IS IT JUST ME, OR.....

A new monkey species from The Congo may have a relative in Holsworthy...

BBC NEWS HAVE ANNOUNCED THEIR TOP TEN NEW SPECIES OF THE LAST DECADE...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9269000/9269338.stm

NEW MONKEY SPECIES

Over on Cryptomundo, Loren has news of a new monkey from Myanmar
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/strykeri/

TOP TEN NEW SPECIES OF 2010

Of course the list is highly subjective AND it is only early September so there are four months left of the year AND I am sure that I remember some of these species being discovered last year. But it is highly entertaining. Take a look at:

The Top 10 new species of 2010 slideshow

A GOOD REASON WHY ALL CRYPTOTYPES SHOULD SUBSCRIBE TO `THE ENTOMOLOGISTS RECORD`

ANTHENE GEORGIADISI SP. NOV. (LEP.: LYCAENIDAE) – ANEW BUTTERFLY FROM LIBERIA
TORBEN B. LARSEN
Jacobys alle 2, 1806 Frederiksberg C, Denmark (torbenlarsen@btinternet.com)

Abstract

Anthene georgiadisi sp. nov. is described as a new species in the difficult complex of the “ red Anthene”, in West Africa closest to A. mahota Grose-Smith, 1887.

It is the smallest species in the complex. The type locality is the newly created Sapo National Park, one of the largest and most important protected areas in West Africa.

Anthene georgiadisi sp. nov. was among 150 species collected during a brief visit by a non-specialist collector, emphasizing the need for continued intensive collecting in the dwindling forests of West Africa.

IT'S THE PITS

There is a new species of Vietnamese pit viper (Protobothrops trungkhanhensis). That’s jolly nice, but the case actually presents some interesting Fortean characteristics, because for some reason known only to the Gods of the internet, every single news item that we have found about the snake describes it erroneously as a brand new species of “rattlesnake”.

Well rattlesnakes are indeed a subgrouping of pit vipers, but whereas all rattlesnakes are pit vipers, not all pit vipers are rattlesnakes, and not only is the new species not a rattlesnake, all rattlesnake species are found exclusively in the New World.

The thing that is both interesting and worrying is the way that the completely erroneous information has been disseminated willy nilly across the internet.

Even www.wildlifeextra.com who are a generally excellent source for information write:

“The newly discovered rattle-snake is named Protobothrops trungkhanhensis Orlov, Ryabov & Nguyen. The snake is relatively small when compared to other Protobothrops species, being only 733mm in length, with a small triangle-shaped head.

Nguyen Thien Tao, curator of amphibians and reptiles of the Vietnam Nature Museum who co-authored of the discovery, said that this is the fourth species of rattle-snake of the Protobothrops family found in Vietnam.”

One of two things has happened, as far as I can see. Either there was a cock-up early on, probably in the translation between English and Russian (one can imagine a bored sub-editor doing a cursory Google search and assuming that because rattlesnakes are pit vipers the reverse holds true) or - more disturbingly - there is an entire culture of journalists just cutting and pasting other people’s information.

Now, I am very aware of the Biblical quotation about `casting the first stone` at this point. Some years ago, during one of my more spectacular bouts of uncontrolled bipolar activity, I had a job working for a natural history partwork.

I blotted my copybook seriously by resorting to the aforementioned cut and paste techniques, and was sacked. In my defence I was as mad as a bagful of cheese at the time and I have no real recollection of the events in question, but I will freely put my hands up and say mea cu;pa.

But that was long before I had any pretensions to being a reputable scientific journalist, and the fact that the rattlesnake identification has been used on so many occasions to describe this totally un-rattlesnake (it doesn’t even have a rattle for goodness sake) is a little disturbing.

The other explanation is that there has been a major re-evaluation of the taxonomy of pit vipers, and both Richard’s and my information is out of date, and we are just making idiots of ourselves by making an issue of this case. It is certainly a possibility.

Opisthoproctus soleatus - a very strange fish

I have heard of these things, but I didn't realise they were quite so damn freaky...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Barreleyes, also known as spookfish (a name also applied several species of chimaera), are small, unusual-looking deep-sea osmeriform fish comprising the family Opisthoproctidae. Found in tropical-to-temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, the family contains thirteen species in six genera (four of which are monotypic).

These fish are named for their barrel-shaped, tubular eyes which are generally directed upwards to detect the silhouettes of available prey; however, according to Robison and Reisenbichler these fish are capable of directing their eyes forward as well. The family name Opisthoproctidae is derived from the Greek words opisthe ("behind") and proktos ("anus").

NEW CHINESE BABBLER

Most people know that I was brought up in Hong Kong which was where I first started my lifelong interest in the natural world. Whilst a child I kept several of the Chinese babblers - a large family of Old World songbirds characterised by `fluffy` feathers. They are diverse in size, but mostly resemble large, noisy thrushes. They are a family of which I am extremely fond, and so I am particularly thrilled by today's news that a "new fist-sized, babbler bird species has been discovered in a series of underground caves in China, elevating the hope that the country could find other new discoveries" according to BirdLife International.

Ornithologists Zhou Fang and Jiang Aiwu first saw the bird, dark with white spots on its breast, in 2005 and has since then established its identity as an unknown species. They labeled it the Nonggang babbler, scientific name Stachyris nonggangensis, named for the region of China where the bird was found.

AT NIGHT ALL CIVET CATS AIN'T GREY! WAYHAY!

Channa Rajapaksa is a banker from Sri Lanka. Already that opening sentance sounds like a line from one of Pete Sinfield's sillier songs for Emerson, lake and Palmer. Those of you of a certain age listen to Jeremy Bender from Tarkus, and you will see what I mean. But he is a banker with a difference.

A few years ago there was a godawful NatWest advert on British TV showing a young bank clerk with the sort of post-Thatcherite wannabe yuppie look on his face that made you want to hit him, going out on the town with a vacuuous bimbo after he had finished work. No wonder we have a global recession. However, if bank employees were all like Channa, the world would be a different place because Channa is obsessed with civet cats.

Civet cats are - of course - not cats at all, but carnivorous mammals of the Viverridae, which are found across tropical Asia and Africa. There are in the region of twenty species, and one of them (and the recognition of a severely overlooked second species) are completely down to Channa.

According to the Sunday Times website:

The first time he saw a real-life civet is etched in his memory. “It was dark and the animal had been slaughtered for its meat. Although known as the ‘golden palm civet’ its fur was brown,” says Channa. It was chocolate brown (P. montanus) and not golden, leaving Channa puzzled. How could that be when the stamp indicated the latter? “The people called it the Sapumal kalawedda because it emits a scent similar to sapumal,” he explains.
Channa

Then a year later, he was able to trap a few and they too were brown. The crucial question came to mind – is this another species? Doubts assailed him, he was not a scientist. He was talking to scientists and experts, introduced by Sampath Goonatilake of IUCN. Some scientists had indicated that mention had been made in the 1700s of another species but the name decided on had gone into disuse.

Then an aged golden palm civet walked into his trap at Kalupahana in Knuckles. DNA tests were tried but failed. A further surprise awaited Channa. In another trap he had laid at Knuckles was a golden palm civet with three prominent stripes (P. stenocephalus) on its back. “Usually the single stripe is not very prominent but blends with the other fur, but this was not so,” says Channa. The thought that raced through his mind was whether there was a third species.

Read the rest of the story here...

NEW CATFISH POSES MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

A new species of catfish, which - it is claimed - "could grasp and climb rocks with its tail and mouth", has been discovered in a remote part of Venezuela, and - bizarrely - shares traits with two different fish families — Loricariidae (armored catfishes) and Astroblepidae (climbing catfishes). It has bony armor that protects its head and tail, and a grasping pelvic fin that helps it to climb vertical surfaces such as rocks.

Studies of L. wahari confirmed that the species is a member of a group that bridges two catfish families. Bony plates on its head and tail, plus other features, link the species to the Loricariidae, the widespread and successful family of fully armored catfishes. but the specialised pelvic finthat decouples from its body and moves backward and forward independently is otherwise found only in a family of climbing catfish restricted to the Andes, the Astroblepidae. Climbing could be an advantage to these fishes because of the irregular and sometimes high-flow of streams in these elevations.

So many new South American Catfish have been discovered in recent years that taxonomists have had to resort to a novel way of cataloguing them. David Marshall, of the Ryedale Aquarists Society and an old friend of the CFZ writes:

In the late 1980's a small variety of loricarins new to the U.K. aquarium hobby began appearing in aquatic retail outlets. All of these fish were given exotic-sounding common names so a small white fish with black stripes was sold as the emperor or zebra peckoltia, a fish with wavy black and yellow markings the scribbled plec, and one with a dark black body and white spots was sold as the vampire plec.

From the scant information that could be obtained, mainly through friendly retailers, U.K. aquarists were led to believe that all of these fish had originated from the Rio Xingu area of Brazil and were vegetarian by nature. It would take sometime for this information to be corrected, and make aquarists realise that these particular loricarins’ natural range extended beyond the Xingu area and that their dietary requirements were actually very varied.

As more of these loricarins began to appear, the sales tickets on their aquaria (first seen in Yorkshire through L 018 - Baryancistrus niveatus 'golden nugget') began to show a sequence that began with the letter L followed by a series of numbers. Shortly afterwards the letters LDA began the sequence with some of these fish. The shape and character of the sequenced species was also starting to change as no longer did they all have the look of a miniature plecostomus, but some resembled whiptail catfish, others large otocinclus, and then came the truly bizarre sight of little loricarins with grey and black marbled patterns - best described as elongated wine gums with fins. What on earth was going on?

When all was revealed, it became clear that these loricarins had been available on the European mainland for some time before we had seen them in the U.K. They were appearing not only from the Rio Xingu, but from many other areas of South America. As each new fish had been discovered, the well known German magazine DATZ had featured their portrait.

Worried about varying common names that had been given to these fish in the trade, the DATZ Editorial staff had come up with a system in which each new fish would be given an L-Sequenced number that would allow it to be universally recognised, until the scientific community could get through the tortuous procedure of giving them a proper scientific name. Going back in their records revealed that the fish U.K. hobbyists would come to know as the `white spot pleco` had been the first to be pictured, so this fish began the L Sequence as L 001 (L1). With some of the new species, it was clear to see that these were only colour, or regional, variants of loricarins already sequenced. So this was indicated, by adding a lower-case letter at the end of their number. Thus L O90d is the fourth known variant of ‘panaque species Peru'.

The Editorial staff of the rival German magazine Das Aquarium had also received photographs of other new loricarins coming out of South America, along with different-looking photographs of some of the L numbered fish, so not to be outdone they created the LDA numbering system for their photographs. Starting this sequence was the gold peckoltia which thus became LDA 01 (LDA1).

So from the start, we had confusion with different L and LDA numbers applying to the same fish. This became even more compounded when regional and colour variations of sequenced loricarins would slip through the system, thus giving them a totally different L number than that already assigned for their kind.

This would become partly to blame for further errors occurring, as other aquatic publications began captioning loricarin photographs with incorrect L and LDA numbers. These problems aside, the two sequencing systems remain the recognised - and best - way to keep a record of all the subject species, until the arduous task of scientifically naming them all is finally completed.

It is hard to keep track of LDA numbered fish through publications available in Britain, but by September 2003 a total of 76 loricarins had been sequenced. Thankfully, information on the L numbered loricarins is easier to come by, and of September 2004 the sequence had reached number 387.

One has to wonder why all these new catfish species have suddently turned up at once. Is it merely that the Amerindian collectors are now plundering hitherto untapped areas? Is it that they are better at their job than they used to be? Or could it be that something is causing a far greater degree of speciation than usual, and producing a bucketload of new species. This peculiar new species with which I started this column would tend to support that hypothesis.

OLL LEWIS: The Nature Of Sea Monk Was Irrepressible.

This guest bloggy thing seems to have taken a hold on people's imagination all across the CFZiverse. What started off as a mildly interesting idea seems to have taken off big-time, and looks as if it is going to get bigger still.

Now, for the third time, its the turn of Oll Lewis, the CFZ ecologist (who also happens to be the bloke living in my spare room) is following up his previous blog which suggested that everything we knew about Krakens might be wrong...

After my blog ‘Kraken the code’ the other day I received several emails asking me for more information about giant squid, which I only covered briefly towards the end of the article.

Although scientists find out more about these most enigmatic of animals every year, there are still hundreds of unanswered questions about their ecology and biology. One of these questions is that of taxonomy. Due to the small number of properly preserved, and complete, specimens of giant squid many scientists disagree about the exact number of species of giant squid (squid of the genus Architeuthis). Some have contested that there are more than 20 different species, whereas others claim 8 species exist, 3 species exist or even point out that there is no evidence at all that the specimens are not all Architeuthis dux.

The bodies of giant squid have turned up on coasts and beaches all over the world and are thought to grow up to a length of 13 meters for females and 10 meters for males. There have, however, been reports of much larger giant squid, but sadly these invariably turn out to have been misreported. One giant squid was found washed up alive on the charmingly named Thimble Tickle Bay, Newfoundland, Canada in 1878. The Thimble Tickle Bay squid has often been reported as measuring 18 meters (55 ft) from the tip of its mantle to the end of its two feeding tentacles. It all sounds very impressive until you check the original reports: the total length of the squid was listed as 35 ft and NOT 55 ft meaning it would have measured only 10 meters, which would be within normal size limits. I suspect the size exaggeration came from somebody incorrectly reading a 3 as a 5. Like many giant squid specimens, the Thimble Tickle Bay specimen was not preserved for science, and the eventual fate of the squid was to end up as food for the local dogs.

In my previous blog I lamented the fact that the giant squid has often been incorrectly shoe-horned in with kraken reports. However, the giant squid does have another possible cryptozoological link. In 1546 a most peculiar creature was found floating in Danish waters. The creature became known as the sea monk in English and when the king of Denmark was informed of the strange discovery he was perturbed enough to demand the animal’s immediate burial. The creature had a head similar to, or at least evocative of, a shaven-headed monk, a scaled body that looked similar to a monk’s habit and the lower half of the body terminated in a fish-like tail.

In the 19th Century, Japetus Steenstrup, the Danish biologist that first described Architeuthis dux, ventured a theory based on descriptions and illustrations made close to the time of the discovery of the sea monk, that it may have been a giant squid. Most of Steenstrup’s evidence was incredibly circumstantial and there are a number of things in the description of the sea monk that just don’t tally with it being a giant squid. Giant squid do not have scales, but Steenstrup explained away this inconvenient fact by suggesting that the scales might not have been scales at all, but blotches on the skin of the animal that was part of its natural colouration. Also that one out of several, probably secondary, accounts of the sea monk says it did not have scales. Steenstrup also redrew contemporary drawings of the sea monk to make it appear more squid-like for his comparisons. The ‘original’ drawings had probably been drawn based on the description rather than on the specimen itself because of the king’s insistence on a speedy burial in any case so they present very weak evidence that the creature was a squid in the first place, which is weakened further still by the fact they had to be redrawn. All this does not mean that the sea monk was definitely not a giant squid, but personally I think the evidence is just not there to support the hypothesis.

Like a large number of cryptids, there is evidence that something was found but, when you strip away years, or in this case centuries, of speculation the evidence you are left with is not conclusive enough to be able to say what that something was with any degree of certainty. This hasn’t stopped many scientists from suggesting their own opinions on what the creature may have been, including a hooded seal or a walrus (both suggested by Bernard Heuvelmans), an anglerfish, a Jenny Hanniver or a hitherto unknown species. Each theory has its own advantages and disadvantages (which are explored in detail by Charles Paxton and R. Holland in the paper Was Steenstrup Right? A New Interpretation of the 16th Century Sea Monk of the Øresund but no theory as yet seems to fit the description totally. Without the actual body of the sea monk it is impossible to be sure what it was.

WHALE STORIES OF CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL INTEREST

Two stories on the excellent Wildlife Extra website are of more than considerable interest to people of a cryptozoological persuasion.

The most recent comes from the west coast of Ireland where, in September, there were the first confirmed sightings of blue whales since records began.

The other story is much older, but as it is accompanied by the only pictures of four Arnoux’s beaked whales (Berardius arnuxii), observed from a helicopter during an Antarctic expedition, we decided to include it. For more details go here.

NEWS FROM THE CETACEAN NATION

THE WORLD’S SECOND LARGEST ANIMAL RUNS AGROUND IN IRELAND

A 64 foot fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) the second largest animal in the world ran aground alive near Courtmacsherry in the west of Ireland this January. The animal was in poor condition with its bones visible through its blubber. It was hope that the animal could be saved as putting such a huge creature to sleep is hard as it takes a vast amount of drugs and shooting it with high powered firearms would be the only option.

Sadly the animal died of natural causes. It was probably very weak and ill before it ran around. The creature was buried using two JCBs.

Many fin whales have been recorded off the Irish coast since September 2008. The International Whale and Dolphin Group were working closely with operators to record the whales in the area through photo-identification, where unique markings are recorded to enable them to recognize individuals. To date they have more than 60 fin whales and 10 humpback whales recorded (mostly from West Cork).

SPURNING JAPANESE

According to Greenpeace sources in Surabaya, East Java, the Japanese whaling ship Yushin Maru II, has been forced to abandon her whale-slaughtering mission and return to port in Indonesian. The Ship has a damaged propeller, rudder and navigation system. The Yushin Maru II being out of commission will significantly decrease the number of whales killed in the southern ocean this season. It is not know if this damage was due to the gallant efforts of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Meanwhile two Greenpeace activists are awaiting trial in Japan for their part in exposing a whale meat scam. Japanese whalers hunt Antarctic minke whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) for ‘scientific research’ (what ever the hell that means) but the whale meat is sold on illegaly for huge profints. In 2006 505 minke whales were butcherd by the Japanese fleet.

Not content with this atrocity, Japan is making a mockery of international law by re-flagging and using the refueling tanker, formerly known as the Oriental Bluebird, after it was fined by the Panamanian government for breaching international environmental law Now named the Hiyo Maru - the vessel is still operating with the whaling fleet, without a permit and despite the fact that Japan has ratified a treaty which seeks to ban the practice of reflagging to circumvent environmental law.

SINK THE BASTARDS!

In December 2008, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Steve Irwin, named after the late, lamented conservationist and crocodile expert, perused the Japanese whaling fleet across the Antarctic.

They found Japanese whalers in the Australian Economic Exclusion Zone at 64°26 South and 132° 40' East. The Steve Irwin launched a Delta boat with a crew to attack the Yushin Maru II with rotten butter bombs. The Sea Shepherd crew pursued and delivered 10 bottles of rotten butter and 15 bottles of a methyl cellulose and indelible dye mixture.

Pursuing this ship and several others the Steve Irwin prevented them from whaling. Captain Paul Watson said… “The Japanese whalers are still targeting whales in the waters of an established international whale sanctuary and thus they are still in violation of international conservation law and acting under the principles of the United Nations World Charter for Nature, we will continue to pursue, harass and intervene against their blatantly illegal lethal assaults on the whales."

The Steve Irwin has a crew of 40 international volunteers and a film crew onboard producing the series Whale Wars. Last year the Sea Shepherd crew pursued the Japanese whaling fleet from early December until mid-March. That intervention cost the whalers over $70 million in lost profits and saved almost 500 whales.

Everyone at the CFZ would like to send out our thanks and admiration to these brave people.

CRYPTOZOOLOGY NEWS: A whale of a tale

The North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) is one of the rarest animals in the oceans.

Called the right whale because it was the ‘right whale’ to hunt on account of its slow swimming speed and great size, commertial whalers reduced it almost to extinction.

The brilliant Wildlife Extra website reoprts that a right whale was seen 5 miles south of Faial Island in the Azores by biologists from Whale Watch Azores and the University of the Azores. This is the first record of a right whale in these waters since Jack The Ripper was in the news, back in 1888!

Lisa Steiner of Whale Watch Azores and Monica Silva from the University of the Azores
Watched the whale for more than an hour. It was identified as a right whale from photographs and the callouses on its tale flukes mean it was identifiable as the individual 3270 which was last seen in the Bay of Fundy on the US/Canadian border on the 24th September 2008.

A record of the 325 known right whales is kept by the New England Aquarium.

In related news, over forty North Atlantic right whales have been seen in the Gulf of Maine, leading right whale researchers at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center to believe they have identified a wintering ground and potentially a breeding ground for this endangered species.

Picture credit: First North Atlantic right whale seen in the Azores since 1888. Lisa Steiner/whalewatchazores.com.

WOLVES OF THE RISING SUN

I suppose that it was inevitable considering that Richard and I have lived together on and off for about ten years (although not, thank goodness, in the Biblical sense) and collaborated on various crypto projects for the entire time,that he should be sneakily becoming our foremost Guest Blogger. He has always been obsessed with dogs, so it is not surprising that Derek's marvellous posting the other day on the subject of stray wolves in Illinois prompted not one, but two wolf-related bloggings.

Canis lupus hodophilax

Some of the most fascinating wolves were found in Japan. There were two sub-species of wolf in Japan, the dwarf wolf, Honshū wolf or Shamanu (Canis lupus hodophilax) and the Hokkaido wolf or Ezo wolf (Canis lupus hattai ). The former was the smallest of all wolf species at fourteen inches shoulder hight. It was also the most strinkingly marked wolf species,with grey, white and russet fur. The Shamanu occupied the islands of Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū. It was eradicated by a combination of rabies (perhapse were the myth of the mad Hito-okami first arose), that first appered in the area in 1732 and the introduction of fire arms. Troughout the 19th century they were extensivly hunted and the last known individual was killed near Washikaguchi on Honshū in 1905. In Higashi-Yoshino Village in Nara prefecture a requiem for the Shamanu is carred out each year. Despite this there are sightings that sugest the dwarf wolf might still be extant.

A wolf was killed and photographed in Fukui in 1910 but the body was destroyed by fire.

In 1934 a group of farmers northwest of Hongu reported seeing five or six wolves in a pack. After World War II, sightings increased. Forester and writer Ue Toshikatsu, thinks that this makes sense as conscription and war reduced the population of rural areas and produced an increase in the numbers of wild game such as boar and deer.

In 1993, Yanai Kenji published his own story of how, whilst mountaineering with his son and his co-worker, he was startled by a “horrible howling” near Ryogami Mountain in 1964. Soon after hearing the howls, the party encountered a lone wolf. The animal watched them briefly, then fled, leaving the half-eaten carcass of a hare behind.

In March 1994, a conference on the wolf’s possible survival was held in Nara. Over eighty professional and amateur researchers attended. They presented and analyzed reports from seventy witnesses who had seen wolves or heard howls. An accompanying story in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun stated that a shrine in Tottori Prefecture, just northwest of Nara, was discovered in January 1994 to hold a surprisingly recent specimen of a dwarf wolf. This animal may have been presented to the shrine as recently as 1950.

Most sightings have come from the Kii Peninsula. This rugged, mountainous block of land projecting into the Pacific from the southeastern coast of Honshu was the last stronghold of the Shamanu.

Canis lupus hattai

In 1966, a wolf expert named Hiroshi Yagi was driving on a forest road in Saitama prefecture (well north of the Kii) when he spotted what he believed was a wolf. He stopped, and the animal let him get close while he took photographs.

In 8th July 2000 Satoshi Nishida, a high school headmaster was on a camping trip in the mountains of central Kyūshū. He encountered a strange creature and took ten shots of it with an auto focus camera. Two of the best were taken at a range of only three to four meters from the left side of the animal.

Mr Nishida showed the pictures to Dr Yoshinori Imaizumi, a former chief at the National Museum’s animal research divistion and an expert on Japanese wolves. Dr Imaizumi noted several charactaristics inherent to the dwarf wolf including the rounded tip of the tail and the reddish orange fur behind the ears and on the outside of it’s legs. He thought it was a lactating female.

Thus far none of the alledged photos of Shamanu have reached the west.
Modern expeditions have focused on the Kii Peninsula but despite trapping efforts and playing recordings on Canadian wolf vocalizations the dwarf wolf remains elusive.

The Hokkaido wolf was closer in size to the average mainland wolf. It was found on Hokkaido, Shakhalin,the Kuril Islands and the Kamchatka Penninsular. It was thought to have become extinct in Japan around 1889 during the Meiji restoration period. It was deemed a threat to livestock and a bounty was placed on the species. They were erradicated mainly by poison.

Like the dwarf wolf, sightings of the Hokkaido wolf are reported from time to time. It is also thought they may survive in Kamchatka.

There can be no greater metaphore for the ‘progress’ of ‘civilization’ than the transformation of the wolf in Japan from a spiritual creature to noxious vermin as it’s culture became modenized. There is a striking similarity here to the case of the thylacine or Tasmanian marsupial wolf (Thylacinus cynocephalus). It too is offically extinct but continued reports from excellent eyewitnesses such as zoologists and park rangers sugest it still survives. If the same is true for the wolves of Japan it would be a triumph for both conservation and the Japanese nation. Let us hope that the howling gods still lurk in the fastness of the Japanese mountains.

CRY WOLF

I suppose that it was inevitable considering that Richard and I have lived together on and off for about ten years (although not, thank goodness, in the Biblical sense) and collaborated on various crypto projects for the entire time,that he should be sneakily becoming our foremost Guest Blogger. He has always been obsessed with dogs, so it is not surprising that Derek's marvellous posting the other day on the subject of stray wolves in Illinois prompted not one, but two wolf-related bloggings...

Isn’t it odd, our most beloved animal is the dog, but one of our most hated is the wolf?

Has there ever been an animal so maligned as the poor wolf? Once the most widespread carnivore on Earth it has been mostly wiped out were ever ‘cilvilzation’has sprung up.

Wolves send whole communities into states of unbridled and uncalled for panic. The few wolves that were migrating back into Scandinavia from Russia were met with hysteria and panic. Most were killed.

The Florida black wolf was hunted into extinction by 1917. The Mexican wolf’s wild population is now only just above 50 individuals. The Red Wolf has a world population of no more than 300.

Talk is now afoot of reintroducing the wolf, along with the lynx and the brown bear, into the Highlands of Scotland. Vast amounts of land have been set aside and I can only hope this wonderful and exciting project is not scuppered by spineless politicians and the cowardly bleatings of greedy farmers and landowners, not to mention the increasingly ludicrous Health and Safety Mafia.

During her two years as governor of Alaska, the pitifully stupid and revoltingly spiteful, creationist nutcase Sarah Palin proposed a $150 bounty for the severed foreleg of each wolf killed. Last summer, Alaska wildlife agency personnel hunted down 14 wolves in helicopters and shot them. They then entered the wolf’s dens and shot the defenseless pups. All this to ‘protect’ reindeer whose numbers are already artificially high.

To make her know wow appalled you feel about this sickening act of cowardly eco-terrorism follow the links below

Sign this petition!

Contact Palin's office direct and tell the bitch that the CFZ sent you!

GUEST BLOGGER OLL LEWIS: Kraken the code

Guest bloggers are coming out of the woodwork. It seems that young Max had no idea what he started with his guest blog from the other day, because the idea has taken off mightily. Links to the guest blogs are proliferating wildly with the latest being from our good friends at The Anomalist.

Now, for the second time, its the turn of Oll Lewis, the CFZ ecologist (who also happens to be the bloke living in my spare room) with an interesting concept that everything we knew about Krakens might be wrong...




There’s one fact nearly everyone knows about Kraken; it’s a giant squid.

But is it?

The Kraken, like many other cryptids, has suffered from an identity crisis similar in some ways to that of the Afanc (Welsh lake monsters that due to a mistranslation into English were thought to be beavers, never mind how absurd this made legends of afanc being pulled out of lakes by horses and chains) and the chupacabra (which no longer just describes the Puerto Rican goat sucker but is used as a catch all term for legged cryptids in the Americas whether they suck goats or not). Legends and myths about Kraken have been intertwined with misidentified whales, giant squid, turtles and Jörmungandr (the Midgard serpent).

One of the most well known descriptions of Kraken is that of Jacob Wallenberg, who described the creature in modest terms as being no larger than the width of the Swedish island of Öland. Sadly as Öland is 16 km wide this is not really the best size description he could have given for an animal particularly due to the fact that no animal could ever become that big. However, Wallenberg also described the Kraken as the ‘crab fish’ a description more evocative of a gigantic crustacean than of the gigantic cephalopods they have become synonymous with in modern day mythology.

When viewed in conjunction with other aspects of what the Krakens of legend, the earlier crab-fish description makes a lot more sense than trying to shoe-horn them in with the same description as giant squid (as fascinating as giant squid are). The bulk of Kraken tales told in the Middle Ages though to the 19th century concerned sailors or fishermen who would land on an uncharted floating island, settle down and light a fire only to witness the island sink beneath the waves. Often this would wreck their boat leaving the hapless mariners helpless and stranded. It would be very difficult to walk on a gigantic squid, no matter how large due to the consistency of the mantle.

According to legend Kraken were docile creatures and did not actively seek to destroy ships, but ships would be wrecked by the currents and whirlpools caused by their diving and surfacing. Other legends state that fish would feed on the excrement produced by a Kraken so if fishermen fished near to where one of these gigantic crab-fish was known to inhabit, provided they were careful and their boat did not get sunk by the animal, their haul would be much larger than normal.

Looking at the evidence afresh one can put together a quite plausible theory as to what Kraken may be, interestingly kraken are still with us today, and it may be possible to see one. Kraken are small rocky islands only viable at the extreme low tides caused by spring tides, which explains how such islands would have been uncharted. The illusion of sinking is caused by the tide coming in and covering the island which also causes whirlpools, currents and eddies the same way an incoming tide does on rocky beaches. The abundance of fish also supports this theory because the submerged island would provide a reef and a nursery for fish.

The Kraken of legend is most likely not a real animal, but the creatures it was lumped in with by unimaginative artists and later retellings of the tales are. Several cephalopod species, particularly squid can grow to gigantic sizes, although none approaching the legendary size of Kraken. The giant squid, Architeuthis dux, is found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and can be as long as 13 m from the tip of the mantle to the end of its longest tentacles, and is the second largest known cephalopod (the colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, of the Southern Ocean being the largest).

CRYPTOZOOLOGY NEWS: IN THE NIGHT ALL CATS ARE GREY

On the excellent Tetrapod Zoology blog our friend and colleague Darren Naish details what may be a new species of leopard sized cat from India’s Western Ghats. The creature was discussed in BBC 2’s series The Natural World in an episode entitled Mountains of the Monsoon Friday 16th of January.

The pogeyam is said to be large, have rounded ears, a long tail and be gray in colour. Environmentalist Sandesh Kadur saw the creature in broad daylight, in the high-altitude grasslands around Anamudi. He set up a camera trap with bait but the pogeyam did not reapprear. Native people have long known of its existance, calling it ‘the cat that comes and goes with the mist’. There are no known photographs of the beast, but this drawing is excerpted from the BBC documentary on the wildlife of the Western Ghats (described above)that can be viewed HERE

It is possible that this is an unkown species or a colour morph of the leopard. Leopards have been known to exibit a wide variety of morphs. However the melanistic morph or black panther is the only commonly occuring one, the others are rare. So if people have been consistently reporting this big grey cat it would arge that this is either a new species or an isolated group of leopards with a dominant gene for this colour. This has occurred in other mammals such as the American black bear that has a white population on Queen Charlotte Island. We await more information with baited breath. With this new cryptid hot on the heels of yeti sightings, the Western Ghats seem like the place to head for.

The pogeyam is not the only new mystery cat to have emerged recently. A small, beautifuly marked cat was photographed by Aldo Sornorza of Fundacion Jocotco at the Jorupe Reserve, Ecuador close to the border with Peru.

This photograph was taken by Aldo Sornoza of Fundación Jocotoco (FJ), who was helping with the construction of the new visitors' lodge on the Jorupe Reserve, Ecuador. It is thought to be a new species of cat, still to be described, which was first seen two years ago in Peru. The Jorupe Reserve, owned and managed by the World Land Trust's partners FJ, is close to the border with Peru and this would be the first known sighting in Ecuador.

If not a new species, the only other cat it could possibly be is an Andean Cat (Oreailurus jacobita), one of the rarest of all the cat species, about which very little is known. Its habitat and appearance make it the small cat analogue of the Snow Leopard. While it is only about the size of a domestic cat, it appears larger because of its long tail and silvery-gray, striped and spotted long fur.

It is believed to live only in the high Andes mountains of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. It has been sighted at elevations of 5,100 meters, well above the tree line. Since it lives only in the high mountains, human-inhabited valleys act as barriers, fragmenting the population, meaning that even low levels of poaching could be devastating. It is often killed in Chile and Bolivia because of local superstition.

Over the last 25 years there have been fewer than 10 documented sightings. Lou Jost, of Fundación EcoMinga, also an Ecuadorian partner of the WLT, is lucky enough to have seen the Andean Cat, not just once but twice. When presented with this photo, Lou commented:

"The ground color is very similar. However I didn't see any strong patterns on the legs, like this one has, though I would not have seen that from the angles I had (just the back and sides of the animal running through dense vegetation, both times). The elevations of my sightings were very high, around 2800-3000 m, and very wet, completely different from Jorupe. I could easily imagine that there is a new species of cat endemic to the Tumbesian zone of SW Ecuador and NW Peru."

NEW MARINE SPECIES IN AUSTRALIA:"Check this out!!" says CFZ girls..

Showing a wonderful piece of acausal synchronicity, two CFZ ladies contacted head office to draw our attention to basically the same story. The divine Miss Fulcher (currently of Lincoln), sent us the link to a BBC story explaining how Australian scientists say they have found new marine life off the country's southern coast. They utilised a remote-controlled submarine sent back pictures of deep sea creatures never seen before.

At the same time, an Australian lass called Terri, who is one of Matt Osborne's contacts (as an aside - why are all your contacts invariably beautiful young women Matty?) sent us another link to the same story.

If you want the BBC tv news story, then follow Fleur's link, and if you want a more in-depth written story with a depressing absence of pictures, follow Terri's link, and if you want to know how to have a worldwide network of beautiful girls sending you news stories, ask Matthew Osborne..

Sad News: SIMON WOLSTENCROFT is dead

I am sad to hear that Simon Wolstencroft has died, because for many years we were very close friends.

I am certain that everyone reading this will know that there was bad blood between us at the end, and that there had been for several years, and I feel that it would be completely hypocritical of me to pretend that this never happened. Iggy Tavares, bless him, had tried to mend the rift on several occassions, but it was too deep and too fundamental, and - given the circumstances - was never going to be fixed. But I wanted to mark his passing, and remember the kind, funny, gentle, irreverent, and sweet man who was my friend for five or six years, before the illness took control..

When he was at his peak, he was the best editor that I ever had, and I learned a lot about the editor's craft from him. After he and I parted company I missed him a lot, and always hoped that somehow we would become friends again, although I knew that this was never going to happen. I still miss him, and my heart goes out to Debbie at this sad time.

Cheers old mate... Jon