LINDSAY SELBY: Sabre-toothed cats

There seems to have been little interest in sabre-toothed cats sightings. Considering that sabre-toothed creatures only died out about 10,000 years ago and therefore there could be an ancestor around that was the result of interbreeding between cats as the last remnants of the sabre-toothed fought to survive, it seems strange that this big cat is virtually ignored by cryptozoology. There is very little mention of it, even by those who research big cats.


These cats were powerful hunters with large canine teeth that protruded out of the mouth, presumably for ripping prey apart or perhaps to get a grip on a prey that could not be broken if the teeth sank well in. The name 'sabre-tooth' comes from these teeth.


Reports of sabre-toothed cats have come from Africa, South America and even Europe.


Some of these modern reports describe sabre-toothed cats as being aquatic, in that they lurk in water to seize prey or live in hidden dens with underground entrances. They may of course be mixing up the cat with something such as a crocodile, stories do get distorted over time as the Chinese Whispers go on. Some of the stories/ accounts of sightings are below:

In 1940 there was an account of the Mexican Ruffed Cat by zoologist Ivan Sanderson. He obtained a large, tough cat skin from local people. The skin was about 6 feet (2 metres) from nose-tip with a short 1.5 feet (45 cm) tail. (Bear in mind pelts can stretch or shrink depending on how they are dried). The flanks and upper limbs had a series of wavy stripes in alternate light and dark shades of brown. The lower limbs were very dark brown, almost black, as was the tail. The cat also had a large ruff that started just behind the shoulders and encircled the neck and covered the ears from above and behind. A second skin of a smaller specimen was obtained but found to be in poor condition, but had sharper stripes. They were stored with other skins in Sanderson's base, but the base got flooded and the skins lost or ruined. Several candidates have been put forward including the extinct Samilodon (sabre-tooth tiger). Sabre-toothed animals have been depicted by indigenous Indians in their art work. However, this does not mean they have been seen recently but could simply be the stories of them are still alive and passed on through the generations.


In 1966 a report of a sabre-toothed cat came from South America by naturalist Peter Matthiessen. While in Paraguay Matthiessen was told by a seaman named Picquet about the existence of a mysterious cat:

"[He] described a rare striped cat not quite so large as a jaguar and very timid, which is possessed of two very large protruding teeth : this animal, he said, occurs in the mountain jungles of Colombia and Ecuador, and he has glimpsed it once himself." (Matthiessen 1966: 32, 33).


(N.B. Science Illustrée of September 1998 reports an observation by a French sailor, François Piquet, of a sabre-toothed cat in Paraguay in 1984 coming out of a cavern. It may be the same story as above but the date was mixed up)


In 1975 a 'mutant jaguar' was shot and killed in Paraguay. Upon being examined by zoologist Juan Acavar, he described it as having a foot (30cms) long sabre-teeth. Acavar felt that the animal was in fact a Smilodon, which supposedly died out over 10,000 years ago. The story goes that fearing the report would frighten the public and attract ridicule he decided on the mutant jaguar story. However, nothing more has been heard of the carcass.

(N.B. Cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that sabre-toothed tigers like Smilodon may be involved in such sightings, but it's more likely that the Thylacosmilidae, extinct sabre-toothed marsupials indigenous to South America, are the real culprits.)


In 1975 in Chad, Africa, Christian Le Noel was leading a game hunt from Derby near the river Ouandja 25km from Tirongoulou on the Chad-Sudan border when he heard a howling from a cave like nothing he had heard before. His tracker refused to go any further, saying that it was the sabre-tooth. The people of Temki, Hadjeray, in southwest Chad call the sabre-toothed tiger the "hadjel." The Zagaoua people of the region describe the creature as being as tall as a lion, with red fur and white strips, tail-less, and possessing a pair of large fangs/teeth projecting from its mouth. Wounds have been found on hippopotami that could have been inflicted by the teeth of a sabre-toothed tiger. Christian Le Noel witnessed a hippo that died of strange wounds that could have been made by a cat with large upper canine teeth.


In the UK there are stories about Hackney Marsh. There are tales of the Hackney Marsh Big Cat, which is thought to be a sabre-toothed tiger. Witnesses have described it as four feet tall with very long canine teeth.

So could there be a remnant of the sabre-toothed cat still around or even a hybrid, the result of interbreeding? Anything is possible. I just wonder why no one seems to have pursued the research for their existence, which is more likely than a living dinosaur in Africa or South America. If anyone has any thoughts please post a comment.

1998 Le félin aux dents de sabre. Science Illustrée, n° 9 : 62 (septembre).
Le Noel ,Christian 1999 On Target : History and Hunting In Central Africa Trophy Room Books; Limited edition
Matthiessen, Peter 1966 The Cloud Forest Pyramid Books New York.

THE BIG THREE: Richard Muirhead

A FEW WEEKS AGO WE ASKED VARIOUS BLOGGO REGULARS TO TELL US WHAT WERE THEIR TOP THREE FAVOURITE MYSTERY ANIMALS... AND WHY

Richard Muirhead is an old friend of the CFZ. I have been friends with him for 40 years now, since we were kids together in Hong Kong. He is undoubtedly one of the two best researchers I have ever met; he and Nigel Wright both have what Charlie Fort would have no doubt called a wild talent; a talent for going into a library, unearthing a stack of old newspapers, and coming back with some hitherto overlooked gem of arcane knowledge. Twice a week he wanders into the Macclesfield Public Library and comes out with enough material for a blog post, but he is presently in Hungary doing important butterfly conservation work..

I guess my favourite mystery animal,( and I place that deliberately in the singular, as it may have been one of the last of its kind) is the Giant Flying Snake of Namibia, or south-east Namibia`s Keetmanshoop region of karst-like hillocks and caves, to be precise.

I first “discovered” mention of this cryptid in 1995 or 1996 in the basement of a second hand book shop in Charing Cross Road in London , where I picked up `These Wonders To Behold` Lawrence Green, (Howard Timmins, Cape Town, 1959) but it is mentioned in my essay on this cryptid in the 1996 CFZ Yearbook. I am pretty sure that,apart from Karl Shuker`s writings and cryptozoological encyclopaedia, the Namibian Flying Snake is only mentioned briefly in Searching for Hidden Animals, by Roy Mackal. (Cadogan Books, London, 1980) But note, this is only as far as I am aware.

The interesting thing about this Flying Snake is its resemblance to a dragon in several respects, e.g. its habitation, on hillocks, its ability to fly, or rather, glide, its tendency to leave a noxious odour or slime. It also seems to straddle the boundary between “paranormal” and “flesh and blood” entities, rather like Sasquatch turning up in unlikely places like the Bible-Belt in the U.S.A. where their behaviour is very un apelike, apparantly.

Other interesting features of the Namibian Flying Snake is the light on its head,which hovers above the ground, rather like a U.F.O. is said to hover above the ground with a light in the developed world. Finally, just what was Courtenay-Latimer's role in photographing the cryptids tracks after it attacked the young farmer`s son near Keetmanshoop in c.1942?

The living sbare-tooth tiger or tigre de montaigne and its more aquatic relatives is another favourite of mine. This is because I find it pretty amazing, a real prehistoric survivor if there ever was one. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is very slender evidence for its existence, at least from Western sources. Who knows, perhaps in some dusty Chadian or French library, there are old newspaper cuttings. Or perhaps a genius with Google Earth will some day be able to track down its lair?

I first came across mention of the tigre de montaigne in Karl Shuker`s Mystery Cats of the World and was immediately hooked. Little is known about it, except its fierce roar and its banded red and white coat. Chad is a dangerous place,with warring factions and tension along the border with Sudan to the east. It is said to inhabit caves in the mountainous northern region along the border with Libya and near the central town of Mongo. I hope one day to look for it. Meanwhile those interested can check out my web sites.

The tatzelwurm is a somewhat sinister bipedal lizard or salamander like animal said to inhabit mountainous regions of Switzerland,Austria and southern Germany. No definite photograph of the pale cryptid exist, but interestingly, the testimony of Maurice Masse outside the Natural History Museum in Paris in 1934 as to the appearance of the tatzelwurm,(as reported by Roger Hutchings in Alpine Enigma, Animals & Men 2 pp 20-21) particularly that they only have forelegs, is born out by documents in French such as `Un Animal Inconnu Dans Les Alpes` by Willy Ley in La Nature, Paris, June 1st 1938 pp 366-367 and also in French `Le Tatzelwurm` by Georges Hardy in Tribune de Geneve November 28th 1969, `Portrait-Robot` by the same author February 6th 1970 and finally `Cherchez le Tatzelwurm! Also by G.Hardy March 13th 1970.

The second of these articles includes a drawing of a tatzelwurm which shows a tadpole like creature with beady eyes and only two forelegs! Unfortunately the quality of the drawings is too poor to reproduce here, but I will give a translation from the French of the part of the article which was headlined:`Schema le plus simplife de la forme de l`animal` or `The simplist plan of the outline of the animal`

An approximate form and colour of the body and the eyes, as I got to see them unexpectedly on the road, from the top of the village of Mordes, which goes to Forts de Dailly, to the right, an ancient walled fort, under the bushes. Not far from there are damp, humid caves and I think that the animal itself may have emerged from one of the caves (?), crossing the road, which was sunny this mid-September day, but cool, to go to the other side of the road, where, if I remember clearly, vegetable gardens and grass/lawns (were?) It was a beautiful day in Lavey-les-bains (hot) quite cool in Mordes alt.1,160m. The Tatzelwurm was on the road,dry but cool, three quarters across the road, on its walk, towards the orchard (?) Maybe he likes vegetables? As I told you during the interview I felt so disgusted by this beast that I did not stay in its neighbourhood. The colour was pinky white, like a foetues (i.e. a juvenile?- R.Muirhead`s note). Staring round protruding eyes surrounded by a pronounced black circle gave to the animal a provoking and threateningly ugly appearance.

The article gives two drawings of the Tatzelwurm, one pale and one dark. This article was translated from the French into English by Ronan Pellen in Cork in the mid 1990s, who insisted he was a Breton, not French.