RICHARD FREEMAN: The Second Kasai Rex Photo!

Most cryptozoologists are aware of the highly dubious story of a living dinosaur that appeared in the Rhodesia Herald in 1932. Swedish plantation owner JC Johnson claimed to have encountered a 43-foot Tyrannosaurus rex devouring a rhino in the swamps of the Kasai valley in the Congo. The story was accompanied by an unconvincing photo of what looked like a lizard, badly super-imposed onto a dead rhino.

Whilst pootling about on the internet the other day I came across this interesting website: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=214751458&blogId=438717522

(THE LINK NOW WORKS AGAIN)

It showed a second purported Kasai photograph and this one showed not a lizard but a Tyrannosaurus rex. I know nothing about where the picture came from or how old it is but my guess is a modern fake in the style of the petranodon ‘thunderbird’ photo hoax of a few years back. The Tyrannosaur looks like it’s from some stop motion film. It could be Willis O’Brien’s 1918 movie The Ghost of Slumber Mountain in which a Tyrannosaurus kills and eats a Triceratops, or his 1925 offering The Lost World, which has both Allosaurus and a sequence with a Tyrannosaurs killing a triceratops and a Pteranodon. For my money, though, the creature in the photo looks most like the Tyrannosaur in Irving Yeaworth’s 1960 film Dinosaurus! where a living T-rex terrorises a Caribbean island.

If anyone can identify where the monster in the photo comes from it will be me old mate Alan Frizwell, a true dino-movie freak. Over to you, Alan.

LINDSAY SELBY: Biodiversity Work

Some of you know my daughter is studying in Wales on a project looking at biofuels. They are using Elephant grass (Miscanthus), which can be grown on waste ground so won't take up valuable crop space. The plants are about 8 feet (2.6 metres ) high when fully grown. There has been a lot of talk about how it can affect biodiversity. The plants attract lots of spiders who spin their webs across the top. On one of the examinations of the plants, Michal, a Polish member of the team, found a chrysalis and in case the spiders ate it, rescued it and brought it back to the lab. It hatched out to the beautiful creature in the photos. It has been getting fed and hand-reared but is now, I believe, released back into the fields. So I think that answers the biodiversity question; the local insect life love the plants.

JON: It is a hawkmoth, but which species? I think large elephant, but I will be the first to admit that I have never been good at identifying them.

BLUE DOG RESEARCH

We have an awful lot more material to release, and we have to admit that the only reason that it has not been released so far is that we have spent much of the last five days asleep. However, we shall be releasing more video and photographs over the next few weeks.


We are also being contacted by other people who have tales to tell, so for the moment the Texas Expedition Blog is becoming the Blue Dog research blog. Check this out:


http://texasbluedogs.blogspot.com/2010/03/lon-strickler-more-blue-dog-sightings.html

ROBIN STOWELL: Puma encounter

Fifteeen years ago I lived in Buckinghamshire and was a member of BBONT (Berkshire Buckingshire & Oxford Nature Trust). One hot sunny Sunday afternoon I was photographing butterflies on one of their reserves and had just taken a photograph of a five-spotted burnet; I congratulated myself because it was the first one I had seen. Having walked on a few yards I came round a vertically hanging branch of a small oak tree when I came across a beautifully marked full grown puma. It had been basking in the hot sunshine and I was no more than ten feet fom it. Fortunately it was more frightened of me than I was of it and it jumped up and dived through a hole in the hedge. It was a beautiful golden colour with white underneath and up its chest. I tried looking through the hedge to see if I could get a shot of it but with the macro lens that I was using it was impossible.

Later I only told a few trusted friends because someone in the area was hunting with a crossbow and had, to my knowledge, shot a fox through a foreleg, which became gangrenous. There were plenty of deer in the area to provide a source of food and I had not heard of any sheep being killed at the time. However, don't let anyone doubt the veracity of my account I and am willing to swear to the truth of it in any court in the world, or in the next, if I get the chance.

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

A bit of a plane flavour to today because on this day in 1970 Concorde made its first supersonic flight and also on this day in 1994, the worlds most advanced combat aircraft, the Eurofighter took its first flight in Germany.
And now, the news:

Bark at the moon with Werewolf lager
Hunt for Bownessie
‘Ness’ is more with the news today, but as the Bownessie article is quite a long one it more than ‘Lakes’ up for it….