Now this is just weird; an amazing piece of synchronicity. Totally independent of each other, Richard Freeman and Mike Hallowell recount the same very obscure story in blog postings submitted to me on the same day. I am posting both of them because they are both fine and entertaining writers with slightly different takes on the same peculiar tale.
Back in the 1970s I read an excellent short story. It was in a freaky anthology called either Horrors Horrors, Horrors or Terrors, Terrors, Terrors. I can never remember which of these anthologies it was as I read them pretty much back to back. They are notable for having stories with very odd premises. There is one about a man who, like me, has a dread of large moths. He transforms into a bat and eats them. In one sequence he wakes and thinks that he is tucked tightly in bed when in fact the tight sheets are his own wings wrapped around him.
In another story, narrated in the first person, a boy's little sister begins talking about strange things and places she has never seen or been to, like the grandfather moon and the dark woods. When she meets an old man whose family name is Moon she dies of fright. The strangest story was The Bakerloo Flea by Michael Rosen, which deals with a giant flea that terrorises the Bakerloo line on the London underground. Like an urban legend, it is told second-hand. Cleaning ladies who work in the tunnels each night relate the story to an acquaintance of the narrator. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across an account of a giant flea in Karl Shuker’s book From Flying Toads to Snakes With Wings. A lot of internet digging brought some sparse information on this odd case.
In 1857 the eminent entomologist Professor J. O. Westwood was sent a dead flea that had been found squashed flat in a bed in Gateshead by a Dr Blackhouse. He saw that the monster was twenty times larger than Pulex irritans, the common flea. Professor Westwood named the giant bloodsucker Pulex imperator, the Imperial flea. Upon closer examination, however, it was found to be the distorted carcass of a young cockroach. It goes to show how anyone can make a mistake.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
VIRTUAL TAXONOMY FAIL (from Max Blake)
Hmmmmmmmm
I don't know whether it counts as a bona fide taxonomy fail when it is a computer generated image from some stupid game rather than a real incidence of someone being idiotic, but I suppose it does.
Or that's what Maxy says.
OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/
On this day in 570AD Muhammed was born.
And now, the news:
Bird-Eating Squirrel Illustrates Avian Dilemma
Resident spots squirrel monkey in Pelican Bay
Buddy the dog saves owner's home from fire
Dinosaurs died due to chilly seas
Dinosaurs died from sudden temperature drop 'not comet strike', scientists claim
Wis. woman braves traffic, saves 14 ducklings
Whale poo could aid climate, say Aussie scientists
Squirrel with a sore nut...
That’s nuts….
On this day in 570AD Muhammed was born.
And now, the news:
Bird-Eating Squirrel Illustrates Avian Dilemma
Resident spots squirrel monkey in Pelican Bay
Buddy the dog saves owner's home from fire
Dinosaurs died due to chilly seas
Dinosaurs died from sudden temperature drop 'not comet strike', scientists claim
Wis. woman braves traffic, saves 14 ducklings
Whale poo could aid climate, say Aussie scientists
Squirrel with a sore nut...
That’s nuts….
RICHARD FREEMAN: The Monsters of Prague #12
The Phantom Bear
In the olden days, before modern laws on hygeine, meat was sold from wooden huts. These were fly-infested, foul-smelling places over-run with dogs. Sometimes wild animals would approach the huts to steal meat. A large bear began to frequent the crude butcher's shops, cleaning up bits of old meat. It did not seem agressive and no-one really worried about it. As it turned out, the creature had not come out of the forests but was owned by a man who lived in Prague.
One day the 'tame' bear turned on a scribe and ate him. The authorities demanded that the bear be destroyed but its owner fled, taking the bear with him. He made money by displaying his man-eating bear in the towns of Cesky Krumlov, Strakonice and Klatovy. He was never caught.
Back in Prague a totally innocent bear was used to take the man-eater's place and was beheaded. Its ghost is said to haunt the areas were the butchers' huts once stood at Klarov. It will only pass over when it commits the crime it was executed for and eats a person.
In the olden days, before modern laws on hygeine, meat was sold from wooden huts. These were fly-infested, foul-smelling places over-run with dogs. Sometimes wild animals would approach the huts to steal meat. A large bear began to frequent the crude butcher's shops, cleaning up bits of old meat. It did not seem agressive and no-one really worried about it. As it turned out, the creature had not come out of the forests but was owned by a man who lived in Prague.
One day the 'tame' bear turned on a scribe and ate him. The authorities demanded that the bear be destroyed but its owner fled, taking the bear with him. He made money by displaying his man-eating bear in the towns of Cesky Krumlov, Strakonice and Klatovy. He was never caught.
Back in Prague a totally innocent bear was used to take the man-eater's place and was beheaded. Its ghost is said to haunt the areas were the butchers' huts once stood at Klarov. It will only pass over when it commits the crime it was executed for and eats a person.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
SADLY NOT THAT GIANT GECKO
Yesterday morning there was an email in my inbox from Tony Lucas. Well, I always like getting emails from Tony; he is an eminently reasonable cove and furthermore, someone who on the whole is on the same wavelength as me. He is also interested in nuts and bolts natural history as well as crypto stuff (like I am) and we are both more or less disabled. But this email promised even more:
GIANT GECKO DISCOVERED ON MAINLAND,
it said.
Bloody Hell, I thought. At last! A living specimen of Hoplodactylus delcourti has been found. For those of you not in the know (and it has to be said that the story has been mentioned serveral times in these hallowed pages), H.delcourti is an enormous gecko known from one specimen now in a French museum. It is the largest gecko known to man and has been linked in many people's minds with a legendary beast known from Maori folklore. It is probably the Holy Grail for most New Zealand herpetologists.
So has it been rediscovered? Well, no. The lizard in question is a much smaller species that has not been seen on the mainland since about 1920, but it is an interesting story and well done to everyone involved.
GIANT GECKO DISCOVERED ON MAINLAND,
it said.
Bloody Hell, I thought. At last! A living specimen of Hoplodactylus delcourti has been found. For those of you not in the know (and it has to be said that the story has been mentioned serveral times in these hallowed pages), H.delcourti is an enormous gecko known from one specimen now in a French museum. It is the largest gecko known to man and has been linked in many people's minds with a legendary beast known from Maori folklore. It is probably the Holy Grail for most New Zealand herpetologists.
So has it been rediscovered? Well, no. The lizard in question is a much smaller species that has not been seen on the mainland since about 1920, but it is an interesting story and well done to everyone involved.
MYSTERIOUS FOOTPRINT
To make things even more difficult, the commentary is in French and I don't know which part of the world it is. Over to you chaps.
LINDSAY SELBY: Florida Lake Monsters in the news
Florida Lake monsters have been in the news:
'In the United States alone, researchers list 222 lakes and rivers as alleged cryptid habitats,' Michael Newton wrote in “Florida’s Unexpected Wildlife.”
“It was green and black and a yellowish mingled colors, and they watched it crawl to the sea,” Emily Bell wrote of an encounter in Jupiter in “My Pioneer Days in Florida, 1876-1898.” “It raised its head and looked all around till it turned their way. Then they said it looked like a human face. It stood up about three or four feet. They measured to where its tail was and to where the head was and it was about 30 feet long and looked the size of a small nail keg.” “In 1885, a ship moored in the New River inlet found that its anchor had snagged on something. When the crew finally brought the heavy anchor up, they saw that it had hooked a dead serpent-like carcass,” Charlie Carlson wrote in “Weird Florida.” “The creature was described as being over 40 feet long and six feet wide, with two front flippers and a long skinny neck. It was in a bad state of decomposition and was never scientifically studied, but it would sure smell like a dead plesiosaur to a cryptozoologist.”
Some of Florida’s monsters have even earned names. “Pinky,” for instance, is said to haunt the St. John’s River near Jacksonville, while the “Astor Monster” in Lake County has been the subject of reports for more than a century. “In the late 1960s fishing guide Buck Dillard and two of his clients encountered a beast ‘the size of an elephant’ while trolling on the St. Johns River near Lake Dexter,” Newton wrote of the Astor Monster. “Dillard says the creature walked along the river bottom, thus presumably eliminating possible confusion with a manatee.”
Extracts from Source:
http://www.theledger.com/article/20081026/COLUMNISTS/810260310
Interestingly enough there is something in Lake County:
Teenager Talks About Battle With Alligator POSTED: 8:21 am EDT July 25, 2006
DELAND, Fla. -- A Central Florida boy was released from a hospital Monday after being attacked by an alligator. Officials said they believe the alligator was about 11 feet long, and the teenager was able to fight off the attack, WESH 2 News reported. Corey Workman, 16, said he learned what to do to escape by watching television. He suffered puncture wounds on his leg and nerve damage. "At first it was just a reaction. I just kept punching, and I pulled myself together. I kept on thinking, 'I'm not going to die this way,'" Workman said. Workman and some friends were on the water's edge near Astor in Lake County Saturday night when he felt something grab his left ankle. He said he instinctively started throwing punches, and then when he realized it was an alligator, he remembered what he had seen many times on the Discovery Channel. "I grabbed its jaw, and I put all my weight back so it would roll over, and I could get closer to it. I put my right thumb in its eye, and as I did that, it let go," Workman said. A trapper sent out Sunday to look for the reptile caught an 11-foot alligator. It will now be up to a forensic tooth expert to compare the bite marks on Workman's leg with the teeth of the alligator. If they can confirm it is the alligator that bit Workman, the teenager said he would love to have it. "I'll probably use it as a trophy. I'll stuff its head or something and keep it," Workman said. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said even though it's the fourth alligator attack this summer, they are very rare. They said the best way to protect yourself is to avoid hanging out in vegetated areas of water, especially this time of year.
Source:
http://www.wesh.com/news/9569904/detail.html
So it appears the tales may have some truth in them but in this case it may be a known creature rather than an unknown one. That isn’t to say there aren’t any unknown creatures out there .
'In the United States alone, researchers list 222 lakes and rivers as alleged cryptid habitats,' Michael Newton wrote in “Florida’s Unexpected Wildlife.”
“It was green and black and a yellowish mingled colors, and they watched it crawl to the sea,” Emily Bell wrote of an encounter in Jupiter in “My Pioneer Days in Florida, 1876-1898.” “It raised its head and looked all around till it turned their way. Then they said it looked like a human face. It stood up about three or four feet. They measured to where its tail was and to where the head was and it was about 30 feet long and looked the size of a small nail keg.” “In 1885, a ship moored in the New River inlet found that its anchor had snagged on something. When the crew finally brought the heavy anchor up, they saw that it had hooked a dead serpent-like carcass,” Charlie Carlson wrote in “Weird Florida.” “The creature was described as being over 40 feet long and six feet wide, with two front flippers and a long skinny neck. It was in a bad state of decomposition and was never scientifically studied, but it would sure smell like a dead plesiosaur to a cryptozoologist.”
Some of Florida’s monsters have even earned names. “Pinky,” for instance, is said to haunt the St. John’s River near Jacksonville, while the “Astor Monster” in Lake County has been the subject of reports for more than a century. “In the late 1960s fishing guide Buck Dillard and two of his clients encountered a beast ‘the size of an elephant’ while trolling on the St. Johns River near Lake Dexter,” Newton wrote of the Astor Monster. “Dillard says the creature walked along the river bottom, thus presumably eliminating possible confusion with a manatee.”
Extracts from Source:
http://www.theledger.com/article/20081026/COLUMNISTS/810260310
Interestingly enough there is something in Lake County:
Teenager Talks About Battle With Alligator POSTED: 8:21 am EDT July 25, 2006
DELAND, Fla. -- A Central Florida boy was released from a hospital Monday after being attacked by an alligator. Officials said they believe the alligator was about 11 feet long, and the teenager was able to fight off the attack, WESH 2 News reported. Corey Workman, 16, said he learned what to do to escape by watching television. He suffered puncture wounds on his leg and nerve damage. "At first it was just a reaction. I just kept punching, and I pulled myself together. I kept on thinking, 'I'm not going to die this way,'" Workman said. Workman and some friends were on the water's edge near Astor in Lake County Saturday night when he felt something grab his left ankle. He said he instinctively started throwing punches, and then when he realized it was an alligator, he remembered what he had seen many times on the Discovery Channel. "I grabbed its jaw, and I put all my weight back so it would roll over, and I could get closer to it. I put my right thumb in its eye, and as I did that, it let go," Workman said. A trapper sent out Sunday to look for the reptile caught an 11-foot alligator. It will now be up to a forensic tooth expert to compare the bite marks on Workman's leg with the teeth of the alligator. If they can confirm it is the alligator that bit Workman, the teenager said he would love to have it. "I'll probably use it as a trophy. I'll stuff its head or something and keep it," Workman said. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said even though it's the fourth alligator attack this summer, they are very rare. They said the best way to protect yourself is to avoid hanging out in vegetated areas of water, especially this time of year.
Source:
http://www.wesh.com/news/9569904/detail.html
So it appears the tales may have some truth in them but in this case it may be a known creature rather than an unknown one. That isn’t to say there aren’t any unknown creatures out there .
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