TANTALISING TATZELWURM

I have been kicking myself for the last twenty-four hours because an acquainance is presently in Switzerland on business and I forgot to ask him to do what I ask everyone from the CFZ to do whenever they visit the alpine countries: ask the people they meet about the tatzelwurm.

For those not in the know, the tatzelwurm is a smallish mystery reptile, possibly legless but most often reported with two stubby front legs like one of those peculiar salamanders called sirens.

The most recent sightings we have are from just before WW2, but there are unconfirmed rumours of sightings in the 1950s and 60s.

So dude if you are reading this and you get the chance, ask some of your associates if they have ever heard of it. And let us see whether we can actually get some more recent accounts of this tantalising animal. And if you are going to be going into an offie in one of the less salubrious areas of town (although from what Ms C. says you don't seem the sort of young man to be frequenting dodgy off-licences) have a look for one of the cheap wino brands of kirsch. My first wife and I had a Swiss friend who used to visit once a year and bring a bottle over, and although she thought it was nasty, I loved it. I have very low tastes.

Also, old chap. Hurry back soon because I think that she is pining somewhat, and a pining sub-editor is not good for my soul. Toodle-pip!

DALE DRINNON: Looking at the tatzelwurm

Dale started at IUPUI hoping for a degree in Biology before changing to Anthropology and as a result, has a very diverse background in Geology, Zoology, Paleontology, Anatomy, Archaeology, Psychology, Sociology, Literature, Latin, Popular Culture, Film criticism, Mythology and Folklore, and various individual human cultures especially mentioning those of the Pacific and the Americas.

He has a working knowledge of every human fossil find up until his graduation and every important Cryptozoological sighting up to that point.

He has been an amateur along on archaeological excavations in Indiana as well as doing some local tracking of Bigfoot there.

Now he is on the CFZ bloggo....


The last issue of Pursuit that I ever received had part 1 of a two-part article on Tatzelwurms. It was Volume 22, whole number 85, date not listed, and despite repeated requests to the then editor I was never able to learn if the part 2 was ever published. It had an illustration of an Austrian tombstone allegedly depicting a pair of Tatzelwurms that had struck a farmer down by poison. The Tatzelwurms are shown as fairly ordinary lizard-shaped creatures of large size; perhaps human size. The original was lost and I have a suspicion that the farmer died of fright rather than of any poison. It was from this tombstone (or "votive stela from some shrine") that Ulrich Magin formed the opinion that the Tatzelwurm was the same size and shape as the Japanese giant salamander, but of more terrestrial habits. This was published in an earlier issue of PURSUIT.

I follow a similar theory, but not all Tatzelwurm reports are alike. Apparantly two legs or four legs are regularly reported, but the four legs are in majority. If it is something like a giant salamander, then the rear legs can be positioned in such a way that they are not apparent (see drawing after Young, Life of the Vertebrates, a standard reference work)

The proper genus name of the giant salamanders is Andrias, by the way. The name was first given after a famous fossil example was named "Homo Diluvi Testis" (Man who Witnessed the Flood)

The article in PURSUIT no. 85 was by Luis Schonherr and includes a reference to the "Allergorhai-Horai" on page 9, as information given to Roy Chapman Andrews on his expedition to the Gobi desert in the 1920s. Schonherr considered the story to be much the same as the European stories of the dreadfully poisonous Stollenwurm or Tatzelwurm. More recently, further information has made that identification seem less likely. However, there is still some indication for some sort of a Tatzelwurm-like creature being reported in the Altai mountains region.

While I was on the same search that turned up the Altai petroglyphs which resembled Irish elk, I found a depiction of another tombstone that seems to show two Tatzelwurms on it. This was from a site in the Russian language.

Similar creatures are depicted on Siberian shamanic equipment.

I had also mentioned on another occasion that certain "Pictish" monuments depict what appears to be a similar lizard-shaped "Dragon" from Scotland and Ireland in the Dark Ages. I consider certain of the Water-monsters in that area to be of the same type.

During the middle to late part of the Age of Mammals, the giant salamanders seem to have inhabited a large territory of Europe, Asia and North America: and although reports of the type are in much more spotty distribution in the modern age, they still occur from time to time all over that same general area.

Furthermore, their skeletons can be entirely cartiliginous, which means that their remains "Melt away without any trace" as some of the traditional stories have it. And it is also possible that as salamanders their skin does indeed secrete a noxious toxin (That would be Ulrich Magin's statement and not mine)

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.

THE BIG THREE: Fleur Fulcher

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

Over, once again to the divine Ms F. After a gap of a few weeks during which she has been about her studies, she is back and as charming as usual....

Choosing three cryptids is a little like going into an antiques shop and trying to choose only three things I want.

Of course for me one would be the Moa, the giant flightless bird of New Zealand, it is due to this magnificent mega-fauna that I got into cryptozoology at all and therefore discovered the cfz. Apparently wiped out by 1500 there have nonetheless been reports of them from remote valleys and beaches, a girl, Alice Mckenzie saw what may have been one in 1880 and again in 1889. she herself did not say it was a Moa but thought perhaps it was a Takahe (itself thought extinct at the time) but she realised it wasn’t when she later saw a stuffed Takahe.

There were several types of Moa ranging from the truly gigantic Dinornis robustustus, to the smaller ‘Little scrub moa’ which is the one Rex Gilroy and his wife have great hopes of finding.

Another of my favourites would have to be the tatzelwurm, apparently found in Switzerland. It seems to be some sort of lizard with only small legs, but it makes up in temper what it lacks in legs. Whilst one of these creatures was apparently found dead in 1828 and sent to Heidelburg museum where, as is usual with such bodies, it vanished. There is, however, a photograph of the Tatzelwurm, but as it appears to show a rather cheerful looking carved model I’m not sure how much value should be placed upon it.There are a few pages on this mountain-dwelling marvel in the book ‘Dragons: More than a Myth?’ by Richard Freeman, but I first learnt of it by looking at the wikipedia ‘list of cryptids’ which is a wonderful, if sometimes fairly silly resource for the cash strapped crypto-fan.

The last of my favourites was very hard to choose, and not quite as fun as the lilliputian gin drinking elephants mentioned by Chris Clark. It is the Steller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas), and if I could choose one ‘extinct’ animal that I would want to be rediscovered well and thriving then this would be it. The giant and rather silly looking beast was discovered in 1741 by Georg Steller, although it was already well known to the people native to the lands it lived near. By the time it was discovered by white men the sea cow was already endangered, due to a mixture of over-hunting and lack of algae due to the rising population of sea-urchins. But still, it could have held on to existence if the hunting had been stopped.

The sea cow became extinct in 1768, only 27 years after its official discovery. There have been odd reports ever since from the remote seas where they lived, in 1830 a Polish naturalist was sure he had seen some sea cows on Bering Island and in 1962 Russian Whalers (familiar with the wildlife in those waters) thought they saw a whole group of them.Could they still exist?

I think it unlikely, but I wouldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility.