffed and mounted. These images of a gorilla become even more disgusting when we read that the bastards who killed it also murdered--not too extreme a word, I think--its mate and baby. Still, there is a fascination in the process and it has to be said, they made a good job of bringing the poor sod 'back to life.'

Here's another famous stuffed gorilla, poor old Guy from London Zoo. The point of interest here is that the taxidermy work was carried out by Arthur Hayward, head of department at the Natural History Museum. Hayward had worked with Ray Harryhausen on the dinosaurs for One Million Years BC and The Valley of Gwangi.

NEIL ARNOLD: Crypto Stories From The Illustrated Police News Part 3

I have known Neil for fifteen years now since he was a mod schoolboy with ambitions for adventure and I was an earnest young hippie who merely wanted to start a club for people interested in unknown animals. Nothing much has changed over the years. We are just both a tad older...

From 1877 – FEARFUL ENCOUNTER WITH A BOA CONSTRICTOR: ‘A very terrible story reaches us from Texas. A lady, the wife of a merchant named Wilkinson, was, while on the borders of a forest, attacked by a huge boa constrictor, which wound itself around her body, evidently with the intention of crushing her to death. Mr Wilkinson was aroused by his wife’s piercing shrieks, and hastened at once to the spot. Happily, he did not lose his presence of mind, and he at once proceeded to attack the hideous reptile. At such a time moments seem ages. Mr Wilkinson severed the head of the reptile from its body, besides inflicting other injuries. Mrs Wilkinson, during this double encounter became insensible, and it is anticipated that the shock to the system is of so serious a nature that a long time must necessarily elapse before she can hope to recover from the effects of the trial she has undergone.’

From 1876 – A GIRL SEIZED BY A GORILLA: We have received a short report of an incident which occurred a short time ago in Western Africa. Our correspondent gives the following account :- ‘Mr and Mrs Osgood, a Canadian merchant and his wife, have been travelling through several parts of Western Africa. Mr Osgood had betaken himself to the woods, accompanied by a guide and native servant, his object being to shoot wild fowl. His wife and daughter were left on a spot upon which the party had encamped some hours previously. While Mrs Osgood was engaged in domestic duties, her little girl Clara, who was chasing butterflies, uttered a loud scream and her mother was horrified at seeing her clasped in the arms of a monstrous gorilla who was about to bear off. The unhappy lady was perfectly frantic and luckily her husband, who was not far distant, was attracted to the spot by her cries. One barrel of his gun was loaded, he took steady aim, and the whole charge of shot entered the back and posterior of the gorilla, who dropped the child and scampered off, howling in pain.’

NATURE BLOGS ROUND UP

Team in Germany maps Neanderthal genome

Researchers in Germany have completed the first draft of the Neanderthal genome, 3 billion genetic building blocks that will shed new light on the ancient hominid as well as the origins of its closest relation — humans. The team teased enough DNA out of three 38,000-year-old bone fragments to isolate some 3 billion DNA base pairs. The Neanderthal genome contains roughly 3.2 billion pairs, but many of lead scientist Svante Paabo are repeats, meaning his draft is about 63 percent complete.

Read on…

New Alaskan Ichthyosaur Unveiled

The University of Alaska Museum of the North has unveiled what officials call one of the largest, oldest and northernmost marine reptile fossils ever found.

Officials say the fossil sat in the Brooks Range for almost 210 million years before it was discovered in 1950, eventually arriving in Fairbanks.

Read on…

Humans got crabs from gorillas!

Just as humans and gorillas share a common evolutionary ancestry, the pubic lice that infuriate some members of the two species are also related. Pubic lice–known to scientists as Pthirus pubis and to most other people as “crabs”–are thought to have evolved from Pthirus gorillae, the structurally similar species that infests gorillas. Genetic analysis by David Reed at the University of Florida indicates that the lice lineages split about 3.3 million years ago, whereas it is believed that humans diverged from gorillas at least 7 million years ago. This suggests that “early humans somehow caught pubic lice from their gorilla cousins.”

Read on…

MYSTERY BEASTS BENEATH OUR NOSES

This Guest Blogger malarkey, that I came up with by chance, mainly because I couldn't think of anywhere else to put Max's fascinating article, seems to be taking off. Catch a load of this! Richard Freeman, Zoological Director of the CFZ, was so impressed by Max's article yesterday that he decided to write a companion article explaining how unknon animals in captivity is actually nothing new...

The idea of people keeping unknown creatures in captivity may sound surprising but it’s not without precedent. The creature Max has been looking into are invertebrates, all relatively small but sometimes much larger creatures can make it into captivity unknown to the ‘experts’.

Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie AKA Mr George Wombwell’s Royal Menagerie was one of a number of mobile zoos that toured the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first was run by a man named Pidcock back in 1708. They consisted of wild beasts in cages that were horse drawn around the country from town to town. The set up seems odd to us today and must have been stressful to both the horses and the animals they transported. Escapes were commonplace and a number of people were recorded to have been killed by wild animals that absconded from these zoos on wheels.

Entertainment rather than education or conservation was the driving force. Animals were often mislabelled or given odd names such as ‘Prerie Fiend’ (heaven only knows what they really were. Wombwell’s had among its beasts, creatures labelled as ‘tiger wolves’. These may have been thylacines. I have theorized that the ‘Girt Dog of Ennerdale’ that terrorized Cumbria in the early 19th century, was an escaped thylacine. The description of dog like beast with tigerish stripes that lapped the blood of its victims fits the thylacine remarkably well.

In 1855 Wombwells exhibited the first captive gorilla in Europe. The lowland gorilla had only been discovered in 1847 by Thomas Staughton Savage. Only skulls and pelts had made it to European museums. The Wombell ape was, for a long while mislabled as a chimpanzee. Acording to zoo historian and education officer Malcome Whitehead, the gorilla was at first fed on roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and beer! If I’d had been around back then I would have been dressing up in an ape skin and applying for a place at Wombwells.



Even further back early zoos may have been behind some of the stories of legendary beasts in Britain.Confusion and controversy surround this legend on the Suffolk / Essex border. Both the town of Bures and the village of Wormingford lay claim to the story as their own. In a 19th century translation of a document from 1405, the story is told of a fearful dragon that had a hide impenetrable to arrows and which disappeared into the marsh after having caused “much hurt”. It dwelt in and around water and had four legs and a long tail.

Wormingford begs to differ, saying that the creature resided there and was finally killed by Sir George de la Haye.

The description of this dragon sounds very like a crocodile. Indeed, many think it was such a beast that got free from the Royal menagerie at the Tower of London and made its way to Suffolk. One can readily imagine the fear a 20-30 foot reptile would have struck into the hearts of the peasants.
An escaped exotic is probably behind the St Leonard’s Forest dragon of 1614.This wild briar is a part of the once vast forest of the Weald. In 1614 a limbless serpentine beast appeared here. It was some nine feet long that killed both man and beast with poison that it ‘cast forth’. For a while it became infamous in the area. It was said to raise up its head and look in an arrogant manner about itself. The creature fed on rabbits. It sounds very much like a cobra, possibly brought back from abroad by a traveler or merchant and which subsequently got free.