The forests of the Sunderbans conceal many mysteries. It has now thrown up a new challenge to zoologists in the form of the remains of an 'unknown' animal that was accidentally unearthed by a farmer and his daughter on May 26.
The remains of an animal - around 11-foot-long and some five feet wide - are lying in a house of Santosh Mandol at the nondescript Manmathanagar in Gosaba's Bipradaspur village. Santosh and his youngest daughter Shubha stumbled upon the bones while digging the banks of the pond adjacent to their house.
"My daughter saw something jutting out of the ground. When I turned to see what it was, I hit my leg against something hard. I tried to pull it out but it wouldn't budge. Then, I dug up the place and took it out," said Santosh.
Intrigued, the family kept digging the area for the next three days. Bones came tumbling out. They ended up unearthing more than 150 pieces of all shapes and sizes.
Forest department officials have already visited the village and seen the bones. However, they have not been able to identify the animal. "It doesn't appear to be the remains of a crocodile or of a rhinoceros. We can rule out elephants as they never existed in the Sunderbans. I have asked the Zoological Survey of India to go to the village and find out," said principal chief conservator of forest Atanu Raha. A fossil of a rhinoceros was found in Chhoto Mollakhali a few years ago.
Sunderbans affairs minister Kanti Ganguly has also been informed about the findings.
Initially, Santosh had thrown away the bones. But a local homoeopath, Mukut Mohan Biswas, saw the bones and asked Santosh to preserve these. Biswas brought the matter to the notice of Uttam Saha, an anthropologist and schoolteacher.
Saha informed the Gosaba police station about the findings. "When I saw the bones, I realised they weren't remains of animals that are found in this region. I was really taken aback by the shape of the limbs. The hind legs are bigger than the forelegs. Only experts can identify this animal. We want them to visit our village and find out the truth for us," said Saha.
He had asked Santosh to keep digging. Within three days, they had dug out almost the entire carcass apart from the skull. "It must be buried somewhere deep. These people are not experts and were digging as they wished. This might have damaged the bones. We didn't want to take any risks," Saha said.
The news spread like wildfire. Since last Monday, there have been a steady flow of visitors. His wife Draupadi is tired though. "Hundreds of people are coming every day. We can't even go to the fields," said Draupadi. People are flocking to their home from fur-flung islands to have a look at the bones. And there are already complaints of theft. Santosh complains that a few teeth have gone missing.
Police are keeping a watch on Santosh's house. "We have asked the local police to monitor the situation and ensure that nothing goes missing," said South 24-Parganas SP S N Gupta
P/S:maybe the bones came from the unknown creatures??
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Turns out some dinosaurs could swim
Fossilized foot marks left by a big meat-eater on a lake bed in northern Spain 125 million years ago provide strong evidence that at least some dinosaurs were good swimmers, scientists said on Thursday.
Dinosaurs ruled the land from about 230 million years ago to 65 million years ago. But how they did in the water has been less clear.
There were numerous huge, fully marine reptiles living at the same time, including the plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, but they were not dinosaurs and in fact were only very distantly related to them.
Writing in the journal Geology, researchers led by Loic Costeur of the Universite de Nantes in France described tracks fossilized in sandstone that were left as a dinosaur swam in water roughly 10.5 feet deep, scratching the lake bottom with clawed feet.
"The animal used a pelvic paddle motion, much like living aquatic birds," Costeur said by e-mail.
Twelve "swim tracks" over a stretch of about 50 feet included long and slender sets of grooves. Fossilized ripple marks at the site suggested the dinosaur was swimming against a current whiling trying to maintain a straight path, the researchers said.
The researchers said the shape and nature of the tracks indicated they were left by a large bipedal theropod dinosaur and not a big crocodile even though these were around at the time. Theropods are the familiar big carnivores like the North American dinosaurs Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus.
Scientists have been seeking evidence that dinosaurs -- like today's large mammals such as elephants and tigers -- were capable of swimming when circumstances demanded, like hunting in wet ecosystems, crossing rivers or escaping floods.
Previously discovered fossils showed swimming tracks apparently left by other dinosaurs such as sauropods -- long-necked animals like Diplodocus -- and duckbilled dinosaurs. But some of these have been disputed and were not as revealing as the new ones.
The new tracks provided the first definitive evidence of an active swimming behavior in dinosaurs and are the best record of swimming by theropods, researchers said.
The finding also extends the range of ideas about dinosaur behavior, Costeur added, including whether some thrived in aquatic environments.
The tracks were discovered three years ago in the Spanish province of La Rioja, Costeur said.
"The excellent preservation of these tracks provides an invaluable opportunity for biomechanical modeling in order to improve our understanding of dinosaur swimming ability and physiology," the researchers wrote.
Some birds, which scientists believe descended from small feathered dinosaurs roughly 150 million years ago, also were highly adept at swimming during the age of dinosaurs, including the diving bird Hesperornis.
P/S:i personally believed that they not actually swimming but only try to dragging the body to in front when dinasaurs down in the water!!
Dinosaurs ruled the land from about 230 million years ago to 65 million years ago. But how they did in the water has been less clear.
There were numerous huge, fully marine reptiles living at the same time, including the plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, but they were not dinosaurs and in fact were only very distantly related to them.
Writing in the journal Geology, researchers led by Loic Costeur of the Universite de Nantes in France described tracks fossilized in sandstone that were left as a dinosaur swam in water roughly 10.5 feet deep, scratching the lake bottom with clawed feet.
"The animal used a pelvic paddle motion, much like living aquatic birds," Costeur said by e-mail.
Twelve "swim tracks" over a stretch of about 50 feet included long and slender sets of grooves. Fossilized ripple marks at the site suggested the dinosaur was swimming against a current whiling trying to maintain a straight path, the researchers said.
The researchers said the shape and nature of the tracks indicated they were left by a large bipedal theropod dinosaur and not a big crocodile even though these were around at the time. Theropods are the familiar big carnivores like the North American dinosaurs Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus.
Scientists have been seeking evidence that dinosaurs -- like today's large mammals such as elephants and tigers -- were capable of swimming when circumstances demanded, like hunting in wet ecosystems, crossing rivers or escaping floods.
Previously discovered fossils showed swimming tracks apparently left by other dinosaurs such as sauropods -- long-necked animals like Diplodocus -- and duckbilled dinosaurs. But some of these have been disputed and were not as revealing as the new ones.
The new tracks provided the first definitive evidence of an active swimming behavior in dinosaurs and are the best record of swimming by theropods, researchers said.
The finding also extends the range of ideas about dinosaur behavior, Costeur added, including whether some thrived in aquatic environments.
The tracks were discovered three years ago in the Spanish province of La Rioja, Costeur said.
"The excellent preservation of these tracks provides an invaluable opportunity for biomechanical modeling in order to improve our understanding of dinosaur swimming ability and physiology," the researchers wrote.
Some birds, which scientists believe descended from small feathered dinosaurs roughly 150 million years ago, also were highly adept at swimming during the age of dinosaurs, including the diving bird Hesperornis.
P/S:i personally believed that they not actually swimming but only try to dragging the body to in front when dinasaurs down in the water!!
Scientists Discover 24 Species in Suriname
A purple fluorescent frog is one of 24 new species found in the South American highlands of Suriname , conservationists reported on Monday, warning that these creatures are threatened by illegal gold mining.
The discovery of so many species outside the insect realm is extraordinary and points up the need to survey distant regions, said Leeanne Alonso of Conservation International, which led the expedition that found the new species.
"When you go to these places that are so unexplored and so remote, we do tend to find new species ... but most of them are insects," Alonso said by telephone from Suriname 's capital, Paramaribo. "What's really exciting here is we found a lot of new species of frogs and fish as well."
The two-tone frog -- whose skin is covered with irregular fluorescent lavender loops on a background of aubergine -- was discovered in 2006 as part of a survey of Suriname 's Nassau plateau, the conservation group said.
Scientists combing Suriname 's Nassau plateau and Lely Mountains found four other new frog species aside from the purple one, six species of fish, 12 dung beetles and a new ant species, the organization said in a statement.
These creatures were discovered by 13 scientists who explored a region about 80 miles southeast of Paramaribo, including areas with enough clean fresh water sources to support abundant fish and amphibians.
They also found 27 species native to the Guayana Shield region, which spreads over Suriname , Guyana, French Guiana and northern Brazil. One of these was the rare armored catfish, which conservationists feared was extinct because gold miners had contaminated a creek where it was last seen 50 years ago.
Including the new species, the scientists observed 467 species at the two sites, ranging from large cats like panthers and pumas, to monkeys, reptiles, bats and insects.
While these places are far from human civilization, they are totally unprotected and may be threatened by illegal gold-mining, Alonso said.
These highland areas have also been investigated as sources of bauxite, used to make aluminum, but will most likely not be mined in the future, she said, at least not by the two mining companies that sponsored the study.
The sponsors are BHP Billiton Maatschappij Suriname (BMS, a subsidiary of BHP Billiton) Suriname Aluminium Company LLC (Suralco, a subsidiary of Alcoa Inc).
"It's an opportunity now for all the players, the mining companies who still have mining concessions there, the local communities, the government, the NGOs (non-governmental organizations), to try to make a regional plan for the area," Alonso said.
P/S:my goD!the purple coloured frog is so unique!!
The discovery of so many species outside the insect realm is extraordinary and points up the need to survey distant regions, said Leeanne Alonso of Conservation International, which led the expedition that found the new species.
"When you go to these places that are so unexplored and so remote, we do tend to find new species ... but most of them are insects," Alonso said by telephone from Suriname 's capital, Paramaribo. "What's really exciting here is we found a lot of new species of frogs and fish as well."
The two-tone frog -- whose skin is covered with irregular fluorescent lavender loops on a background of aubergine -- was discovered in 2006 as part of a survey of Suriname 's Nassau plateau, the conservation group said.
Scientists combing Suriname 's Nassau plateau and Lely Mountains found four other new frog species aside from the purple one, six species of fish, 12 dung beetles and a new ant species, the organization said in a statement.
These creatures were discovered by 13 scientists who explored a region about 80 miles southeast of Paramaribo, including areas with enough clean fresh water sources to support abundant fish and amphibians.
They also found 27 species native to the Guayana Shield region, which spreads over Suriname , Guyana, French Guiana and northern Brazil. One of these was the rare armored catfish, which conservationists feared was extinct because gold miners had contaminated a creek where it was last seen 50 years ago.
Including the new species, the scientists observed 467 species at the two sites, ranging from large cats like panthers and pumas, to monkeys, reptiles, bats and insects.
While these places are far from human civilization, they are totally unprotected and may be threatened by illegal gold-mining, Alonso said.
These highland areas have also been investigated as sources of bauxite, used to make aluminum, but will most likely not be mined in the future, she said, at least not by the two mining companies that sponsored the study.
The sponsors are BHP Billiton Maatschappij Suriname (BMS, a subsidiary of BHP Billiton) Suriname Aluminium Company LLC (Suralco, a subsidiary of Alcoa Inc).
"It's an opportunity now for all the players, the mining companies who still have mining concessions there, the local communities, the government, the NGOs (non-governmental organizations), to try to make a regional plan for the area," Alonso said.
P/S:my goD!the purple coloured frog is so unique!!
Sunday, June 3, 2007
taLk oF mY owN
receNtly starting to get a bit excited..coz i feel that my university's life gonna start soon..this will be the last month for me to stay at my boring home and long last holidays..that's annoying..i cant stand it anymore..so my blood is kinda heat and start to burst out..haha..hopefully can go to KK,sabah to study UMS..the reason i go to there got 3..1st is cause i prefer a nature place more than a modern city..such as KL or penang..KK will be a perfect place for me..although Sarawak seem nice but the course i wanted not available at there..then 2nd is my mom supported me..because of the 3rd reason..my sister will return from perth,australia to KK,sabah to work..so my mom think that i will have a companion when semester break or weekends..but too bad she return on august..and i will start my education at the 1st of july..so will be very nervous that time to go to a place so unfamiliar for myself..somemore my mom support me study at there so that she can visit me and my sis in a row when she is free..haha..clever my mom..maybe a new environment will suit for me..coz KK is a place i never been to..so it's good for me..haha..that's all..gonna stop at here coz kinda sleepy..
P/S:a lot things have to put away if i go UMS...T_T
P/S:a lot things have to put away if i go UMS...T_T
New Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents, Life Form Discovered
A new "black smoker"--an undersea mineral chimney emitting hot springs of iron-darkened water--has been discovered at 8,500-foot depths by an expedition funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to explore the Pacific Ocean floor off Costa Rica.
Scientists from Duke University, the Universities of New Hampshire and South Carolina, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts have named their discovery the Medusa Hydrothermal Vent Field.
The researchers chose that name to highlight the presence there of a unique pink form of the jellyfish order stauromedusae. The jellyfish resemble "the serpent-haired Medusa of Greek myth," said expedition leader Emily Klein, a geologist at Duke University.
The bell-shaped jellyfish sighted near the vents may be of a new species "because no one has seen this color before," said Karen Von Damm, a geologist at the University of New Hampshire.
According to Von Damm, stauromedusae are usually found away from high-temperature hydrothermal vents, where the fluids are a little bit cooler, not close to the vents as these are.
Aboard the Research Vessel (R/V) Atlantis, the researchers are studying ocean floor geology of the East Pacific Rise, one of the mid-ocean ridge systems where new crust is made as the earth spreads apart to release molten lava.
"Each new vent site has the potential to reveal new discoveries in interactions between hot rocks beneath the seafloor, the fluids that interact with those rocks and the oceans above, as well as a rich biosphere that depends on vent processes," said Adam Schultz, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the expedition through its Ridge 2000 program. "This discovery has implications for understanding the origin of Earth's crust, its evolution over time and how living organisms adapt to extreme environmental conditions."
Jason II, a remotely-controlled robotic vehicle the scientists are using to probe the vent field, logged water temperatures of 330 degrees Celsius (626 degrees Fahrenheit) at the mouth of one of the vents. Jason II subsequently found a second vent about 100 yards away.
Von Damm said that heat-tolerant tubeworms found living on Medusa's chimneys, a type known as alvinellids, are commonplace in the equatorial Pacific and thrive on high-iron fluids. Jason also has retrieved two other types of tubeworms--tevnia and riftia--from the vent area.
In addition, the camera-studded robot, which can collect biological specimens with the aid of the mechanical arms it uses to remove rock samples, has gathered samples of mussels from the vent area.
According to Von Damm, wherever there are mid-ocean ridges, scientists frequently find geothermal vents warmed by heat energy from underlying volcanic conduits.
"Each new vent sparks fresh excitement, because each one is different. Every vent has a different chemistry, and that helps us understand the processes going on in the ocean crust. Each one gives us a different piece of the puzzle," Von Damm said.
More than 500 new species have been found at vents since they were first discovered in 1977.
"After looking at relatively barren lava flows for several days on this expedition," said geologist Scott White of the University of South Carolina, "we all knew it would be special when we found creatures living at this new vent field."
P/S:again the sea gave birth to new life form..
Scientists from Duke University, the Universities of New Hampshire and South Carolina, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts have named their discovery the Medusa Hydrothermal Vent Field.
The researchers chose that name to highlight the presence there of a unique pink form of the jellyfish order stauromedusae. The jellyfish resemble "the serpent-haired Medusa of Greek myth," said expedition leader Emily Klein, a geologist at Duke University.
The bell-shaped jellyfish sighted near the vents may be of a new species "because no one has seen this color before," said Karen Von Damm, a geologist at the University of New Hampshire.
According to Von Damm, stauromedusae are usually found away from high-temperature hydrothermal vents, where the fluids are a little bit cooler, not close to the vents as these are.
Aboard the Research Vessel (R/V) Atlantis, the researchers are studying ocean floor geology of the East Pacific Rise, one of the mid-ocean ridge systems where new crust is made as the earth spreads apart to release molten lava.
"Each new vent site has the potential to reveal new discoveries in interactions between hot rocks beneath the seafloor, the fluids that interact with those rocks and the oceans above, as well as a rich biosphere that depends on vent processes," said Adam Schultz, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the expedition through its Ridge 2000 program. "This discovery has implications for understanding the origin of Earth's crust, its evolution over time and how living organisms adapt to extreme environmental conditions."
Jason II, a remotely-controlled robotic vehicle the scientists are using to probe the vent field, logged water temperatures of 330 degrees Celsius (626 degrees Fahrenheit) at the mouth of one of the vents. Jason II subsequently found a second vent about 100 yards away.
Von Damm said that heat-tolerant tubeworms found living on Medusa's chimneys, a type known as alvinellids, are commonplace in the equatorial Pacific and thrive on high-iron fluids. Jason also has retrieved two other types of tubeworms--tevnia and riftia--from the vent area.
In addition, the camera-studded robot, which can collect biological specimens with the aid of the mechanical arms it uses to remove rock samples, has gathered samples of mussels from the vent area.
According to Von Damm, wherever there are mid-ocean ridges, scientists frequently find geothermal vents warmed by heat energy from underlying volcanic conduits.
"Each new vent sparks fresh excitement, because each one is different. Every vent has a different chemistry, and that helps us understand the processes going on in the ocean crust. Each one gives us a different piece of the puzzle," Von Damm said.
More than 500 new species have been found at vents since they were first discovered in 1977.
"After looking at relatively barren lava flows for several days on this expedition," said geologist Scott White of the University of South Carolina, "we all knew it would be special when we found creatures living at this new vent field."
P/S:again the sea gave birth to new life form..
New snake-like lizard discovered in India
A previously unknown species of legless lizard as been discovered in a remote Indian forest, reports the Associated Press.
Sushil Kumar Dutta, leader of a team of researchers from NGO Vasundhra and the North Orissa University, found the 7-inch long creature in the forests of Khandadhar near Raurkela in Orissa state, about 625 miles southeast of New Delhi.
"Preliminary scientific study reveals that the lizard belongs to the genus Sepsophis," Dutta told the Associated Press. "The lizard is new to science and is an important discovery. It is not found anywhere else in the world."
The closest relatives of the newly discovered species are found in Sri Lanka and South Africa.
Scientists say limbless forms of lizards have evolved independently several times, probably to facilitate underground movement. Most limbless lizards live under leaf litter or in upper levels of soil.
Limbless lizards are not snakes. They can be distinguished by their external ear holes and flat, non-forked tongues.
P/S:that's mean lizards evolved??i believe that if other creatures evolving too..i cant imagine what might happen..
Sushil Kumar Dutta, leader of a team of researchers from NGO Vasundhra and the North Orissa University, found the 7-inch long creature in the forests of Khandadhar near Raurkela in Orissa state, about 625 miles southeast of New Delhi.
"Preliminary scientific study reveals that the lizard belongs to the genus Sepsophis," Dutta told the Associated Press. "The lizard is new to science and is an important discovery. It is not found anywhere else in the world."
The closest relatives of the newly discovered species are found in Sri Lanka and South Africa.
Scientists say limbless forms of lizards have evolved independently several times, probably to facilitate underground movement. Most limbless lizards live under leaf litter or in upper levels of soil.
Limbless lizards are not snakes. They can be distinguished by their external ear holes and flat, non-forked tongues.
P/S:that's mean lizards evolved??i believe that if other creatures evolving too..i cant imagine what might happen..
Shark-Eating Dino Fossil Found in Utah
A Utah site frozen in Early Jurassic time recently yielded discoveries that include an enormous, previously unknown carnivorous dinosaur, a new shark species, at least three other new fish and three new trees.
All of the now-extinct organisms once thrived in or around a giant lake 200 million years ago, according to paleontologists who made the finds.
Anatomical features and track marks linked to the dinosaur suggest it specialized in eating and catching fish, including sharks and huge bony fish that, when consumed, would have been "like biting through chain mail," Utah State paleontologist James Kirkland told Discovery News.
The fish-loving dino, which the researchers believe was a cousin of the crested dino Dilophosaurus, would have been a formidable adversary to its fearsome prey.
"These (dinosaurs) got up to 18-20 feet in length, 6-7 feet high at the hips, and weighed between 750-1,000 pounds," explained Andrew Milner, city paleontologist at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site on Johnson Farm, Utah, where the excavations took place.
Long, sharp teeth at the front of the dinosaur's mouth helped to keep fish from flying out, said Kirkland, while other, more slender teeth had "steak-knife serration" wear patterns between the tip and the gum line.
"The only other meat-eating dinosaurs with teeth worn like that are the spinosaurs Spinosaurus and Suchimimus from North Africa where large...fish dominated," said Kirkland.
One of the fish species discovered at the site, now called Lake Dixie, was indeed a semionotid — an early type of fish that usually had an elongated body, gills, jaws and scales or bony plates.
"Fish in the past were more armored than they are today," Kirkland explained.
The new shark species, named Lissodus johnsonorum, would have been an easier dinner, since its skeleton was made of cartilage and not hard bone, but the crunchy fish were more prevalent in the lake and outnumbered sharks 10 to one.
The Dilophosaurus relative also possessed nasal openings that retracted back from the end of its snout so, like today's crocodiles and alligators, it could still breath when its mouth was underwater.
Perhaps the most dramatic finds at the site are the dinosaur track marks. Milner said these belonged to several creatures including other dinosaur species, other reptiles and early ancestors of mammals.
The tracks show how the fish-eating dinosaur would wade out into the lake, sometimes "chest deep," according to Kirkland.
It's likely the dinosaur went into the lake to catch sharks and other fish, said Kirkland. This was no easy task, as indicated by "floundering" dinosaur claw scrapes and other marks found at the bottom of Lake Dixie.
"We have counted over 3,000 individual claw marks and toe scrapes that show incredibly detailed preservation," Milner told Discovery News. "We can see details of cuticle on the tips of claws, skin impressions, scale scratch lines and where claw cuticle was overlapped by the fleshy toe pads at the end of the toes."
There initially was some skepticism from other experts that these could include evidence for dinosaur swimming and fishing but, when the latest discoveries were announced near the site, British vertebrate paleontologist Peter Galton said "this has finally put to rest" the prior doubts.
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science has just published a book, "The Triassic-Jurassic Terrestrial Transition," which provides brief mentions of many of the recent finds.
Visitors to the St. George site may also view some of the discoveries while literally walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs.
P/S:seem like long time ago..shark is just a fish to another huge and larger dinosaur..
All of the now-extinct organisms once thrived in or around a giant lake 200 million years ago, according to paleontologists who made the finds.
Anatomical features and track marks linked to the dinosaur suggest it specialized in eating and catching fish, including sharks and huge bony fish that, when consumed, would have been "like biting through chain mail," Utah State paleontologist James Kirkland told Discovery News.
The fish-loving dino, which the researchers believe was a cousin of the crested dino Dilophosaurus, would have been a formidable adversary to its fearsome prey.
"These (dinosaurs) got up to 18-20 feet in length, 6-7 feet high at the hips, and weighed between 750-1,000 pounds," explained Andrew Milner, city paleontologist at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site on Johnson Farm, Utah, where the excavations took place.
Long, sharp teeth at the front of the dinosaur's mouth helped to keep fish from flying out, said Kirkland, while other, more slender teeth had "steak-knife serration" wear patterns between the tip and the gum line.
"The only other meat-eating dinosaurs with teeth worn like that are the spinosaurs Spinosaurus and Suchimimus from North Africa where large...fish dominated," said Kirkland.
One of the fish species discovered at the site, now called Lake Dixie, was indeed a semionotid — an early type of fish that usually had an elongated body, gills, jaws and scales or bony plates.
"Fish in the past were more armored than they are today," Kirkland explained.
The new shark species, named Lissodus johnsonorum, would have been an easier dinner, since its skeleton was made of cartilage and not hard bone, but the crunchy fish were more prevalent in the lake and outnumbered sharks 10 to one.
The Dilophosaurus relative also possessed nasal openings that retracted back from the end of its snout so, like today's crocodiles and alligators, it could still breath when its mouth was underwater.
Perhaps the most dramatic finds at the site are the dinosaur track marks. Milner said these belonged to several creatures including other dinosaur species, other reptiles and early ancestors of mammals.
The tracks show how the fish-eating dinosaur would wade out into the lake, sometimes "chest deep," according to Kirkland.
It's likely the dinosaur went into the lake to catch sharks and other fish, said Kirkland. This was no easy task, as indicated by "floundering" dinosaur claw scrapes and other marks found at the bottom of Lake Dixie.
"We have counted over 3,000 individual claw marks and toe scrapes that show incredibly detailed preservation," Milner told Discovery News. "We can see details of cuticle on the tips of claws, skin impressions, scale scratch lines and where claw cuticle was overlapped by the fleshy toe pads at the end of the toes."
There initially was some skepticism from other experts that these could include evidence for dinosaur swimming and fishing but, when the latest discoveries were announced near the site, British vertebrate paleontologist Peter Galton said "this has finally put to rest" the prior doubts.
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science has just published a book, "The Triassic-Jurassic Terrestrial Transition," which provides brief mentions of many of the recent finds.
Visitors to the St. George site may also view some of the discoveries while literally walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs.
P/S:seem like long time ago..shark is just a fish to another huge and larger dinosaur..
Coelacanth: angler catches 'prehistoric' fish
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- An Indonesian angler caught a fish once thought to have disappeared along with the dinosaurs and held it in a quarantined pool until it died 17 hours later, a biologist said Sunday.
The coelacanth fish was thought to have become extinct 65 million years ago until one was found in 1938 off Africa's coast. The discovery of the so-called "living fossil" ignited worldwide interest.
Several other specimens have since been found, including one in 1998 in waters off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, where Justinus Lahama also hooked his 1.3-meter (4-foot), 50-kilogram (110-pound) fish early Saturday.
The fisherman pulled it from waters near Bunaken National Marine Park, which has some of the highest levels of marine biodiversity in the world and is a popular diving spot for tourists, marine biologist Lucky Lumingas said.
Lumingas classified the fish as Coelacanth Latemeria, a powerful predator with highly mobile, limb-like fins. It is usually about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weighs around 45 kilograms (100 pounds). Unlike most other fish, it gives birth to live young rather than laying eggs.
Lumingas, who works with the local Sam Ratulangi University, said it was "extraordinary" the fish survived for 17 hours in a quarantined pool.
"The fish should have died within two hours because this species only lives in deep, cold-sea environment at a depth of at least 60 meters (200 feet)," he said, adding that his university would closely study the carcass.
P/S:is that mean..deep under the sea..there might be some strange creatures that we never able to track on..?
The coelacanth fish was thought to have become extinct 65 million years ago until one was found in 1938 off Africa's coast. The discovery of the so-called "living fossil" ignited worldwide interest.
Several other specimens have since been found, including one in 1998 in waters off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, where Justinus Lahama also hooked his 1.3-meter (4-foot), 50-kilogram (110-pound) fish early Saturday.
The fisherman pulled it from waters near Bunaken National Marine Park, which has some of the highest levels of marine biodiversity in the world and is a popular diving spot for tourists, marine biologist Lucky Lumingas said.
Lumingas classified the fish as Coelacanth Latemeria, a powerful predator with highly mobile, limb-like fins. It is usually about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weighs around 45 kilograms (100 pounds). Unlike most other fish, it gives birth to live young rather than laying eggs.
Lumingas, who works with the local Sam Ratulangi University, said it was "extraordinary" the fish survived for 17 hours in a quarantined pool.
"The fish should have died within two hours because this species only lives in deep, cold-sea environment at a depth of at least 60 meters (200 feet)," he said, adding that his university would closely study the carcass.
P/S:is that mean..deep under the sea..there might be some strange creatures that we never able to track on..?
Giant Anacondas
The Anaconda has long since been known in scientific circles as Eunectes murinus. The longest specimen that has been reliably recorded is twenty-four feet. For some time, this snake was thought to be thirty-seven and half feet long, but later investigations showed the snake had been stretched accidentally. The creature, which had been killed by Robert Lamon, was located in eastern Colombia in 1944.
Natives of the Amazon know of a creature, called Sucuriju gigante, so well that they can name each of the animals specifically. The snakes are known to grow up to at least sixty two feet in length and some reports have them growing up to one hundred fifteen feet!
Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett was exploring the Rio Abunã, near the intersection of the Rio Negro in southern Brazil, when the head of a Giant Anaconda surfaced next to his canoe. Several feet of the creatures back also came to break the muddy water as it moved towards the riverbank. Without hesitation, Fawcett shot and killed the creature with his pistol. After paddling to the shore, he found the creature to be "a length of forty five feet out of the water and seventeen feet in it making a total of length of sixty two feet." The explorer also told of another species of snake, nicknamed the "Sleeper", which is said to be black and much larger.
Perhaps the most amazing report comes from Fort Tabatinga, on the River Oiapoc in the Guaporé territory. In 1948, the Rio de Janerio newspaper told of a snake that came ashore and measured one hundred fifteen feet in length. Soldiers fired at least five hundred machine gun bullets into the beast before it finally died. After the body was measured and photographed the carcass was pushed into the river to avoid the horrendous stench that would be caused by decomposition.
Although the creatures seem too large to live, due to their length and girth, some speculate it could be possible for the snakes to exist. If they remained in the river water the buoyancy could sustain the creature's life and counteract the effects of gravity.
Some reports give the snake's gargantuan size- but it must be noted that snakeskins are very easy to stretch. It would be impossible, however, for someone to stretch a skin if the snake is still wearing it.
P/S:i do believe that they are real this time..
Natives of the Amazon know of a creature, called Sucuriju gigante, so well that they can name each of the animals specifically. The snakes are known to grow up to at least sixty two feet in length and some reports have them growing up to one hundred fifteen feet!
Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett was exploring the Rio Abunã, near the intersection of the Rio Negro in southern Brazil, when the head of a Giant Anaconda surfaced next to his canoe. Several feet of the creatures back also came to break the muddy water as it moved towards the riverbank. Without hesitation, Fawcett shot and killed the creature with his pistol. After paddling to the shore, he found the creature to be "a length of forty five feet out of the water and seventeen feet in it making a total of length of sixty two feet." The explorer also told of another species of snake, nicknamed the "Sleeper", which is said to be black and much larger.
Perhaps the most amazing report comes from Fort Tabatinga, on the River Oiapoc in the Guaporé territory. In 1948, the Rio de Janerio newspaper told of a snake that came ashore and measured one hundred fifteen feet in length. Soldiers fired at least five hundred machine gun bullets into the beast before it finally died. After the body was measured and photographed the carcass was pushed into the river to avoid the horrendous stench that would be caused by decomposition.
Although the creatures seem too large to live, due to their length and girth, some speculate it could be possible for the snakes to exist. If they remained in the river water the buoyancy could sustain the creature's life and counteract the effects of gravity.
Some reports give the snake's gargantuan size- but it must be noted that snakeskins are very easy to stretch. It would be impossible, however, for someone to stretch a skin if the snake is still wearing it.
P/S:i do believe that they are real this time..
Tazelwurm
The tatzelwurm is a dragon-like beast reported from the Alps of Switzerland, plus nearby Austria and France, where is is often known by different names. The tatzelwurm looks something like a lizard or snake. It has smooth hairless skin covered with delicate scales. The tatzelwurm can grow to at least six feet long, but some specimens, possibly juveniles, are considerably smaller. It has two small front legs, and its hind legs are either missing or vestigal. Its head is the most distinctive part of its body. The tatzelwurm's head has big eyes and looks remarkably like the head of a cat, except for it having scales instead of fur. This feline look is remarked on by almost all witnesses, and it firmly links it with the dragon tradition. Dragon's heads are most often compared to the heads of cats and horses as far as the overall shape goes.
However, this feline face is absent from nearly all drawings of the tatzelwurm, which usually show something that looks like a pinecone or cigar with four stubby legs of the same size, and tiny eyes. Drawings from the time period when tatzelwurm sightings were common are notoriously unreliable, with known animals often looking only slightly like they actually do, so these discrepencies might not mean anything. It is somewhat disturbing that most tatzelwurm drawings are relatively consistent, and most tatzelwurm witness descriptions are relatively consistent, but that the drawings and descriptions show creatures that are almost the opposite of each other. It seems as if the first artist did not consider witness descriptions of any importance, and then, as is often the case, all later artists took their cues from the earliest publicized drawing.
Reports of these creatures have become very rare, so cryptozoologists think that, if the tatzelwurm did exist in the first place, it may be extinct today. Speculations on what it might have been center on lizards, salamanders, snakes and otters. Some salamanders have vastly shriveled legs, so perhaps the tatzelwurm was a giant salamander that was once native to the European Alps, an equivalent creature to known giant salamanders that are found in mountainous regions. With hind legs atrophied to almost nothing, it would have been aqapted to be far more comfortable in the water than most salamanders, but with still-existing front legs, it could get about on land if it really had to. Perhaps it was considered a mythical creature because it was usually hidden underwater and seldom came out to be encountered by people. This would fit in well with characteristics of the legends, as known species of salamander tend to be glimped rarely, and some known salamanders, such as the American mud puppy, have almost the status of legend.
If the tatzelwurm was a giant lizard, this would fit better with its supposed habit of preying on land animals (salamanders, even giant ones, would be expected to eat mainly bugs and small fish), but then we would have to explain a lizard with well-developed front legs, but no (or very tiny) back legs. With snakes, we would need to explain why it had legs at all, perhaps suggesting that it was some kind of throwback or that it was actually an evolutionary link between lizards and snakes.
The tazelwurm could perhaps be classified as a lake monster or sea serpent briefly traveling over land, like the lindorm is supposed to be, but it would be rather small, and mountainous terrain far from the ocean doesn't seem like an easy place for such creatures to be, unless they are traveling from one mountain lake to another. Trying to classify it as an otter presents the most problems, because, unless the otter in question were suffering badly from mange, it would have fur and look very much like an otter. Even without fur, its back legs should be evident. If you want to disregard that many details from witness testimony, then it seems easier to throw out all tatzelwurm sightings as lies or hallucinations.
P/S:the more we dont know about them..they seem more mysterious..do u agree?
However, this feline face is absent from nearly all drawings of the tatzelwurm, which usually show something that looks like a pinecone or cigar with four stubby legs of the same size, and tiny eyes. Drawings from the time period when tatzelwurm sightings were common are notoriously unreliable, with known animals often looking only slightly like they actually do, so these discrepencies might not mean anything. It is somewhat disturbing that most tatzelwurm drawings are relatively consistent, and most tatzelwurm witness descriptions are relatively consistent, but that the drawings and descriptions show creatures that are almost the opposite of each other. It seems as if the first artist did not consider witness descriptions of any importance, and then, as is often the case, all later artists took their cues from the earliest publicized drawing.
Reports of these creatures have become very rare, so cryptozoologists think that, if the tatzelwurm did exist in the first place, it may be extinct today. Speculations on what it might have been center on lizards, salamanders, snakes and otters. Some salamanders have vastly shriveled legs, so perhaps the tatzelwurm was a giant salamander that was once native to the European Alps, an equivalent creature to known giant salamanders that are found in mountainous regions. With hind legs atrophied to almost nothing, it would have been aqapted to be far more comfortable in the water than most salamanders, but with still-existing front legs, it could get about on land if it really had to. Perhaps it was considered a mythical creature because it was usually hidden underwater and seldom came out to be encountered by people. This would fit in well with characteristics of the legends, as known species of salamander tend to be glimped rarely, and some known salamanders, such as the American mud puppy, have almost the status of legend.
If the tatzelwurm was a giant lizard, this would fit better with its supposed habit of preying on land animals (salamanders, even giant ones, would be expected to eat mainly bugs and small fish), but then we would have to explain a lizard with well-developed front legs, but no (or very tiny) back legs. With snakes, we would need to explain why it had legs at all, perhaps suggesting that it was some kind of throwback or that it was actually an evolutionary link between lizards and snakes.
The tazelwurm could perhaps be classified as a lake monster or sea serpent briefly traveling over land, like the lindorm is supposed to be, but it would be rather small, and mountainous terrain far from the ocean doesn't seem like an easy place for such creatures to be, unless they are traveling from one mountain lake to another. Trying to classify it as an otter presents the most problems, because, unless the otter in question were suffering badly from mange, it would have fur and look very much like an otter. Even without fur, its back legs should be evident. If you want to disregard that many details from witness testimony, then it seems easier to throw out all tatzelwurm sightings as lies or hallucinations.
P/S:the more we dont know about them..they seem more mysterious..do u agree?
Friday, May 11, 2007
LonG tiMe aGo..
Last night..suddenly i dream about my childhood..everthing that's seem deeply saved inside my brain flash out again..that's remind of me when i am about 5-7 years old..that time i sleep together with my brother and my other siblings..suddenly in midnight i cried very loud and woke up my mom..she keep on pamper me..and suddenly she realised that i 'sweated' a lot..but slowly she felt a bit strange coz those sweat she is touching is bit sticky..so she switch on the light and shocked that my head is bleeding...so that moment i was sent to the nearest hospital..and i was hospitalized for 2 days..i just remember that my parents very worried and also my grandparents..they waited me outside the ward coz they don understand what happened to me..after i returned home..my mom explained to me that when i sleep i knocked my head on the corner of the cupboard..because i sleep on the bed but it's on the floor..so i accidently knocked my head when i rolling around..maybe because of that time my mom never allowed me sleep on the floor but give me a place in regular space of bed..but because of that incident i practise myself not to rolling anymore..so until now i very sensitive if i rolled on the bed in the night..i will immediately wake up and lay properly..or i will hug a pillow in case if i rolling also the pillow will however blocked me..haha...that's all..
P/S:that's another reason why i dont use to cut short my hair cause i afraid others will saw my scar on the head..hehe
P/S:that's another reason why i dont use to cut short my hair cause i afraid others will saw my scar on the head..hehe
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Mastodons Still Living in 1893
Alaska Indians Claim They Have Seen Them Running About.
The Stickeen Indians positively assert that within the last five years they have frequently seen animals which, from the descriptions given, must have been mastodons.
Last spring, while out hunting, one of the Indians came across a series of large tracks, each the size of the bottom of a salt barrel, sunk deep in the moss. He followed the curious trail for some miles, finally coming out in full view of his game, says The Philadelphia Ledger.
As a class these Indians are the bravest of hunters, but the proportions of this new spectacle of game filled the hunter with terror, and he took to swift and immediate flight. He described the creature as being as large as a post trader’s store, with great, shining, yellowish white tusks, and a mouth large enough to swallow a man with one gulp. He further says that the animal was undoubtedly of the same species as those whose bones and tusks lie all over that section of the country.
The fact that other hunters have told of seeing these monsters browsing on the herbs up along the river gives a certain probability to the story. Over on Forty Mile Creek bones of mastodons are quite plentiful. One ivory tusk, nine feet long, projects from one of the sand dunes on that creek, and single teeth have been found so large that they would be a good load for one man to carry. I believe that the mule-footed hog still exists; also that live mastodons play tag with the aurora every night over on Forty Mile Creek in Alaska.
P/S:it hurts when we realise that we lost something special from the earth
The Stickeen Indians positively assert that within the last five years they have frequently seen animals which, from the descriptions given, must have been mastodons.
Last spring, while out hunting, one of the Indians came across a series of large tracks, each the size of the bottom of a salt barrel, sunk deep in the moss. He followed the curious trail for some miles, finally coming out in full view of his game, says The Philadelphia Ledger.
As a class these Indians are the bravest of hunters, but the proportions of this new spectacle of game filled the hunter with terror, and he took to swift and immediate flight. He described the creature as being as large as a post trader’s store, with great, shining, yellowish white tusks, and a mouth large enough to swallow a man with one gulp. He further says that the animal was undoubtedly of the same species as those whose bones and tusks lie all over that section of the country.
The fact that other hunters have told of seeing these monsters browsing on the herbs up along the river gives a certain probability to the story. Over on Forty Mile Creek bones of mastodons are quite plentiful. One ivory tusk, nine feet long, projects from one of the sand dunes on that creek, and single teeth have been found so large that they would be a good load for one man to carry. I believe that the mule-footed hog still exists; also that live mastodons play tag with the aurora every night over on Forty Mile Creek in Alaska.
P/S:it hurts when we realise that we lost something special from the earth
'Lost world' found in Indonesian jungle
Scientists said on Tuesday that they had found a "Lost World" in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants.
"It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the U.S., Indonesian, and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the west of New Guinea.
Indigenous peoples living near the Foja range, which rises to 2,200 meters (7,218 feet), said they did not venture into the trackless area of 3,000 square kilometers (1,200 square miles) -- roughly the size of Luxembourg or the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
The team of 25 scientists rode helicopters to boggy clearings in the pristine zone.
"We just scratched the surface," Beehler told Reuters. "Anyone who goes there will come back with a mystery."
The expedition found a new type of honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face, known only to local people and the first new bird species documented on the island in over 60 years. They also found more than 20 new species of frog, four new species of butterfly and plants including five new palms.
And they took the first photographs of "Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise", which appears in 19th century collections but whose home had previously been unknown.
The bird i named after six fine feathers about 4 inches (10 centimeters) long on the head of the male which can be raised and shaken in courtship displays.
The expedition also took the first photographs of a Golden-fronted bowerbird in front of a bower made of sticks, while he was hanging up blue forest berries to attract females.
It found a rare tree kangaroo, previously unsighted in Indonesia. Beehler said the naturalists reckoned that there was likely to be a new species of kangaroo living higher altitudes.
The scientists visited in the wet season, which limited the numbers of flying insects. "Any expedition visiting in the dry season would probably discover many more butterflies," he said.
Beehler, who works at Conservation International in Washington, said the area was probably the largest pristine tropical forest in Asia. Animals there were unafraid of humans.
"I suspect there are some areas like this in Africa, and am sure that there are similar places in South America," he said.
Around the world, pristine areas are under increasing threat from expanding human settlements and pollution. A U.N. meeting in Brazil in March will seek ways to slow the currently accelerating rate of extinctions.
Beehler said the Indonesian government was doing the right thing by keeping the area off limits to most visitors -- including loggers and mineral prospectors.
The scientists cut two trails about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) long, leaving vast tracts still to be explored.
P/S:the world is special because we will never know all the things live on earth
"It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the U.S., Indonesian, and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the west of New Guinea.
Indigenous peoples living near the Foja range, which rises to 2,200 meters (7,218 feet), said they did not venture into the trackless area of 3,000 square kilometers (1,200 square miles) -- roughly the size of Luxembourg or the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
The team of 25 scientists rode helicopters to boggy clearings in the pristine zone.
"We just scratched the surface," Beehler told Reuters. "Anyone who goes there will come back with a mystery."
The expedition found a new type of honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face, known only to local people and the first new bird species documented on the island in over 60 years. They also found more than 20 new species of frog, four new species of butterfly and plants including five new palms.
And they took the first photographs of "Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise", which appears in 19th century collections but whose home had previously been unknown.
The bird i named after six fine feathers about 4 inches (10 centimeters) long on the head of the male which can be raised and shaken in courtship displays.
The expedition also took the first photographs of a Golden-fronted bowerbird in front of a bower made of sticks, while he was hanging up blue forest berries to attract females.
It found a rare tree kangaroo, previously unsighted in Indonesia. Beehler said the naturalists reckoned that there was likely to be a new species of kangaroo living higher altitudes.
The scientists visited in the wet season, which limited the numbers of flying insects. "Any expedition visiting in the dry season would probably discover many more butterflies," he said.
Beehler, who works at Conservation International in Washington, said the area was probably the largest pristine tropical forest in Asia. Animals there were unafraid of humans.
"I suspect there are some areas like this in Africa, and am sure that there are similar places in South America," he said.
Around the world, pristine areas are under increasing threat from expanding human settlements and pollution. A U.N. meeting in Brazil in March will seek ways to slow the currently accelerating rate of extinctions.
Beehler said the Indonesian government was doing the right thing by keeping the area off limits to most visitors -- including loggers and mineral prospectors.
The scientists cut two trails about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) long, leaving vast tracts still to be explored.
P/S:the world is special because we will never know all the things live on earth
Island leopard deemed new species
Clouded leopards found on Sumatra and Borneo represent a new species, research by genetic scientists and the conservation group WWF indicates.
Until now it had been thought they belonged to the species that is found on mainland southeast Asia.
Scientists now believe the two species diverged more than one million years ago, and have evolved separately since.
With bodies up to 1.1m long, clouded leopards are the biggest predators on Borneo and one of Asia's largest cats.
The separation of the species was discovered by scientists at the US National Cancer Institute near Washington DC.
"Genetic research results clearly indicate that the clouded leopards of Borneo should be considered a separate species," said Dr Stephen O'Brien, head of the Institute's Laboratory of Genomic Diversity.
"DNA tests highlighted around 40 differences between the two species."
Tell tails
Supporting evidence came from examination of fur patterns. Leopards from Borneo and Sumatra have small "clouds" with many distinct spots within them, grey and dark fur, and twin stripes along their backs.
Their mainland cousins have large cloud markings on their skin with fewer, often faint, spots within the cloud markings, and are lighter and more tawny in colour.
"The moment we started comparing the skins of the mainland clouded leopard and the leopard found on Borneo, it was clear we were comparing two different species," said Dr Andrew Kitchener from the National Museums of Scotland.
"It's incredible that no-one has ever noticed these differences."
WWF, which maintains a large conservation operation on Borneo, estimates there are between 5,000 and 11,000 clouded leopards on the island, with a further 3,000 to 7,000 on Sumatra.
"The fact that Borneo's top predator is now considered a separate species further emphasises the importance of conserving the 'Heart of Borneo'," said WWF's Stuart Chapman, co-ordinator of a project seeking to preserve the island's wildlife.
The three governments with territory on the island - Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei - signed an agreement earlier this year pledging to protect the "Heart of Borneo", 200,000 square kilometres of rainforest in the middle of the island thought to be particularly high in biodiversity.
P/S:the new species have a lot special spots on them!
Until now it had been thought they belonged to the species that is found on mainland southeast Asia.
Scientists now believe the two species diverged more than one million years ago, and have evolved separately since.
With bodies up to 1.1m long, clouded leopards are the biggest predators on Borneo and one of Asia's largest cats.
The separation of the species was discovered by scientists at the US National Cancer Institute near Washington DC.
"Genetic research results clearly indicate that the clouded leopards of Borneo should be considered a separate species," said Dr Stephen O'Brien, head of the Institute's Laboratory of Genomic Diversity.
"DNA tests highlighted around 40 differences between the two species."
Tell tails
Supporting evidence came from examination of fur patterns. Leopards from Borneo and Sumatra have small "clouds" with many distinct spots within them, grey and dark fur, and twin stripes along their backs.
Their mainland cousins have large cloud markings on their skin with fewer, often faint, spots within the cloud markings, and are lighter and more tawny in colour.
"The moment we started comparing the skins of the mainland clouded leopard and the leopard found on Borneo, it was clear we were comparing two different species," said Dr Andrew Kitchener from the National Museums of Scotland.
"It's incredible that no-one has ever noticed these differences."
WWF, which maintains a large conservation operation on Borneo, estimates there are between 5,000 and 11,000 clouded leopards on the island, with a further 3,000 to 7,000 on Sumatra.
"The fact that Borneo's top predator is now considered a separate species further emphasises the importance of conserving the 'Heart of Borneo'," said WWF's Stuart Chapman, co-ordinator of a project seeking to preserve the island's wildlife.
The three governments with territory on the island - Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei - signed an agreement earlier this year pledging to protect the "Heart of Borneo", 200,000 square kilometres of rainforest in the middle of the island thought to be particularly high in biodiversity.
P/S:the new species have a lot special spots on them!
Island leopard deemed new species
Clouded leopards found on Sumatra and Borneo represent a new species, research by genetic scientists and the conservation group WWF indicates.
Until now it had been thought they belonged to the species that is found on mainland southeast Asia.
Scientists now believe the two species diverged more than one million years ago, and have evolved separately since.
With bodies up to 1.1m long, clouded leopards are the biggest predators on Borneo and one of Asia's largest cats.
The separation of the species was discovered by scientists at the US National Cancer Institute near Washington DC.
"Genetic research results clearly indicate that the clouded leopards of Borneo should be considered a separate species," said Dr Stephen O'Brien, head of the Institute's Laboratory of Genomic Diversity.
"DNA tests highlighted around 40 differences between the two species."
Tell tails
Supporting evidence came from examination of fur patterns. Leopards from Borneo and Sumatra have small "clouds" with many distinct spots within them, grey and dark fur, and twin stripes along their backs.
Their mainland cousins have large cloud markings on their skin with fewer, often faint, spots within the cloud markings, and are lighter and more tawny in colour.
"The moment we started comparing the skins of the mainland clouded leopard and the leopard found on Borneo, it was clear we were comparing two different species," said Dr Andrew Kitchener from the National Museums of Scotland.
"It's incredible that no-one has ever noticed these differences."
WWF, which maintains a large conservation operation on Borneo, estimates there are between 5,000 and 11,000 clouded leopards on the island, with a further 3,000 to 7,000 on Sumatra.
"The fact that Borneo's top predator is now considered a separate species further emphasises the importance of conserving the 'Heart of Borneo'," said WWF's Stuart Chapman, co-ordinator of a project seeking to preserve the island's wildlife.
The three governments with territory on the island - Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei - signed an agreement earlier this year pledging to protect the "Heart of Borneo", 200,000 square kilometres of rainforest in the middle of the island thought to be particularly high in biodiversity.
P/S:the new species have a special spots on them!
Until now it had been thought they belonged to the species that is found on mainland southeast Asia.
Scientists now believe the two species diverged more than one million years ago, and have evolved separately since.
With bodies up to 1.1m long, clouded leopards are the biggest predators on Borneo and one of Asia's largest cats.
The separation of the species was discovered by scientists at the US National Cancer Institute near Washington DC.
"Genetic research results clearly indicate that the clouded leopards of Borneo should be considered a separate species," said Dr Stephen O'Brien, head of the Institute's Laboratory of Genomic Diversity.
"DNA tests highlighted around 40 differences between the two species."
Tell tails
Supporting evidence came from examination of fur patterns. Leopards from Borneo and Sumatra have small "clouds" with many distinct spots within them, grey and dark fur, and twin stripes along their backs.
Their mainland cousins have large cloud markings on their skin with fewer, often faint, spots within the cloud markings, and are lighter and more tawny in colour.
"The moment we started comparing the skins of the mainland clouded leopard and the leopard found on Borneo, it was clear we were comparing two different species," said Dr Andrew Kitchener from the National Museums of Scotland.
"It's incredible that no-one has ever noticed these differences."
WWF, which maintains a large conservation operation on Borneo, estimates there are between 5,000 and 11,000 clouded leopards on the island, with a further 3,000 to 7,000 on Sumatra.
"The fact that Borneo's top predator is now considered a separate species further emphasises the importance of conserving the 'Heart of Borneo'," said WWF's Stuart Chapman, co-ordinator of a project seeking to preserve the island's wildlife.
The three governments with territory on the island - Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei - signed an agreement earlier this year pledging to protect the "Heart of Borneo", 200,000 square kilometres of rainforest in the middle of the island thought to be particularly high in biodiversity.
P/S:the new species have a special spots on them!
Mystery apes of central Africa are chubby chimps
A tribe of apes living in remote forests in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo are unusually large chimpanzees, not a new species of giant ape or a chimp-gorilla hybrid, New Scientist says.
Zoologists became excited after people living around Bili, a town about 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the Ebola River, recounted tales of seeing hugeferocious apes with a taste for killing lions.
From photographs, the creatures were estimated to weigh about 100 kilos (220 pounds) and their footprints, at up to 34 centimetres (13.6 inches), were longer than a gorilla’s.
But a year-long hunt by Cleve Hicks and colleagues from the University of Amsterdam shows there is only a “negligible” chance that the enigmatic apes are a new branch of the primate tree.
Hicks were able to observe the animals for a total of 20 hours.
“I see nothing gorilla about them. The females definitely have a chimp’s sex swellings, they pant-hoot and tree-drum, and so on,” he told the British science weekly, whose report appears in Saturday’s issue.
Samples of a DNA recovered from faeces also put the animals in a recognised subspecies of chimp, Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii.
Even so, the Bili apes are unusual, as they have a gorilla-like crest on their skulls and howl during the full moon.
About 18 kms (11 miles) northwest of Bili, Hicks came across a large community of the animals that apparently had never met a human before.
“It’s fantastic. They surround us and show curiosity -- even the adult males. It is these guys we want to study,” said Hicks.
P/S:chubby chimps ya..wonder what makes them so chubby?
Zoologists became excited after people living around Bili, a town about 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the Ebola River, recounted tales of seeing hugeferocious apes with a taste for killing lions.
From photographs, the creatures were estimated to weigh about 100 kilos (220 pounds) and their footprints, at up to 34 centimetres (13.6 inches), were longer than a gorilla’s.
But a year-long hunt by Cleve Hicks and colleagues from the University of Amsterdam shows there is only a “negligible” chance that the enigmatic apes are a new branch of the primate tree.
Hicks were able to observe the animals for a total of 20 hours.
“I see nothing gorilla about them. The females definitely have a chimp’s sex swellings, they pant-hoot and tree-drum, and so on,” he told the British science weekly, whose report appears in Saturday’s issue.
Samples of a DNA recovered from faeces also put the animals in a recognised subspecies of chimp, Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii.
Even so, the Bili apes are unusual, as they have a gorilla-like crest on their skulls and howl during the full moon.
About 18 kms (11 miles) northwest of Bili, Hicks came across a large community of the animals that apparently had never met a human before.
“It’s fantastic. They surround us and show curiosity -- even the adult males. It is these guys we want to study,” said Hicks.
P/S:chubby chimps ya..wonder what makes them so chubby?
'Brazilian Stonehenge' discovered
Brazilian archaeologists have found an ancient stone structure in a remote corner of the Amazon that may cast new light on the region's past.
The site, thought to be an observatory or place of worship, pre-dates European colonisation and is said to suggest a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy.
Its appearance is being compared to the English site of Stonehenge.
It was traditionally thought that before European colonisation, the Amazon had no advanced societies.
The archaeologists made the discovery in the state of Amapa, in the far north of Brazil.
A total of 127 large blocks of stone were found driven into the ground on top of a hill.
The layout suggests a temple or an observatory
Well preserved and each weighing several tons, the stones were arranged upright and evenly spaced.It is not yet known when the structure was built, but fragments of indigenous pottery found at the site are thought to be 2,000 years old.
What impressed researchers was the sophistication of the construction.
The stones appear to have been laid out to help pinpoint the winter solstice, when the sun is at its lowest in the sky.
It is thought the ancient people of the Amazon used the stars and phases of the moon to determine crop cycles.
Although the discovery at Amapa is being compared to Stonehenge, the ancient stone circle in southern England, the English site is considerably older.
It is thought to have been erected some time between 3000 and 1600 BC.
P/S:seem like the mystery not only at England..
The site, thought to be an observatory or place of worship, pre-dates European colonisation and is said to suggest a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy.
Its appearance is being compared to the English site of Stonehenge.
It was traditionally thought that before European colonisation, the Amazon had no advanced societies.
The archaeologists made the discovery in the state of Amapa, in the far north of Brazil.
A total of 127 large blocks of stone were found driven into the ground on top of a hill.
The layout suggests a temple or an observatory
Well preserved and each weighing several tons, the stones were arranged upright and evenly spaced.It is not yet known when the structure was built, but fragments of indigenous pottery found at the site are thought to be 2,000 years old.
What impressed researchers was the sophistication of the construction.
The stones appear to have been laid out to help pinpoint the winter solstice, when the sun is at its lowest in the sky.
It is thought the ancient people of the Amazon used the stars and phases of the moon to determine crop cycles.
Although the discovery at Amapa is being compared to Stonehenge, the ancient stone circle in southern England, the English site is considerably older.
It is thought to have been erected some time between 3000 and 1600 BC.
P/S:seem like the mystery not only at England..
Saturday, April 21, 2007
The Cohomo Monster
In 1972, a wave of Bigfoot sightings swept through the Peoria area of Central Illinois. It all started in late May, when 18 year old Randy Emert and some friends reported seeing a ten foot tall creature resembling a Bigfoot. They described it has having white hair, quick moving, and makes screeching sounds. Randy said he had first heard about the monster from a friend a year earlier. He said that "there are tracks everywhere up there", referring to the wooded area along Cole Hollow Road, between East Peoria and Creve Coeur, where he and his friends had seen it. Many suspected it as being the famous "Momo" creature of Missouri. It became known as "Cohomo".
Many more sightings soon followed. On May 25, the East Peoria Police Department recieved over 200 phone calls of people saying they'd seen the creature. More reports arose until the police conducted a search of the creature in July. More than 100 volunteers searched the woods until one of them shot himself in the leg with a pistol. The manhunt, or should I say "Bigfoothunt" was called off.
But, the reports kept coming in. On July 25, a family from the nearby town of Eureka was celebrating a birthday party in Fondulac Park in Easp Peoria. They said they saw a figure standing in the woods nearby accompanied by strange lights behind it.
The next day, July 26, a woman was picking berries by an old coal mine on Route 98, 3 miles east of Route 2, in South Pekin at approaxamately 7:35 PM. She said she saw a Sasquatch-like creature near her and ran away, terrified. She left her purse behind.
The day after that, July 27, two people said they saw Cohomo swimming in the Illinois River. They said it looked like a cross between an ape and a caveman and smelled horrible. The police said they were "reliable citizens."
That same year a young boy named Rodney Erps was outside his family's rural home about 2 miles east of the Mackinaw River near South Pekin. He said he was 150-200 feet from their barn when he saw a massive figure exit out of the front door . He said that it was so big that it took up the entire space of the doorway. Terrified, he ran for the house. Their dogs began to bark and didn't stop for over three hours. A neighbor later said that he'd seen a huge shadow alongside the barn. When the police arrived, they found nothing. However, 2 months later, Rodney and his brother found a half eaten pig in the area he'd seen the creature before.
After this, the sightings ceased. The hype calmed and people forgot about Cohomo. There were several articles published on the local phenomena by the Pekin Daily Times.
P/S:i feel that this story kinda strange..
Many more sightings soon followed. On May 25, the East Peoria Police Department recieved over 200 phone calls of people saying they'd seen the creature. More reports arose until the police conducted a search of the creature in July. More than 100 volunteers searched the woods until one of them shot himself in the leg with a pistol. The manhunt, or should I say "Bigfoothunt" was called off.
But, the reports kept coming in. On July 25, a family from the nearby town of Eureka was celebrating a birthday party in Fondulac Park in Easp Peoria. They said they saw a figure standing in the woods nearby accompanied by strange lights behind it.
The next day, July 26, a woman was picking berries by an old coal mine on Route 98, 3 miles east of Route 2, in South Pekin at approaxamately 7:35 PM. She said she saw a Sasquatch-like creature near her and ran away, terrified. She left her purse behind.
The day after that, July 27, two people said they saw Cohomo swimming in the Illinois River. They said it looked like a cross between an ape and a caveman and smelled horrible. The police said they were "reliable citizens."
That same year a young boy named Rodney Erps was outside his family's rural home about 2 miles east of the Mackinaw River near South Pekin. He said he was 150-200 feet from their barn when he saw a massive figure exit out of the front door . He said that it was so big that it took up the entire space of the doorway. Terrified, he ran for the house. Their dogs began to bark and didn't stop for over three hours. A neighbor later said that he'd seen a huge shadow alongside the barn. When the police arrived, they found nothing. However, 2 months later, Rodney and his brother found a half eaten pig in the area he'd seen the creature before.
After this, the sightings ceased. The hype calmed and people forgot about Cohomo. There were several articles published on the local phenomena by the Pekin Daily Times.
P/S:i feel that this story kinda strange..
MONSTERS FROM THE MOUND
Some old historians dissed reports of bizarre finds from Western New York, but most acknowledged mystery. We should be suspicious of stories from frontier papers that stood to gain plenty from tall tales. These are from historical texts.
When the Whites arrived, Western New York was littered with the works of earlier people. Stone walls, graded roads, and fortifications were reported, though most commonly these markers were earthen mounds or enclosures. The Native Americans seldom had any tradition about the people who had put them in place. Most of us now believe that the influence of the Mississippian (Mound-Builder) culture was behind them. The settlement and the plow have been lethal to most of these fragile works, and even the old mound-fanatic E. G. Squier confessed ruefully in 1849 that the Western Door held little any more worth looking at. As these works were destroyed in the last century a stablefull of curiosities seems to have come out.
T. Apoleon Cheney notes (in Illustrations of the Ancient Monuments of Western New York) that a twelve-foot high elliptical mound above Cattaraugus County’s Conewango Valley held eight big skeletons. Most crumbled, but a thigh bone was found to be 28” long. Exquisite stone points, enamelwork, and jewelry (like that of Mexico or Peru) were also unearthed in the area. The mound looked like those of the Old World.
Cheney also mentions a skeleton seven-foot-five (with an unusually thick skull) from a Chautauqua County site near Cassadaga Creek. Inside a very old mound near Cassadaga Lake were some large skeletons that were examined by medical gentlemen.” One measured nearly nine feet. (In 1938 Charles Hunnington of Randolph was so inspired by Doc Cheney’s finds that he made two giant “wooden Indian” statues, probably still at the museum in Little Valley.)
The History of Cattaraugus County notes the town of Carrollton’s “Fort Limestone,” whose rough figure-eight enclosed five acres. In 1851 the removal of a stump turned up a mass of human bones. Some were enormous. Franklinville’s Marvin Older virtually gamboled about the site with them: a skull fit over his size seven-and-a-half head; a rib curved all the way around him, a shinbone went from his ankle to above his knee, and a jaw - with bodacious molars - went over his own. Its first owner had probably stood eight feet tall.
Stafford Cleveland’s History and Directory of Yates County refers to skeletons from a conical burial mound by Keuka Lake in the early 1800’s. A Penn Yan doctor found that many were seven footers. (Tales of ghosts and buried treasure cling to this vicinity as well.)
Turner’s History of the Holland Purchase reports an ancient three-acre earth fort in Orleans county (about one and a half miles west of Shelby Center) that covered seven- and eight-foot skeletons. Their skulls were well developed in front, broad between the ears, and flattened on top. Also, Turner notes that, upon digging a cellar on his town of Aurora farm, Charles P. Pierson found a giant of his own.
The 1879 History of Allegany County noted a circular mound between Philip’s Creek and the Genesee in the village of Belmont. Several feet high and fifteen or so in diameter, it disgorged human bones, some very large, when the railroad was made in 1849 and 1850.
Giant human skeletons don’t ring any bells with us. Some think the Scandinavians were in Western New York, and they were considered virtual giants in the ancient world (whose people were traditionally much shorter than those now). Many Vikings would seem tall even today, but they were not routinely seven-footers.
Not all the humanlike skeletons found about the Western Door were so surely human. Several old histories discuss the two very bizarre skulls taken in the early 1820’s from a mound on Tonawanda Island near Buffalo. One early writer notes each "portentous, protruding lower jaw and canine forehead." Another adds that the burial customs were entirely unlike those of the region’s natives.
Our County and Its People (Truman C. White, 1898) mentions skeletons that seem to have been "platycnemic" - flat-shinned. In the bluff at Fort Porter (Buffalo) one such skeleton was found near ancient implements. Burials of up to three such skeletons have been found high up on river or lake banks about the region. Their flat shins and "other skeletal peculiarities" were thought due to climbing and living in trees. These are odd stories to make up.
In nature’s evident experiments toward Homo sapiens, some of the discontinued models were very large (Gigantopithecus comes to mind); none are thought to have set foot or dragged knuckle on any American soil. Jess Stearn (in Montezuma’s Serpent) cites finds from the American southwest implying some giant, bestial hominid was here. Jim Brandon’s Weird America lists two such accounts from just outside the Western Door. An eight-footer turned up in an Ellisburg, PA mound (near Wellsville, NY) in 1886. The same year a team of professors and professionals found dozens of huge, oddly-skulled humans in a mound in Sayre, PA (near Elmira, NY). They averaged seven feet, though some were taller, and some had horny knobs on their foreheads. Several went to the American Investigating Museum in Philadelphia, into which they disappeared. Modern fans of Bigfoot (seen in almost all the states of the Union) might rejoice at historical testimony of monster bones; for the rest of us the matter is just... weird.
P/S:source from Mason C. Winfield,the author of "Shadows of the Western Door," a research-survey of Western New York's paranormal mysteries. The book included information on ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, ancient mysteries, giant skeletons, secret societies, cult activity, etc.
When the Whites arrived, Western New York was littered with the works of earlier people. Stone walls, graded roads, and fortifications were reported, though most commonly these markers were earthen mounds or enclosures. The Native Americans seldom had any tradition about the people who had put them in place. Most of us now believe that the influence of the Mississippian (Mound-Builder) culture was behind them. The settlement and the plow have been lethal to most of these fragile works, and even the old mound-fanatic E. G. Squier confessed ruefully in 1849 that the Western Door held little any more worth looking at. As these works were destroyed in the last century a stablefull of curiosities seems to have come out.
T. Apoleon Cheney notes (in Illustrations of the Ancient Monuments of Western New York) that a twelve-foot high elliptical mound above Cattaraugus County’s Conewango Valley held eight big skeletons. Most crumbled, but a thigh bone was found to be 28” long. Exquisite stone points, enamelwork, and jewelry (like that of Mexico or Peru) were also unearthed in the area. The mound looked like those of the Old World.
Cheney also mentions a skeleton seven-foot-five (with an unusually thick skull) from a Chautauqua County site near Cassadaga Creek. Inside a very old mound near Cassadaga Lake were some large skeletons that were examined by medical gentlemen.” One measured nearly nine feet. (In 1938 Charles Hunnington of Randolph was so inspired by Doc Cheney’s finds that he made two giant “wooden Indian” statues, probably still at the museum in Little Valley.)
The History of Cattaraugus County notes the town of Carrollton’s “Fort Limestone,” whose rough figure-eight enclosed five acres. In 1851 the removal of a stump turned up a mass of human bones. Some were enormous. Franklinville’s Marvin Older virtually gamboled about the site with them: a skull fit over his size seven-and-a-half head; a rib curved all the way around him, a shinbone went from his ankle to above his knee, and a jaw - with bodacious molars - went over his own. Its first owner had probably stood eight feet tall.
Stafford Cleveland’s History and Directory of Yates County refers to skeletons from a conical burial mound by Keuka Lake in the early 1800’s. A Penn Yan doctor found that many were seven footers. (Tales of ghosts and buried treasure cling to this vicinity as well.)
Turner’s History of the Holland Purchase reports an ancient three-acre earth fort in Orleans county (about one and a half miles west of Shelby Center) that covered seven- and eight-foot skeletons. Their skulls were well developed in front, broad between the ears, and flattened on top. Also, Turner notes that, upon digging a cellar on his town of Aurora farm, Charles P. Pierson found a giant of his own.
The 1879 History of Allegany County noted a circular mound between Philip’s Creek and the Genesee in the village of Belmont. Several feet high and fifteen or so in diameter, it disgorged human bones, some very large, when the railroad was made in 1849 and 1850.
Giant human skeletons don’t ring any bells with us. Some think the Scandinavians were in Western New York, and they were considered virtual giants in the ancient world (whose people were traditionally much shorter than those now). Many Vikings would seem tall even today, but they were not routinely seven-footers.
Not all the humanlike skeletons found about the Western Door were so surely human. Several old histories discuss the two very bizarre skulls taken in the early 1820’s from a mound on Tonawanda Island near Buffalo. One early writer notes each "portentous, protruding lower jaw and canine forehead." Another adds that the burial customs were entirely unlike those of the region’s natives.
Our County and Its People (Truman C. White, 1898) mentions skeletons that seem to have been "platycnemic" - flat-shinned. In the bluff at Fort Porter (Buffalo) one such skeleton was found near ancient implements. Burials of up to three such skeletons have been found high up on river or lake banks about the region. Their flat shins and "other skeletal peculiarities" were thought due to climbing and living in trees. These are odd stories to make up.
In nature’s evident experiments toward Homo sapiens, some of the discontinued models were very large (Gigantopithecus comes to mind); none are thought to have set foot or dragged knuckle on any American soil. Jess Stearn (in Montezuma’s Serpent) cites finds from the American southwest implying some giant, bestial hominid was here. Jim Brandon’s Weird America lists two such accounts from just outside the Western Door. An eight-footer turned up in an Ellisburg, PA mound (near Wellsville, NY) in 1886. The same year a team of professors and professionals found dozens of huge, oddly-skulled humans in a mound in Sayre, PA (near Elmira, NY). They averaged seven feet, though some were taller, and some had horny knobs on their foreheads. Several went to the American Investigating Museum in Philadelphia, into which they disappeared. Modern fans of Bigfoot (seen in almost all the states of the Union) might rejoice at historical testimony of monster bones; for the rest of us the matter is just... weird.
P/S:source from Mason C. Winfield,the author of "Shadows of the Western Door," a research-survey of Western New York's paranormal mysteries. The book included information on ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, ancient mysteries, giant skeletons, secret societies, cult activity, etc.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Encounters With Green Children
There are two different yet similar reports of strange green-skinned children found abandoned near villages in Europe. The first account dates back to the 12th century near Suffolk, England.
Local farmers found a boy and a girl weeping in a field. They brought the children to the home of Sir Richard de Calne in the village of Woolpit.
The children spoke no English and refused to eat food. They both wore oddly-coloured clothing of unkown materials. Eventually they began to eat beans exclusivly after going without food for several days, but only after they were shown how to open the stalks.
Both children were soon baptised. The boy grew weak shortly after and eventually died. The girl survived, learned to speak English, and eat other food. Her skin turned to a normal colour.
When asked about her origins, the girl described a place with no sun where all the inhabitants were of green colour. She claimed that she and the boy were separated from their people as they wandered in a large cavern and, upon exiting, were "struck sensless by the excessive light of the sun and the unusual temperature of the air." A separate recorded account states that the girl said she came from a place called St. Martin's Land where the people were all Christian.
Despite the bizarre accounts of the children's origins, some suggest that the children were lost and had wandered from the nearby village of Fordham St. Martin. Malnourishment gave their skin a greenish colour.
The second account of green children comes from Banjos, Spain in August of 1887. A boy and a girl of greenish colour were found abandoned near a cave. They did not speak Spanish and wore unfamiliar clothing. Their eyes were described as Oriental in appearance.
As with the first account from England, both children refused to eat at first. The boy grew weak and died, but the girl survived, learned Spanish, and explained that she and her companion came from a sunless land. The account differes from the first as the girl was reported to have claimed they had been caught up in a whirlwind and found themselves in the cave. The girl died in 1892.
Neither of these reports describe any other strange activity in the area such as UFOs. The children's true origins were never discovered. While some suggest the green children were aliens from another world or dimension, the rational explanation would be that the children were lost and undernourished. In any case, these events still remain a mystery. What is odd is that both accounts, although happening hundreds of years appart, are strikingly similar. Perhaps they are a retelling of the same story.
P/S:if they are green coloured..and came from a place without sun..i wonder where is it the place..
Local farmers found a boy and a girl weeping in a field. They brought the children to the home of Sir Richard de Calne in the village of Woolpit.
The children spoke no English and refused to eat food. They both wore oddly-coloured clothing of unkown materials. Eventually they began to eat beans exclusivly after going without food for several days, but only after they were shown how to open the stalks.
Both children were soon baptised. The boy grew weak shortly after and eventually died. The girl survived, learned to speak English, and eat other food. Her skin turned to a normal colour.
When asked about her origins, the girl described a place with no sun where all the inhabitants were of green colour. She claimed that she and the boy were separated from their people as they wandered in a large cavern and, upon exiting, were "struck sensless by the excessive light of the sun and the unusual temperature of the air." A separate recorded account states that the girl said she came from a place called St. Martin's Land where the people were all Christian.
Despite the bizarre accounts of the children's origins, some suggest that the children were lost and had wandered from the nearby village of Fordham St. Martin. Malnourishment gave their skin a greenish colour.
The second account of green children comes from Banjos, Spain in August of 1887. A boy and a girl of greenish colour were found abandoned near a cave. They did not speak Spanish and wore unfamiliar clothing. Their eyes were described as Oriental in appearance.
As with the first account from England, both children refused to eat at first. The boy grew weak and died, but the girl survived, learned Spanish, and explained that she and her companion came from a sunless land. The account differes from the first as the girl was reported to have claimed they had been caught up in a whirlwind and found themselves in the cave. The girl died in 1892.
Neither of these reports describe any other strange activity in the area such as UFOs. The children's true origins were never discovered. While some suggest the green children were aliens from another world or dimension, the rational explanation would be that the children were lost and undernourished. In any case, these events still remain a mystery. What is odd is that both accounts, although happening hundreds of years appart, are strikingly similar. Perhaps they are a retelling of the same story.
P/S:if they are green coloured..and came from a place without sun..i wonder where is it the place..
Yeti from Russia's Vyatka
Moscow explorers discovered a wigwam of a creature unknown to science in the snow-covered forest
Members of the Kosmopoisk association have returned from an expedition to Russia's Kirov Region where they searched for a bigfoot that allegedly lived in that region. Kosmopoisk leader Vadim Chernobrov says the expedition has discovered a den occupied by a mysterious giant and an underground passage dug obviously not by a human.
Ivan Konovalov has been working as a forest warden for 30 years in the Kirov Region. At first, the man did not plan to stay in that region for long, however he had an important meeting in November 1985 and changed his mind. Ivan Konovalov tells about that meeting: "It was snowing on the day when I was walking along the fir wood and suddenly heard snap of twigs. I turned around and saw an awesome creature covered with dark hair that was much taller than me. It smelt strongly. The beast leant against a pine tree and started bending it down to the ground. The tree was rather thick, but it cracked under the creature's burden. Then the creature started breaking the tree against the knee. Its hands were as thick and long as its legs. Quite of a sudden, the creature felt something and turned its "face" to me. I saw two black eyes and the impression at the bottom of the eyes deeply impressed me. I still remember the look of the eyes. Then the creature flung the tree and quickly left. But I stood thunderstruck and could not move a finger."
After that awesome meeting the forest warden was anticipating another meeting with the bigfoot. However, the man did not doubt that it was a snowman. Ivan Konovalov thinks the creature unknown to science has some mysterious capabilities resembling hypnosis.
It was only twice that he managed to come across the creature face to face. Another time Ivan Konovalov met with a she-yeti and a baby. They noticed the forest warden and ran deep into the forest emitting sounds resembling dog's barking.
Hunter Vasily Kapustin tells that he has seen numerous footprints of a snowman, but came across the creature only once. A hairy creature attacked a young elk, shouldered it and directed toward the forest. When the yeti saw the hunter it was at first confused, then looked at the man with astonishment, emitted some indistinct sound and rushed into the deep forest. Vasily Kapustin felt as if he stood for 15 minutes and then went toward his village. But when he came home it turned out he had spent about four hours in the forest! He had a headache and felt as if he had a hangover. But the hunter was an abstainer. He made an effort to get back to the place where he came across the yeti and discovered the footprints of an enormous naked foot looking very much like a human foot, but wider and bigger in fact. The snow on the site was spotted with blood of the baby elk obviously. However, it was not clear how the creature managed to escape through the deep forest and broke no branches and left practically no traces.
Vadim Chernobrov, the leader of the expedition tells that hunters are as a rule not talkative men; but they enjoy respect of the local population. Locals do believe that some strange forest creatures exist in fact. Those who have ever come across such creatures are treated as people's heroes there.
The two hunters helped the expedition to search the place. Vadim Chernobrov tells that the group set up a tent camp in a big meadow. "I had many baits that were to help us catch a yeti. On the first night the group was really very tired and did not arrange the baits. The baits remained in my tent. The group put out the fire and appointed a man on duty for the night. When we woke up early in the morning we saw a torn side of my tent as if someone attempted to get inside of the tent. My rucksack stood half a meter away from the torn side of the tent. But the man on duty was on the top of a tall pine tree clutching at branches. The guy had a hatchet, and all branches were cut under his feet. It took us much effort to take him down from the tree. He was white from terror, his hands and legs were trembling and he could hardly speak. In two hours he started crying and said he wanted to go back home. His home was far from the tent camp, however the man was so terror-stricken that he wouldnot stay there."
On the next nights, the group chose more experienced people to be on duty. But they did not see anything scary at all. Baits laid around the tent camp brought no success. However, when members of the expedition went deep into the forest in broad daylight they discovered strange things there: trees broken so neatly as if someone chopped firewood there and incisions on trees made either with teeth or with claws.
It was only once that the expedition was actually rewarded for the persistence: the group discovered a den made of stems of trees in the middle of a forest clearing. The den of five square meters did not resemble people or animal's habitation. Vadim Chernobrov together with some members of the group walked around the den and then decided to get inside.
The floor of the den was laid out with logs and rotten leaves, the walls were strong and did not let the cold wind pass through. There was nobody inside of the den. There was some construction covered with sticks in the middle of the "room". Under the sticks, there was a hole of about one meter in diameter leading deep under the ground. The hole was highly likely very deep as a stone thrown down emitted no sound at all. The expedition decided it was an underground passage. However, the group had no special equipment to come down the passage. They just charted the site to get back to it later.
The leader of the expedition says it is now important to gather many experts, biologists, zoologists and doctors to organize another expedition to the mysterious site in the Kirov Region.
Alexey Rozanov, a correspondent member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Paleontology Institute says that yeti is one of the most mysterious puzzles of present-day science. Opinions still differ whether yeti exists or not. Some people believe there is no documented evidence proving existence of yeti; all photos and videos allegedly showing yeti are falsifications. Others say that yetis are in fact baboons, huge monkeys, and Himalayan bears about two meters tall. There is an opinion that yeti is an offshoot of the primates developing parallel to human beings. At the time when human brain and intellect developed, yeti acquired some extrasensory capabilities. Some researchers believe that people's hairy neighbors can not only hypnotize, but also levitate, become invisible or cure any diseases with a glance. There are even more fantastic hypotheses saying that yetis are wood-goblins, demons or some beings from the parallel world. Unfortunately, there is not single evidence proving any of the fantastic suggestions.
Legends about yeti go back to the antiquity; it was mentioned for the first time about 4 thousand years ago, crypt-zoologist, doctor of biological science Alexander Bayanov tells. More information about yeti appears every year. Japan mountaineers left for the Himalayas in August 2002 to search for yeti; they got back from the expedition absolutely confident that yeti actually existed. The mountaineers brought about ten pictures of yeti footprints taken on the slopes of the Dhaulakhari mountain and told they had seen an apelike creature quickly running about the mountain slopes. There is evidence provided by an American mountain-skier who came across two hairy creatures when he descended from Everest. He says the creatures were neither animals nor humans. The meeting ended like any other story connected with yeti: the creatures suddenly disappeared.
In two months, it was reported from Pakistan that a hairy creature near the settlement of Haripura attacked a 20-year-old native. The creature seized the guy's shoulder and scratched him, but when the native cried, the creature got scared and ran away. Doctors examined the guy's wounds, but could not say what the creature actually was.
A hairy very tall creature was also once seen in Russia near the cities of St.Petersburg and Tomsk. A mummified paw of some ancient animal belonging to none of the known to science species was discovered in Russia's Altai Mountains. Vice-president of the Russian Association of Vet Anatomists Yury Malafeyev took an X-ray photograph of the paw and made a conclusion that it looked very much like a human hand, but covered with red fur and of a bigger size.
P/S:if those creatures are real..i wonder how do they feel on human?
Members of the Kosmopoisk association have returned from an expedition to Russia's Kirov Region where they searched for a bigfoot that allegedly lived in that region. Kosmopoisk leader Vadim Chernobrov says the expedition has discovered a den occupied by a mysterious giant and an underground passage dug obviously not by a human.
Ivan Konovalov has been working as a forest warden for 30 years in the Kirov Region. At first, the man did not plan to stay in that region for long, however he had an important meeting in November 1985 and changed his mind. Ivan Konovalov tells about that meeting: "It was snowing on the day when I was walking along the fir wood and suddenly heard snap of twigs. I turned around and saw an awesome creature covered with dark hair that was much taller than me. It smelt strongly. The beast leant against a pine tree and started bending it down to the ground. The tree was rather thick, but it cracked under the creature's burden. Then the creature started breaking the tree against the knee. Its hands were as thick and long as its legs. Quite of a sudden, the creature felt something and turned its "face" to me. I saw two black eyes and the impression at the bottom of the eyes deeply impressed me. I still remember the look of the eyes. Then the creature flung the tree and quickly left. But I stood thunderstruck and could not move a finger."
After that awesome meeting the forest warden was anticipating another meeting with the bigfoot. However, the man did not doubt that it was a snowman. Ivan Konovalov thinks the creature unknown to science has some mysterious capabilities resembling hypnosis.
It was only twice that he managed to come across the creature face to face. Another time Ivan Konovalov met with a she-yeti and a baby. They noticed the forest warden and ran deep into the forest emitting sounds resembling dog's barking.
Hunter Vasily Kapustin tells that he has seen numerous footprints of a snowman, but came across the creature only once. A hairy creature attacked a young elk, shouldered it and directed toward the forest. When the yeti saw the hunter it was at first confused, then looked at the man with astonishment, emitted some indistinct sound and rushed into the deep forest. Vasily Kapustin felt as if he stood for 15 minutes and then went toward his village. But when he came home it turned out he had spent about four hours in the forest! He had a headache and felt as if he had a hangover. But the hunter was an abstainer. He made an effort to get back to the place where he came across the yeti and discovered the footprints of an enormous naked foot looking very much like a human foot, but wider and bigger in fact. The snow on the site was spotted with blood of the baby elk obviously. However, it was not clear how the creature managed to escape through the deep forest and broke no branches and left practically no traces.
Vadim Chernobrov, the leader of the expedition tells that hunters are as a rule not talkative men; but they enjoy respect of the local population. Locals do believe that some strange forest creatures exist in fact. Those who have ever come across such creatures are treated as people's heroes there.
The two hunters helped the expedition to search the place. Vadim Chernobrov tells that the group set up a tent camp in a big meadow. "I had many baits that were to help us catch a yeti. On the first night the group was really very tired and did not arrange the baits. The baits remained in my tent. The group put out the fire and appointed a man on duty for the night. When we woke up early in the morning we saw a torn side of my tent as if someone attempted to get inside of the tent. My rucksack stood half a meter away from the torn side of the tent. But the man on duty was on the top of a tall pine tree clutching at branches. The guy had a hatchet, and all branches were cut under his feet. It took us much effort to take him down from the tree. He was white from terror, his hands and legs were trembling and he could hardly speak. In two hours he started crying and said he wanted to go back home. His home was far from the tent camp, however the man was so terror-stricken that he wouldnot stay there."
On the next nights, the group chose more experienced people to be on duty. But they did not see anything scary at all. Baits laid around the tent camp brought no success. However, when members of the expedition went deep into the forest in broad daylight they discovered strange things there: trees broken so neatly as if someone chopped firewood there and incisions on trees made either with teeth or with claws.
It was only once that the expedition was actually rewarded for the persistence: the group discovered a den made of stems of trees in the middle of a forest clearing. The den of five square meters did not resemble people or animal's habitation. Vadim Chernobrov together with some members of the group walked around the den and then decided to get inside.
The floor of the den was laid out with logs and rotten leaves, the walls were strong and did not let the cold wind pass through. There was nobody inside of the den. There was some construction covered with sticks in the middle of the "room". Under the sticks, there was a hole of about one meter in diameter leading deep under the ground. The hole was highly likely very deep as a stone thrown down emitted no sound at all. The expedition decided it was an underground passage. However, the group had no special equipment to come down the passage. They just charted the site to get back to it later.
The leader of the expedition says it is now important to gather many experts, biologists, zoologists and doctors to organize another expedition to the mysterious site in the Kirov Region.
Alexey Rozanov, a correspondent member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Paleontology Institute says that yeti is one of the most mysterious puzzles of present-day science. Opinions still differ whether yeti exists or not. Some people believe there is no documented evidence proving existence of yeti; all photos and videos allegedly showing yeti are falsifications. Others say that yetis are in fact baboons, huge monkeys, and Himalayan bears about two meters tall. There is an opinion that yeti is an offshoot of the primates developing parallel to human beings. At the time when human brain and intellect developed, yeti acquired some extrasensory capabilities. Some researchers believe that people's hairy neighbors can not only hypnotize, but also levitate, become invisible or cure any diseases with a glance. There are even more fantastic hypotheses saying that yetis are wood-goblins, demons or some beings from the parallel world. Unfortunately, there is not single evidence proving any of the fantastic suggestions.
Legends about yeti go back to the antiquity; it was mentioned for the first time about 4 thousand years ago, crypt-zoologist, doctor of biological science Alexander Bayanov tells. More information about yeti appears every year. Japan mountaineers left for the Himalayas in August 2002 to search for yeti; they got back from the expedition absolutely confident that yeti actually existed. The mountaineers brought about ten pictures of yeti footprints taken on the slopes of the Dhaulakhari mountain and told they had seen an apelike creature quickly running about the mountain slopes. There is evidence provided by an American mountain-skier who came across two hairy creatures when he descended from Everest. He says the creatures were neither animals nor humans. The meeting ended like any other story connected with yeti: the creatures suddenly disappeared.
In two months, it was reported from Pakistan that a hairy creature near the settlement of Haripura attacked a 20-year-old native. The creature seized the guy's shoulder and scratched him, but when the native cried, the creature got scared and ran away. Doctors examined the guy's wounds, but could not say what the creature actually was.
A hairy very tall creature was also once seen in Russia near the cities of St.Petersburg and Tomsk. A mummified paw of some ancient animal belonging to none of the known to science species was discovered in Russia's Altai Mountains. Vice-president of the Russian Association of Vet Anatomists Yury Malafeyev took an X-ray photograph of the paw and made a conclusion that it looked very much like a human hand, but covered with red fur and of a bigger size.
P/S:if those creatures are real..i wonder how do they feel on human?
Apelike Creature Reported in Angol
According to information in our files, we can say that Mr. Luis B.T., a well-known jeweler and native artisan of the 9th Region, retold a strange experience that befell his son-in-law in the winter of 2006.
Luis’s son-in-law, a truck driver with an erratic schedule, could not believe what he was seeing on the road in June 2006 near midnight between a stretch of road from Los Angeles to Muchén. On that day he wasn’t carrying an assistant, so there are no other witnesses to his observation. But he does remember driving at an average speed without any further remarks. Suddenly, on a particular stretch of road on which no other cars were present, he noticed that there was a strange animal on his right, on the blacktop. It was very still and had the appearance of an ape, with short arms and long legs. He managed to hit the brakes about 10 meters from this animal, but the simian creature did not make a move and slowly turned its head toward the truck. That’s when the driver noticed that its eyes were sparkling red, and that the configuration or fur on its body was very odd, covered by something similar to short whitish feathers.
The trucker felt a shudder of fear, faced with such an strange situation. He stopped the engine and allowed several seconds to elapse, with the creature staring at him as he quaked with fear. The animal walked slowly and crossed the road, never taking its eyes off the driver. As the witness recalls, the simian entity was thickset, stood approximately over one meter tall, had a head proportioned to its body and a large muzzle. It made no sound whatsoever. At no time did its extremities touch the pavement and it maintained itself upright throughout, like a small man.
The driver was able to get a good look at the creature and kept his headlights on at all time. He added that the creature’s attitude was defiant throughout the event, while passive.
An effort is being made at this time to compile more information regarding this strange experience, which remained unpublished and under strict family secrecy.
P/S:i wonder if the scary beasts are real..what will happen to the world?
Luis’s son-in-law, a truck driver with an erratic schedule, could not believe what he was seeing on the road in June 2006 near midnight between a stretch of road from Los Angeles to Muchén. On that day he wasn’t carrying an assistant, so there are no other witnesses to his observation. But he does remember driving at an average speed without any further remarks. Suddenly, on a particular stretch of road on which no other cars were present, he noticed that there was a strange animal on his right, on the blacktop. It was very still and had the appearance of an ape, with short arms and long legs. He managed to hit the brakes about 10 meters from this animal, but the simian creature did not make a move and slowly turned its head toward the truck. That’s when the driver noticed that its eyes were sparkling red, and that the configuration or fur on its body was very odd, covered by something similar to short whitish feathers.
The trucker felt a shudder of fear, faced with such an strange situation. He stopped the engine and allowed several seconds to elapse, with the creature staring at him as he quaked with fear. The animal walked slowly and crossed the road, never taking its eyes off the driver. As the witness recalls, the simian entity was thickset, stood approximately over one meter tall, had a head proportioned to its body and a large muzzle. It made no sound whatsoever. At no time did its extremities touch the pavement and it maintained itself upright throughout, like a small man.
The driver was able to get a good look at the creature and kept his headlights on at all time. He added that the creature’s attitude was defiant throughout the event, while passive.
An effort is being made at this time to compile more information regarding this strange experience, which remained unpublished and under strict family secrecy.
P/S:i wonder if the scary beasts are real..what will happen to the world?
The Wendigo
In the mythology of the Algonquian-speaking tribes of Native Americans, the Wendigo is a malevolent supernatural creature. It is usually described as a giant with a heart of ice; sometimes it is thought to be entirely made of ice. Its body is skeletal and deformed, with missing lips and toes. The first accounts of the Wendigo myth by explorers and missionaries date back to the 17th century. They describe it rather generically as a werewolf, devil, or cannibal. The Wendigo was usually presumed to have once been human. Different origins of the Wendigo are described in variations of the myth.
A hunter may become the Wendigo when encountering it in the forest at night, or when becoming possessed by its spirit in a dream. When the cannibalistic element of the myth is stressed, it is assumed that anyone who eats corpses in a famine becomes a Wendigo as a result. The only way to destroy a Wendigo is to melt its heart of ice. In recent times, it has been identified with Sasquatch or Bigfoot by cryptozoologists, but there is little evidence in the indigenous folklore for it being a similar creature.
Perhaps this myth was used as a deterrent and cautionary tale among northern tribes whose winters were long and bitter and whose hunting parties often were trapped in storms with no recourse but to consume members of their own party. It could be indicative of starvation that the Wendigo is said to consume moss and other unpalatable food when human flesh is unavailable.
Its physical deformities are suggestive of starvation and frostbite, so the Wendigo may be a myth based on a personification of the hardships of winter and the taboo of cannibalism. In some stories a Wendigo will follow a lone wanderer for a long time. When the prey becomes suspicious and turns around the Wendigo always manages to get out of sight by hiding behind a tree. After a while the followed person starts to become hysterical and runs until he makes an error. The Wendigo then strikes. If someone actually survives a Wendigo attack they get the Wendigo-fever: after a night of nightmares and pain in their legs--indeed, the Wendigo itself often has no feet--Wendigo-fevered people strip themselves naked and run into the forest screaming.
P/S:according to myth..Wendigo is a wolf faced but human bodied creature..that's kinda interesting!
A hunter may become the Wendigo when encountering it in the forest at night, or when becoming possessed by its spirit in a dream. When the cannibalistic element of the myth is stressed, it is assumed that anyone who eats corpses in a famine becomes a Wendigo as a result. The only way to destroy a Wendigo is to melt its heart of ice. In recent times, it has been identified with Sasquatch or Bigfoot by cryptozoologists, but there is little evidence in the indigenous folklore for it being a similar creature.
Perhaps this myth was used as a deterrent and cautionary tale among northern tribes whose winters were long and bitter and whose hunting parties often were trapped in storms with no recourse but to consume members of their own party. It could be indicative of starvation that the Wendigo is said to consume moss and other unpalatable food when human flesh is unavailable.
Its physical deformities are suggestive of starvation and frostbite, so the Wendigo may be a myth based on a personification of the hardships of winter and the taboo of cannibalism. In some stories a Wendigo will follow a lone wanderer for a long time. When the prey becomes suspicious and turns around the Wendigo always manages to get out of sight by hiding behind a tree. After a while the followed person starts to become hysterical and runs until he makes an error. The Wendigo then strikes. If someone actually survives a Wendigo attack they get the Wendigo-fever: after a night of nightmares and pain in their legs--indeed, the Wendigo itself often has no feet--Wendigo-fevered people strip themselves naked and run into the forest screaming.
P/S:according to myth..Wendigo is a wolf faced but human bodied creature..that's kinda interesting!
Andean Wolf
Andean Wolf ( Dasycyon Hagenbecki ) This is mysterious canid from Andes. In 1927 year Lorenz Hagenbeck got some skin from dealer in Buenos Aires, and he told him that come from Andes. A few years afterwards in 1947 Germany dr. Ingo Krumbiegel researched this skin and said that belong to new and still indescribable species from high, peaks of Andes. Ten years earlier, Krumbiegel found skull similar to omnivorous canid about 31 centimetres, (but not belong to Maned wolf who skulls are smaller, about 24 cm.), from gatherings come from Andes. But in 1945 skull was lost after the war. In 1960 a few scientists told, that fur belong only to domestic dog(possibly do mongrel of sheep dog), not to wild dog from Andes. In 1995 year research DNA confirmed this. But only fur was bad, but skull really could belong to new species wild dog come from Andes . We waiting for again discovery of Andean Hagenbeck wolf in Andes mountains..
P/S:what a attractive and mysterious animal..
P/S:what a attractive and mysterious animal..
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Europe's Oldest Civilisation
Archaeologists have discovered Europe's oldest civilisation, a network of dozens of temples, 2,000 years older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids.
More than 150 gigantic monuments have been located beneath the fields and cities of modern-day Germany, Austria and Slovakia. They were built 7,000 years ago, between 4800BC and 4600BC.
Their discovery, revealed today by The Independent, will revolutionise the study of prehistoric Europe, where an appetite for monumental architecture was thought to have developed later than in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
In all, more than 150 temples have been identified. Constructed of earth and wood, they had ramparts and palisades that stretched for up to half a mile. They were built by a religious people who lived in communal longhouses up to 50 metres long, grouped around substantial villages. Evidence suggests their economy was based on cattle, sheep, goat and pig farming.
Their civilisation seems to have died out after about 200 years and the recent archaeological discoveries are so new that the temple building culture does not even have a name yet.
Excavations have been taking place over the past few years - and have triggered a re-evaluation of similar, though hitherto mostly undated, complexes identified from aerial photographs throughout central Europe.
Archaeologists are now beginning to suspect that hundreds of these very early monumental religious centres, each up to 150 metres across, were constructed across a 400-mile swath of land in what is now Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and eastern Germany.
The most complex excavated so far - located inside the city of Dresden - consisted of an apparently sacred internal space surrounded by two palisades, three earthen banks and four ditches.
The monuments seem to be a phenomenon associated exclusively with a period of consolidation and growth that followed the initial establishment of farming cultures in the centre of the continent.
It is possible that the newly revealed early Neolithic monument phenomenon was the consequence of an increase in the size of - and competition between - emerging Neolithic tribal or pan-tribal groups, arguably Europe's earliest mini-states.
After a relatively brief period - perhaps just one or two hundred years - either the need or the socio-political ability to build them disappeared, and monuments of this scale were not built again until the Middle Bronze Age, 3,000 years later. Why this monumental culture collapsed is a mystery.
The archaeological investigation into these vast Stone Age temples over the past three years has also revealed several other mysteries. First, each complex was only used for a few generations - perhaps 100 years maximum. Second, the central sacred area was nearly always the same size, about a third of a hectare. Third, each circular enclosure ditch - irrespective of diameter - involved the removal of the same volume of earth. In other words, the builders reduced the depth and/or width of each ditch in inverse proportion to its diameter, so as to always keep volume (and thus time spent) constant .
Archaeologists are speculating that this may have been in order to allow each earthwork to be dug by a set number of special status workers in a set number of days - perhaps to satisfy the ritual requirements of some sort of religious calendar.
The multiple bank, ditch and palisade systems "protecting" the inner space seem not to have been built for defensive purposes - and were instead probably designed to prevent ordinary tribespeople from seeing the sacred and presumably secret rituals which were performed in the "inner sanctum" .
The investigation so far suggests that each religious complex was ritually decommissioned at the end of its life, with the ditches, each of which had been dug successively, being deliberately filled in.
"Our excavations have revealed the degree of monumental vision and sophistication used by these early farming communities to create Europe's first truly large scale earthwork complexes," said the senior archaeologist, Harald Staeuble of the Saxony state government's heritage department, who has been directing the archaeological investigations. Scientific investigations into the recently excavated material are taking place in Dresden.
The people who built the huge circular temples were the descendants of migrants who arrived many centuries earlier from the Danube plain in what is now northern Serbia and Hungary. The temple-builders were pastoralists, controlling large herds of cattle, sheep and goats as well as pigs. They made tools of stone, bone and wood, and small ceramic statues of humans and animals.
They manufactured substantial amounts of geometrically decorated pottery, and they lived in large longhouses in substantial villages.
One village complex and temple at Aythra, near Leipzig, covers an area of 25 hectares. Two hundred longhouses have been found there. The population would have been up to 300 people living in a highly organised settlement of 15 to 20 very large communal buildings.
P/S:it's a big discovery i think...
More than 150 gigantic monuments have been located beneath the fields and cities of modern-day Germany, Austria and Slovakia. They were built 7,000 years ago, between 4800BC and 4600BC.
Their discovery, revealed today by The Independent, will revolutionise the study of prehistoric Europe, where an appetite for monumental architecture was thought to have developed later than in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
In all, more than 150 temples have been identified. Constructed of earth and wood, they had ramparts and palisades that stretched for up to half a mile. They were built by a religious people who lived in communal longhouses up to 50 metres long, grouped around substantial villages. Evidence suggests their economy was based on cattle, sheep, goat and pig farming.
Their civilisation seems to have died out after about 200 years and the recent archaeological discoveries are so new that the temple building culture does not even have a name yet.
Excavations have been taking place over the past few years - and have triggered a re-evaluation of similar, though hitherto mostly undated, complexes identified from aerial photographs throughout central Europe.
Archaeologists are now beginning to suspect that hundreds of these very early monumental religious centres, each up to 150 metres across, were constructed across a 400-mile swath of land in what is now Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and eastern Germany.
The most complex excavated so far - located inside the city of Dresden - consisted of an apparently sacred internal space surrounded by two palisades, three earthen banks and four ditches.
The monuments seem to be a phenomenon associated exclusively with a period of consolidation and growth that followed the initial establishment of farming cultures in the centre of the continent.
It is possible that the newly revealed early Neolithic monument phenomenon was the consequence of an increase in the size of - and competition between - emerging Neolithic tribal or pan-tribal groups, arguably Europe's earliest mini-states.
After a relatively brief period - perhaps just one or two hundred years - either the need or the socio-political ability to build them disappeared, and monuments of this scale were not built again until the Middle Bronze Age, 3,000 years later. Why this monumental culture collapsed is a mystery.
The archaeological investigation into these vast Stone Age temples over the past three years has also revealed several other mysteries. First, each complex was only used for a few generations - perhaps 100 years maximum. Second, the central sacred area was nearly always the same size, about a third of a hectare. Third, each circular enclosure ditch - irrespective of diameter - involved the removal of the same volume of earth. In other words, the builders reduced the depth and/or width of each ditch in inverse proportion to its diameter, so as to always keep volume (and thus time spent) constant .
Archaeologists are speculating that this may have been in order to allow each earthwork to be dug by a set number of special status workers in a set number of days - perhaps to satisfy the ritual requirements of some sort of religious calendar.
The multiple bank, ditch and palisade systems "protecting" the inner space seem not to have been built for defensive purposes - and were instead probably designed to prevent ordinary tribespeople from seeing the sacred and presumably secret rituals which were performed in the "inner sanctum" .
The investigation so far suggests that each religious complex was ritually decommissioned at the end of its life, with the ditches, each of which had been dug successively, being deliberately filled in.
"Our excavations have revealed the degree of monumental vision and sophistication used by these early farming communities to create Europe's first truly large scale earthwork complexes," said the senior archaeologist, Harald Staeuble of the Saxony state government's heritage department, who has been directing the archaeological investigations. Scientific investigations into the recently excavated material are taking place in Dresden.
The people who built the huge circular temples were the descendants of migrants who arrived many centuries earlier from the Danube plain in what is now northern Serbia and Hungary. The temple-builders were pastoralists, controlling large herds of cattle, sheep and goats as well as pigs. They made tools of stone, bone and wood, and small ceramic statues of humans and animals.
They manufactured substantial amounts of geometrically decorated pottery, and they lived in large longhouses in substantial villages.
One village complex and temple at Aythra, near Leipzig, covers an area of 25 hectares. Two hundred longhouses have been found there. The population would have been up to 300 people living in a highly organised settlement of 15 to 20 very large communal buildings.
P/S:it's a big discovery i think...
Ancient pyramid found in Mexico
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient pyramid buried under a hill on the outskirts of Mexico City.
The site will not be fully explored because of its religious significance
The pyramid is said to be 1,500 years old and was built by the same ancient people who constructed the Teotihuacan complex, known as the City of the Gods.
Parts of the structure have been badly damaged as the hill has been used for decades to stage re-enactments of the crucifixion of Christ during Holy Week.
The religious celebration is attended by as many as one million devotees.
Measuring 150m (492 feet) on each of its four sides, the 18-metre (59-foot) tall pyramid was carved out on a natural hillside around 500 AD.
It was abandoned in about 800 AD, when the Teotihuacan culture collapsed for unknown reasons.
Cultural legacy
"When they first saw us digging there, the local people just couldn't believe there was a pyramid," archaeologist Jesus Sanchez said, who has been exploring the site since 2004.
The same ancient people are believed to have built Teotihuacan
It was only when the slopes and shapes of the pyramid, the floors with altars were found, that they finally believed us. The majority of the people now feel happy and proud, and have helped out a lot in protecting the relics," he added.
Iztapalapa hillside, known as Hill of the Star, overlooks one of Mexico City's poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods.
Local people began re-enacting the Passion of Christ there in 1833, to give thanks for divine protection during a cholera epidemic - a ritual which now draws as many as a million spectators every year.
The site will not be fully explored because it is now considered a religious centre in its own right, said Mr Sanchez of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
"Both the pre-Hispanic structure and the Holy Week rituals are part of our cultural legacy, so we have to look for a way to protect both cultural values."
P/S:seem that ancient human are very clever...
The site will not be fully explored because of its religious significance
The pyramid is said to be 1,500 years old and was built by the same ancient people who constructed the Teotihuacan complex, known as the City of the Gods.
Parts of the structure have been badly damaged as the hill has been used for decades to stage re-enactments of the crucifixion of Christ during Holy Week.
The religious celebration is attended by as many as one million devotees.
Measuring 150m (492 feet) on each of its four sides, the 18-metre (59-foot) tall pyramid was carved out on a natural hillside around 500 AD.
It was abandoned in about 800 AD, when the Teotihuacan culture collapsed for unknown reasons.
Cultural legacy
"When they first saw us digging there, the local people just couldn't believe there was a pyramid," archaeologist Jesus Sanchez said, who has been exploring the site since 2004.
The same ancient people are believed to have built Teotihuacan
It was only when the slopes and shapes of the pyramid, the floors with altars were found, that they finally believed us. The majority of the people now feel happy and proud, and have helped out a lot in protecting the relics," he added.
Iztapalapa hillside, known as Hill of the Star, overlooks one of Mexico City's poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods.
Local people began re-enacting the Passion of Christ there in 1833, to give thanks for divine protection during a cholera epidemic - a ritual which now draws as many as a million spectators every year.
The site will not be fully explored because it is now considered a religious centre in its own right, said Mr Sanchez of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
"Both the pre-Hispanic structure and the Holy Week rituals are part of our cultural legacy, so we have to look for a way to protect both cultural values."
P/S:seem that ancient human are very clever...
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Ancient Sea Monster Remains Found in Argentina
Argentine scientists have discovered the remains of a fierce sea monster that terrorized Pacific waters in the age of the dinosaurs. The researchers are calling it Godzilla after the legendary movie monster, but it really was an ancestor of modern crocodiles.
What has a head like a meat eating dinosaur and a tail like a fish? An ancient sea reptile called a dakosaur.
Millions of years ago when dinosaurs ruled the land, these early crocodiles dominated the oceans, but they never seem to have caught the public's imagination as dinosaurs have.
Perhaps this will change with the discovery of a 135- million-year-old dakosaur skull and two lower jaws in the Patagonia desert of southern Argentina. The researchers who describe it in the journal Science call it Dakosaurus andiniensis, the Andean Dakosaur, to contrast it to those that swam in other parts of the world at the time. What a contrast it is.
"At first glance, it was evident that Dakosaurus andiniensis was truly unique among marine crocodiles," said Diego Pol, an expert on ancient animals at the Ohio State University.
He took part in the research and says the creature was distinct from its crocodile cousins of the Jurassic era because it had a tall, short head shaped like a bullet and large, powerful, serrated teeth that seem to belong in a dinosaur's mouth.
These features indicate that it was a predator capable of gobbling reptiles and other large sea life, filling a niche eventually taken over by large sharks. In contrast, other dakosaurs and their modern crocodile descendants have long, thin snouts and many thin teeth suitable for feeding on smaller, more agile prey such as fish.
"We find these results extremely interesting because they indicate that the diversity of crocodiles back in the Jurassic was much greater than expected," he added.
Based on the size of the skull, Mr. Pol and his colleagues from the National University of La Plata, Argentina estimate that the creature was four meters long. They infer its body shape based on a computer program that analyzed the fossils and found that they most resemble the early crocodile branch that had flippers and a fish-like tail instead of four feet and a tail like modern crocodiles.
"This analysis revealed that the anatomical changes along the evolution of the Dakosaurus lineage were clearly the most drastic evolutionary change in the history of marine crocodiles. This places the 135-million-year-old Dakosaurus andiniensis not only as one of the most recent members of this family, but also as the most bizarre marine crocodile known today," he explained.
The National Geographic Society in Washington, which sponsored the research, says dakosaurs were only one of the monsters that cavorted in the world's oceans between 250 million and 65 million years ago. Back then shallow seas and a lack of significant marine predators created new opportunities for many reptiles that had first developed on land. They included such beasts as giant ichthyosaurs that might have reached 25 meters in length and plesiosaurs with seven-meter-long necks reminiscent of the fabled Loch Ness monster in Scotland.
Diego Pol says that all dakosaurs became extinct by the end of the Cretaceous era 65 million years ago, leaving us with only a fraction of the crocodile diversity of that long ago time.
"This pattern of extinctions is what we see in the fossil record of all species. It is fairly common to see that a species or family has its own moment where it diversifies and later goes extinct. The most famous case of this is the large dinosaurs that disappeared by the end of the Cretaceous," he said.
You might call these ferocious meat-eating dakosaurs, the dinosaurs of the sea, animals that shared the world at the same time.
Although they are no longer around, their smaller crocodile descendants, who split their time between land and water, are no friendlier and might just as well be avoided.
P/S:sometimes i think about why humans so dreaming about monsters..i believed that the monsters will only be threat to human being..
What has a head like a meat eating dinosaur and a tail like a fish? An ancient sea reptile called a dakosaur.
Millions of years ago when dinosaurs ruled the land, these early crocodiles dominated the oceans, but they never seem to have caught the public's imagination as dinosaurs have.
Perhaps this will change with the discovery of a 135- million-year-old dakosaur skull and two lower jaws in the Patagonia desert of southern Argentina. The researchers who describe it in the journal Science call it Dakosaurus andiniensis, the Andean Dakosaur, to contrast it to those that swam in other parts of the world at the time. What a contrast it is.
"At first glance, it was evident that Dakosaurus andiniensis was truly unique among marine crocodiles," said Diego Pol, an expert on ancient animals at the Ohio State University.
He took part in the research and says the creature was distinct from its crocodile cousins of the Jurassic era because it had a tall, short head shaped like a bullet and large, powerful, serrated teeth that seem to belong in a dinosaur's mouth.
These features indicate that it was a predator capable of gobbling reptiles and other large sea life, filling a niche eventually taken over by large sharks. In contrast, other dakosaurs and their modern crocodile descendants have long, thin snouts and many thin teeth suitable for feeding on smaller, more agile prey such as fish.
"We find these results extremely interesting because they indicate that the diversity of crocodiles back in the Jurassic was much greater than expected," he added.
Based on the size of the skull, Mr. Pol and his colleagues from the National University of La Plata, Argentina estimate that the creature was four meters long. They infer its body shape based on a computer program that analyzed the fossils and found that they most resemble the early crocodile branch that had flippers and a fish-like tail instead of four feet and a tail like modern crocodiles.
"This analysis revealed that the anatomical changes along the evolution of the Dakosaurus lineage were clearly the most drastic evolutionary change in the history of marine crocodiles. This places the 135-million-year-old Dakosaurus andiniensis not only as one of the most recent members of this family, but also as the most bizarre marine crocodile known today," he explained.
The National Geographic Society in Washington, which sponsored the research, says dakosaurs were only one of the monsters that cavorted in the world's oceans between 250 million and 65 million years ago. Back then shallow seas and a lack of significant marine predators created new opportunities for many reptiles that had first developed on land. They included such beasts as giant ichthyosaurs that might have reached 25 meters in length and plesiosaurs with seven-meter-long necks reminiscent of the fabled Loch Ness monster in Scotland.
Diego Pol says that all dakosaurs became extinct by the end of the Cretaceous era 65 million years ago, leaving us with only a fraction of the crocodile diversity of that long ago time.
"This pattern of extinctions is what we see in the fossil record of all species. It is fairly common to see that a species or family has its own moment where it diversifies and later goes extinct. The most famous case of this is the large dinosaurs that disappeared by the end of the Cretaceous," he said.
You might call these ferocious meat-eating dakosaurs, the dinosaurs of the sea, animals that shared the world at the same time.
Although they are no longer around, their smaller crocodile descendants, who split their time between land and water, are no friendlier and might just as well be avoided.
P/S:sometimes i think about why humans so dreaming about monsters..i believed that the monsters will only be threat to human being..
Dire Wolf
The Dire Wolf was a powerful creature, but now he is extinct. The Dire Wolf lived during the last Ice Age and it ranged all throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Dire Wolf became extinct over 10,000 years ago. Over 3,600 Dire Wolves have been recovered from Rancho La Brea. That's more than any other species of mammal that has been recovered from Rancho La Brea. The large number of Dire Wolves found at Rancho La Brea implies that, like the Saber-Toothed Cat, they may have hunted in packs. Since they hunted in packs, more than just one wolf got caught in the tar pits. the Dire Wolf was a close relative to the Timber Wolf, which has also been recovered from Rancho La Brea. The only difference between the Dire Wolf and the Timber Wolf is the size of their teeth and the Dire Wolf is a little bit smaller than the Timber Wolf. The Dire Wolf had slightly larger teeth than the Timber Wolf. These dental differences suggest that the Dire Wolf could crush bones more efficiently. Modern Timber Wolves are often kicked or stepped on while chasing and capturing such large animals such as moose. The fossils of Dire Wolves sometimes show similar types of injuries. These Dire Wolves may have been injured while hunting either some extinct horses or bison. Another name for the Dire Wolf is Canis Dirus. The case you see above contains more than 400 Dire Wolf skulls. WOW!! That's a lot! Carnivores have been uncovered way more than the omnivores which puts the Dire Wolf in there. The Dire Wolf has more bones that have been uncovered than any other animal found.
P/S:the size of a Dire Wolf actually is about 2 times of a normal adult..
P/S:the size of a Dire Wolf actually is about 2 times of a normal adult..
Okapis rediscovered
Thought extinct for 47 years in the Congo’s Virunga National Park, the okapis have been rediscovered!
Okapis are important in the history of romantic natural history. The animal was used to symbolize the International Society of Cryptozoology (1982-1995), and was the centerpiece of the organization’s logo.
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni) is a beautiful animal, a true “living fossil”. I have observed them in St. Louis, Chicago, San Diego, and every zoo I can find that has any. Last weekend, I was able to observe for several minutes over the space of three hours, the 21-year-old male, born in the San Diego Zoo, and now in captivity at the San Antonio Zoo. Zookeepers Charlene and Ramone were kind enough to discuss the specimen with me, and Ramone even engaged (via petting and feeding) and coaxed the animal to be a little less shy about starting its morning routine, before I left for Maine. Unnecessary but appreciated.
For years in the 19th century, Europeans brushed aside tales from the native peoples of the Congo, the pygmies, about a creature said to look like a cross between a zebra and a giraffe. That would all change at the turn of the twentieth century. Sir Harry Johnston gained the trust of a band of Congolese pygmies when he rescued them from a German showman who was trying to abduct and show them at the 1900 Paris Exhibition.
Johnston then began hearing stories from them about the okapi, a mule-sized animal animal with zebra stripes. In 1901, Johnston secured and sent a whole skin, two skulls, and a detailed description of the okapi to London. First found in what is now the Virunga in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1901, the okapis were thought to have died out, nevertheless in recent years, in the very site of their discovery.
Now, on Friday, June 9, 2006, an announcement has been made that conclusive proof of the existence of okapis in the Congo’s Virunga National Park has been confirmed. This re-discovery of these animals is a remarkable story of survival, as they have not been found there since 1959. A recent survey of the area by conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) found 17 okapi tracks and other evidence of its presence. No sightings of the elusive animal were documented but its tracks were taken as “absolute proof of the creature’s recent activity in the park,” reported Reuters.
“The rediscovery of okapis in Virunga National Park is a positive sign,” said Marc Languy, of WWF’s Eastern Africa Regional Programme. “As the country is returning to peace, it shows that the protected areas in this troubled region are now havens for rare wildlife once more. Except for mountain gorillas, which have shown an increase in population due to important conservation efforts, most wildlife in the park (Virunga) have heavily suffered from poaching. The population of hippopotamus, for example, has dropped from 29,000 in the mid-1970s to less than 1,000 today,” Languy commented.
This is good news to hear about the okapis
P/S:i believed that those extinct animals not really extinct..maybe they just 'hidding' at somewhere that human cant find them out
Okapis are important in the history of romantic natural history. The animal was used to symbolize the International Society of Cryptozoology (1982-1995), and was the centerpiece of the organization’s logo.
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni) is a beautiful animal, a true “living fossil”. I have observed them in St. Louis, Chicago, San Diego, and every zoo I can find that has any. Last weekend, I was able to observe for several minutes over the space of three hours, the 21-year-old male, born in the San Diego Zoo, and now in captivity at the San Antonio Zoo. Zookeepers Charlene and Ramone were kind enough to discuss the specimen with me, and Ramone even engaged (via petting and feeding) and coaxed the animal to be a little less shy about starting its morning routine, before I left for Maine. Unnecessary but appreciated.
For years in the 19th century, Europeans brushed aside tales from the native peoples of the Congo, the pygmies, about a creature said to look like a cross between a zebra and a giraffe. That would all change at the turn of the twentieth century. Sir Harry Johnston gained the trust of a band of Congolese pygmies when he rescued them from a German showman who was trying to abduct and show them at the 1900 Paris Exhibition.
Johnston then began hearing stories from them about the okapi, a mule-sized animal animal with zebra stripes. In 1901, Johnston secured and sent a whole skin, two skulls, and a detailed description of the okapi to London. First found in what is now the Virunga in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1901, the okapis were thought to have died out, nevertheless in recent years, in the very site of their discovery.
Now, on Friday, June 9, 2006, an announcement has been made that conclusive proof of the existence of okapis in the Congo’s Virunga National Park has been confirmed. This re-discovery of these animals is a remarkable story of survival, as they have not been found there since 1959. A recent survey of the area by conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) found 17 okapi tracks and other evidence of its presence. No sightings of the elusive animal were documented but its tracks were taken as “absolute proof of the creature’s recent activity in the park,” reported Reuters.
“The rediscovery of okapis in Virunga National Park is a positive sign,” said Marc Languy, of WWF’s Eastern Africa Regional Programme. “As the country is returning to peace, it shows that the protected areas in this troubled region are now havens for rare wildlife once more. Except for mountain gorillas, which have shown an increase in population due to important conservation efforts, most wildlife in the park (Virunga) have heavily suffered from poaching. The population of hippopotamus, for example, has dropped from 29,000 in the mid-1970s to less than 1,000 today,” Languy commented.
This is good news to hear about the okapis
P/S:i believed that those extinct animals not really extinct..maybe they just 'hidding' at somewhere that human cant find them out
The Megalodon
Most people consider the most terrifying creature to reign on this planet to be the Great White shark. Its size and sheer ruthlessness can send chills down the spines of any man or beast. The Great White's ancestor, though, is supremely larger and was even more terrifying.
The shark, Carcharodon megalodon, was the greatest hunter the planet has ever seen. Due to the size of the fossilized teeth the creatures length can be found to be anywhere from sixty feet to two hundred feet. Most scientists agree on the sixty foot length; it all depends on where in the mouth the teeth where located. Since the megalodon's skeleton, like all sharks, was constructed of cartilage, it was easily decomposed in a matter of years. The only remains of the creatures are the gigantic teeth that are the size of a man's hand.
Many scientists believe the shark went extinct about two million years ago during the Pliocene epoch. Due to the changing earth climates and the evolution of prey, the Megalodon was thought to have become a creature that couldn't fend for itself. The beast lived in the warmer waters of the oceans and as the climates changed the waters eventually cooled.
There are theories, however, that the Carcharodon megalodon is still alive. Author Steve Alten, whose novels include Meg and The Trench, has pioneered the theory that the shark may still be alive. His theory has the creature slowly moving into the deeper descents of the ocean to find warmth. The shark's metabolism would slow down, and it would require less to eat, so the creature could thrive on the food sources in the deep trenches. Mr. Alten puts it best himself:
We know from fossilized teeth that Megalodon survived the extinction that killed off most of the marine animals 65 & 45 million years ago. In fact, we have teeth that showed Meg's may have been alive as near as 10,000 years ago. What eventually killed them off was the decrease in water temperatures, a result of the last ice age. However, the recent discover of hydrothermal vents (1977) and life forms at the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean leave the possibility that some Megalodon may have survived by inhabiting these deeper, unexplored waters.
There have been several sightings of gigantic sharks, which could be Megalodon's. The only problem for the Megalodon, and perhaps our hope, is that the several miles of frigid ocean water is keeping the shark trapped. If it were to try and reach the surface, the creature would be killed by the drastic change in temperature.
If the creature still does exist miles under the surface, we can only hope that it never escapes without man's help.
P/S:that's why i m so interested to marine biology..maybe one day i might found a new species of marine creature
The shark, Carcharodon megalodon, was the greatest hunter the planet has ever seen. Due to the size of the fossilized teeth the creatures length can be found to be anywhere from sixty feet to two hundred feet. Most scientists agree on the sixty foot length; it all depends on where in the mouth the teeth where located. Since the megalodon's skeleton, like all sharks, was constructed of cartilage, it was easily decomposed in a matter of years. The only remains of the creatures are the gigantic teeth that are the size of a man's hand.
Many scientists believe the shark went extinct about two million years ago during the Pliocene epoch. Due to the changing earth climates and the evolution of prey, the Megalodon was thought to have become a creature that couldn't fend for itself. The beast lived in the warmer waters of the oceans and as the climates changed the waters eventually cooled.
There are theories, however, that the Carcharodon megalodon is still alive. Author Steve Alten, whose novels include Meg and The Trench, has pioneered the theory that the shark may still be alive. His theory has the creature slowly moving into the deeper descents of the ocean to find warmth. The shark's metabolism would slow down, and it would require less to eat, so the creature could thrive on the food sources in the deep trenches. Mr. Alten puts it best himself:
We know from fossilized teeth that Megalodon survived the extinction that killed off most of the marine animals 65 & 45 million years ago. In fact, we have teeth that showed Meg's may have been alive as near as 10,000 years ago. What eventually killed them off was the decrease in water temperatures, a result of the last ice age. However, the recent discover of hydrothermal vents (1977) and life forms at the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean leave the possibility that some Megalodon may have survived by inhabiting these deeper, unexplored waters.
There have been several sightings of gigantic sharks, which could be Megalodon's. The only problem for the Megalodon, and perhaps our hope, is that the several miles of frigid ocean water is keeping the shark trapped. If it were to try and reach the surface, the creature would be killed by the drastic change in temperature.
If the creature still does exist miles under the surface, we can only hope that it never escapes without man's help.
P/S:that's why i m so interested to marine biology..maybe one day i might found a new species of marine creature
Storsjoodjuret
SWEDEN'S most famous lake monster, the Storsjoodjuret (the monster of Lake Storsjon) had a lot of coverage in the Swedish newspapers last summer following a video recording of the creature in July by Gun-Britt Widmark, 67, while boating on the lake off Ostersund with a party of pensioners. Whatever it was had humps and was 33 to 39 feet long.
Four people made a further sighting on July 22 from their verandah overlooking the lake. They watched a long, wave-like movement in the water, like the wash of a boat, though there was no boat in sight. Through binoculars they saw something rolling up and down in the water, breaking the surface every three seconds. It moved parallel with the Rodo bridge for a couple of minutes, then changed direction by 90 degrees, finally diving and disappearing under the bridge. One of them tried to capture the phenomenon on video, but it was too far away. Sten Rentzhog, director of the local Ostersund museum, has collected nearly 500 accounts of Storsjoodjuret sightings dating back to 1635. In recent years, most of these have coincided with the summer tourist season, leading sceptics to suspect a degree of public relations hype; but last July the paper Ostersunds Posten complained that the monster was poorly marketed compared with Nessie or some of the American lake monsters. There was no merchandise on sale apart from two postcards. Furthermore, the monster was seasonal long before there were any tourists, as can be seen from Dr Peter Olsson's study of 1899.
The folkloric explanation is that the lake monsters of this part of Sweden are seasonal because they migrate from the Gulf of Bothnia, where they spend the winter months, and it was said that sometimes in summer they were observed on land moving between the various lakes. Incidentally, Dr Olsson wondered if the monster might be an unknown species of giant seal, but readily admitted that seals should have been more noticeable in the winter, and noted the lack of breathing holes in the lake's ice.
In 1986, after 22 years of sporadic debate, the county administration of Jamtland (the district which encompasses the lake) declared that anyone trying to capture or kill the Storsjon monster could be prosecuted. The ruling had taken such a long time because lawyers required an "official" Linnaean name for the animal and naturally the zoological establishment would not acknowledge that the creature existed.
No one could decide if the matter should be dealt with under the Game Act or the Fishery Regulation Act. Scandinavian sophistry overcame the conundrum by invoking the Nature Conservation Act, prohibiting any threat to the unknown creature "while awaiting a determination of its species". This was prudent, as descriptions of the monster have changed over the years.
In the 19th century, nearly all the witnesses described a "waterhorse", its head surrounded by a long white mane floating in the water. Contemporary witnesses don't seem to notice its horse-like head and mane. My Swedish correspondent dryly describes the beast as a "camouflageon" - a hitherto unknown species of highly developed amphibian chameleon.
Olle Mattsson, an antiquarian at the Ostersund museum, has spent the last two years examining the museum's archives for historical observations of the monster, to which he has added many interviews with modern witnesses. His version of the "typical" monster is 10 to 16 feet long, 12 to 16 inches wide, dark grey or black with a small head. "All evidence indicates that there is a population [of the monsters]," he said. "They probably move together in a pack."
Although the local papers report two or three sightings every summer, Mr Mattsson believes that most witnesses keep quiet out of fear of ridicule - which seems rather odd, considering the large number of witnesses who have come forward. This is probably a modern gloss on the old taboo against mentioning encounters with the dangerous or unknown, especially to strangers.
P/S:i believed that monster fever affected the whole world..
Four people made a further sighting on July 22 from their verandah overlooking the lake. They watched a long, wave-like movement in the water, like the wash of a boat, though there was no boat in sight. Through binoculars they saw something rolling up and down in the water, breaking the surface every three seconds. It moved parallel with the Rodo bridge for a couple of minutes, then changed direction by 90 degrees, finally diving and disappearing under the bridge. One of them tried to capture the phenomenon on video, but it was too far away. Sten Rentzhog, director of the local Ostersund museum, has collected nearly 500 accounts of Storsjoodjuret sightings dating back to 1635. In recent years, most of these have coincided with the summer tourist season, leading sceptics to suspect a degree of public relations hype; but last July the paper Ostersunds Posten complained that the monster was poorly marketed compared with Nessie or some of the American lake monsters. There was no merchandise on sale apart from two postcards. Furthermore, the monster was seasonal long before there were any tourists, as can be seen from Dr Peter Olsson's study of 1899.
The folkloric explanation is that the lake monsters of this part of Sweden are seasonal because they migrate from the Gulf of Bothnia, where they spend the winter months, and it was said that sometimes in summer they were observed on land moving between the various lakes. Incidentally, Dr Olsson wondered if the monster might be an unknown species of giant seal, but readily admitted that seals should have been more noticeable in the winter, and noted the lack of breathing holes in the lake's ice.
In 1986, after 22 years of sporadic debate, the county administration of Jamtland (the district which encompasses the lake) declared that anyone trying to capture or kill the Storsjon monster could be prosecuted. The ruling had taken such a long time because lawyers required an "official" Linnaean name for the animal and naturally the zoological establishment would not acknowledge that the creature existed.
No one could decide if the matter should be dealt with under the Game Act or the Fishery Regulation Act. Scandinavian sophistry overcame the conundrum by invoking the Nature Conservation Act, prohibiting any threat to the unknown creature "while awaiting a determination of its species". This was prudent, as descriptions of the monster have changed over the years.
In the 19th century, nearly all the witnesses described a "waterhorse", its head surrounded by a long white mane floating in the water. Contemporary witnesses don't seem to notice its horse-like head and mane. My Swedish correspondent dryly describes the beast as a "camouflageon" - a hitherto unknown species of highly developed amphibian chameleon.
Olle Mattsson, an antiquarian at the Ostersund museum, has spent the last two years examining the museum's archives for historical observations of the monster, to which he has added many interviews with modern witnesses. His version of the "typical" monster is 10 to 16 feet long, 12 to 16 inches wide, dark grey or black with a small head. "All evidence indicates that there is a population [of the monsters]," he said. "They probably move together in a pack."
Although the local papers report two or three sightings every summer, Mr Mattsson believes that most witnesses keep quiet out of fear of ridicule - which seems rather odd, considering the large number of witnesses who have come forward. This is probably a modern gloss on the old taboo against mentioning encounters with the dangerous or unknown, especially to strangers.
P/S:i believed that monster fever affected the whole world..
Monsters of the Antarctic
In 1996, a meteorite found in Antarctica made headlines upon the announcement that fossilized microbes from Mars had fallen to Earth. Now further research from the desolate South Pole continent is providing more news of a fantastic nature, doing for the field of cryptozoology what it did for ufologists before. Scientists studying icebergs on the Antarctic seabed have discovered a variety of never-before-seen species of such immense size and peculiarity that they could rightly be called monsters.
Dr. Lloyd Peck, head of Nearshore Marine Biology for the British Antarctic Survey, announced that the frigid polar environment has brought about a sort of "gigantism" among a number of diverse marine life forms. There are Antarctic sea spiders measuring up to 13 inches across, which is a thousand times the size of the common European sea spider. Isopods, aquatic insects comparable to wood lice that normally grow to a length of 1.2 inches in warmer seas, have been found as long as 6.7 inches. Other giant creatures include 10-foot sponges and ribbon worms over nine feet long.
Peck explained that two primary conditions of the Antarctic are responsible for the evolution of these monsters: cold and isolation. The freezing temperatures cause marine life to have extremely low metabolic rates, which enables them to live longer and grow much larger than their relatives in more temperate oceans. The isolated and foreboding habitats of these species also help them to thrive, keeping them relatively free of encroaching predators -- and human beings.
Icebergs are a vital element in the shaping of the creatures' habitat, and a topic of special interest to Peck. Measuring acres across, giant icebergs routinely crash into the Antarctic seabed, laying waste to vast colonies of marine life like a naturally occurring nuclear blast.
"An iceberg obliterates everything short of bacteria, leaving a pristine environment," Peck said. While obviously detrimental to the organisms caught in its path, an iceberg's "cleansing" leaves behind a virginal habitat in which other species may then successfully propagate. The combination of these environmental factors has led Antarctica to spawn a hitherto unknown diversity of marine life which Peck says might compare to the exotic species of tropical seas.
P/S:maybe because of isolated condition..that's why those creatures evolved into monsters?
Dr. Lloyd Peck, head of Nearshore Marine Biology for the British Antarctic Survey, announced that the frigid polar environment has brought about a sort of "gigantism" among a number of diverse marine life forms. There are Antarctic sea spiders measuring up to 13 inches across, which is a thousand times the size of the common European sea spider. Isopods, aquatic insects comparable to wood lice that normally grow to a length of 1.2 inches in warmer seas, have been found as long as 6.7 inches. Other giant creatures include 10-foot sponges and ribbon worms over nine feet long.
Peck explained that two primary conditions of the Antarctic are responsible for the evolution of these monsters: cold and isolation. The freezing temperatures cause marine life to have extremely low metabolic rates, which enables them to live longer and grow much larger than their relatives in more temperate oceans. The isolated and foreboding habitats of these species also help them to thrive, keeping them relatively free of encroaching predators -- and human beings.
Icebergs are a vital element in the shaping of the creatures' habitat, and a topic of special interest to Peck. Measuring acres across, giant icebergs routinely crash into the Antarctic seabed, laying waste to vast colonies of marine life like a naturally occurring nuclear blast.
"An iceberg obliterates everything short of bacteria, leaving a pristine environment," Peck said. While obviously detrimental to the organisms caught in its path, an iceberg's "cleansing" leaves behind a virginal habitat in which other species may then successfully propagate. The combination of these environmental factors has led Antarctica to spawn a hitherto unknown diversity of marine life which Peck says might compare to the exotic species of tropical seas.
P/S:maybe because of isolated condition..that's why those creatures evolved into monsters?
Giant Anacondas
The Anaconda has long since been known in scientific circles as Eunectes murinus. The longest specimen that has been reliably recorded is twenty-four feet. For some time, this snake was thought to be thirty-seven and half feet long, but later investigations showed the snake had been stretched accidentally. The creature, which had been killed by Robert Lamon, was located in eastern Colombia in 1944.
Natives of the Amazon know of a creature, called Sucuriju gigante, so well that they can name each of the animals specifically. The snakes are known to grow up to at least sixty two feet in length and some reports have them growing up to one hundred fifteen feet!
Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett was exploring the Rio Abunã, near the intersection of the Rio Negro in southern Brazil, when the head of a Giant Anaconda surfaced next to his canoe. Several feet of the creatures back also came to break the muddy water as it moved towards the riverbank. Without hesitation, Fawcett shot and killed the creature with his pistol. After paddling to the shore, he found the creature to be "a length of forty five feet out of the water and seventeen feet in it making a total of length of sixty two feet." The explorer also told of another species of snake, nicknamed the "Sleeper", which is said to be black and much larger.
Perhaps the most amazing report comes from Fort Tabatinga, on the River Oiapoc in the Guaporé territory. In 1948, the Rio de Janerio newspaper told of a snake that came ashore and measured one hundred fifteen feet in length. Soldiers fired at least five hundred machine gun bullets into the beast before it finally died. After the body was measured and photographed the carcass was pushed into the river to avoid the horrendous stench that would be caused by decomposition.
Although the creatures seem too large to live, due to their length and girth, some speculate it could be possible for the snakes to exist. If they remained in the river water the buoyancy could sustain the creature's life and counteract the effects of gravity.
Some reports give the snake's gargantuan size- but it must be noted that snakeskins are very easy to stretch. It would be impossible, however, for someone to stretch a skin if the snake is still wearing it.
P/S:i think u heard before the movies about giant anacondas..right?
Natives of the Amazon know of a creature, called Sucuriju gigante, so well that they can name each of the animals specifically. The snakes are known to grow up to at least sixty two feet in length and some reports have them growing up to one hundred fifteen feet!
Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett was exploring the Rio Abunã, near the intersection of the Rio Negro in southern Brazil, when the head of a Giant Anaconda surfaced next to his canoe. Several feet of the creatures back also came to break the muddy water as it moved towards the riverbank. Without hesitation, Fawcett shot and killed the creature with his pistol. After paddling to the shore, he found the creature to be "a length of forty five feet out of the water and seventeen feet in it making a total of length of sixty two feet." The explorer also told of another species of snake, nicknamed the "Sleeper", which is said to be black and much larger.
Perhaps the most amazing report comes from Fort Tabatinga, on the River Oiapoc in the Guaporé territory. In 1948, the Rio de Janerio newspaper told of a snake that came ashore and measured one hundred fifteen feet in length. Soldiers fired at least five hundred machine gun bullets into the beast before it finally died. After the body was measured and photographed the carcass was pushed into the river to avoid the horrendous stench that would be caused by decomposition.
Although the creatures seem too large to live, due to their length and girth, some speculate it could be possible for the snakes to exist. If they remained in the river water the buoyancy could sustain the creature's life and counteract the effects of gravity.
Some reports give the snake's gargantuan size- but it must be noted that snakeskins are very easy to stretch. It would be impossible, however, for someone to stretch a skin if the snake is still wearing it.
P/S:i think u heard before the movies about giant anacondas..right?
Minhocão
One of the most extraordinary mystery beasts of the world is the Minhocão. Relatively unknown to the rest of the world, the Minhocão has been reported from the forests of South America since the 19th century. The Minhocão is commonly described as a giant worm-like animal up to 75 feet long, with black scaly skin and two tentacle-like structures protruding from its head. Known best as being a burrowing animal, the Minhocão is commonly blamed for houses and roads collapsing into the earth. It is also said to frequently visit the local lakes and rivers of the areas in which it's reported.
The first published reference to the Minhocão appeared in the American Journal of Science in an article written by Auguste de Saint-Hilaire. In the article Saint-Hilaire stated several instances where a Minhocão was seen near fords of rivers. Some of these reports had a Minhocão snatching livestock and dragging them underwater! All of instances he reported took place in the Brazilian province of Goyaz. Saint-Hilaire also stated his belief that the name Minhocão is derived from the Portuguese word meaning earthworm, minhoca.
Publications regarding the Minhocão ceased until 1877, when zoologist Fritz Müller wrote an article on the beast for a German publication Zoologische Garten. Müller's article included new information on the Minhocão, including reports of huge mysterious trenches that were so big they'd divert rivers and destroy orchards. Unlike Saint-Hilaire's article, Müller's included actual sightings of the Minhocão. The following is of one of these sightings, which took place in the Paranà State in the 1840s:
A black woman going to draw water from a pool near a house one morning ... saw a short distance off an animal which she described as being as large as a house moving off along the ground. ... In the same district a young man saw a huge pine suddenly overturned ... he found the surrounding earth in movement, and an enormous worm-like black animal in the middle of it, about twenty-five meters long, and with two horns on its head.
Müller also mentioned a story told by Lebino José dos Santos who had heard tales of a dead Minhocão being found near Arapehy, Uruguay. According to the tale the creature was found lodged between two rocks, the reputed skin was said to be "as thick as the bark of a pine-tree" and armored with "scales like those of an armadillo". A sighting of a live Minhocão near Lages, Brazil in 1870 by Francisco de Amaral Varella, he said he:
... saw lying on the bank of the Rio das Caveiras a strange animal of gigantic size, nearly one meter in thickness, not very long, and with a snout like a pig, but whether it had legs or not he could not tell. ... whilst calling his neighbors to his assistance, it vanished, not without leaving palpable marks behind it in the shape of a trench ...
With the end of the 19th century also came the end of Minhocão sightings. There are still large mysterious trenches from time to time, but no actual sightings. Some researchers believe that the Minhocão, sadly, went extinct, while others think it is more likely that Minhocãos are still seen, but are thought to be giant anacondas and end up being reported as giant anacondas. There is still the question of what the Minhocãos could possibly be. Some researchers take into account that it is said to be a giant earthworm. There are giant earthworms, but these species don't grow over 12 feet and are only native to Australia. Also despite their large sizes, these giant earthworms are only about an inch thick. Another fact that may debunk the giant earthworm theory is that earthworms are not predators like some reports state the Minhocão may be.
Some researchers say that the Minhocão are surviving glyptodont, a large armadillo-like animal believed to have gone extinct in the Pleistocene. Researchers say that the glyptodont would be capable of digging the mysterious trenches and burrowing underground, it also had and armored shell over it's back. What is normally not mentioned about the glyptodont is that it was not a borrowing animal and it was probably not capable of doing so. There is also the fact that they do not fit any descriptions of the Minhocão.
Yet another theory goes on to say that the Minhocão is a lepidosiren (serpentine South American lungfish). If a lepidosiren were to grow to a large enough size it could explain the sightings of Minhocão near waterways. The large trenches could also be caused by a lepidosiren when it unburrows itself from the ground and returns to the rivers. One of the most likely theories of the Minhocão's identity was proposed by cryptozoologist Karl Shuker. He believes that the Minhocão may be a form of caecilian, a worm-like burrowing amphibian. Caecilians are native to South America and some fit the description and lifestyle of Minhocão perfectly, only in a smaller form. The largest of the caecilians only gets up to 5 feet. If one species does grow to enormous lengths then the Minhocão mystery would be solved.
The true identity of the Minhocão will remain hidden until one can be caught or good footage of it can be obtained. However it seems unlike that we will ever know the truth. Without a sighting of an actual animal in over a 130 years it may be extinct by now. Hopefully this is not the case and some day soon a living Minhocão will be discovered in the rainforests of South America.
P/S:i think i watched the movie about this creature before..
The first published reference to the Minhocão appeared in the American Journal of Science in an article written by Auguste de Saint-Hilaire. In the article Saint-Hilaire stated several instances where a Minhocão was seen near fords of rivers. Some of these reports had a Minhocão snatching livestock and dragging them underwater! All of instances he reported took place in the Brazilian province of Goyaz. Saint-Hilaire also stated his belief that the name Minhocão is derived from the Portuguese word meaning earthworm, minhoca.
Publications regarding the Minhocão ceased until 1877, when zoologist Fritz Müller wrote an article on the beast for a German publication Zoologische Garten. Müller's article included new information on the Minhocão, including reports of huge mysterious trenches that were so big they'd divert rivers and destroy orchards. Unlike Saint-Hilaire's article, Müller's included actual sightings of the Minhocão. The following is of one of these sightings, which took place in the Paranà State in the 1840s:
A black woman going to draw water from a pool near a house one morning ... saw a short distance off an animal which she described as being as large as a house moving off along the ground. ... In the same district a young man saw a huge pine suddenly overturned ... he found the surrounding earth in movement, and an enormous worm-like black animal in the middle of it, about twenty-five meters long, and with two horns on its head.
Müller also mentioned a story told by Lebino José dos Santos who had heard tales of a dead Minhocão being found near Arapehy, Uruguay. According to the tale the creature was found lodged between two rocks, the reputed skin was said to be "as thick as the bark of a pine-tree" and armored with "scales like those of an armadillo". A sighting of a live Minhocão near Lages, Brazil in 1870 by Francisco de Amaral Varella, he said he:
... saw lying on the bank of the Rio das Caveiras a strange animal of gigantic size, nearly one meter in thickness, not very long, and with a snout like a pig, but whether it had legs or not he could not tell. ... whilst calling his neighbors to his assistance, it vanished, not without leaving palpable marks behind it in the shape of a trench ...
With the end of the 19th century also came the end of Minhocão sightings. There are still large mysterious trenches from time to time, but no actual sightings. Some researchers believe that the Minhocão, sadly, went extinct, while others think it is more likely that Minhocãos are still seen, but are thought to be giant anacondas and end up being reported as giant anacondas. There is still the question of what the Minhocãos could possibly be. Some researchers take into account that it is said to be a giant earthworm. There are giant earthworms, but these species don't grow over 12 feet and are only native to Australia. Also despite their large sizes, these giant earthworms are only about an inch thick. Another fact that may debunk the giant earthworm theory is that earthworms are not predators like some reports state the Minhocão may be.
Some researchers say that the Minhocão are surviving glyptodont, a large armadillo-like animal believed to have gone extinct in the Pleistocene. Researchers say that the glyptodont would be capable of digging the mysterious trenches and burrowing underground, it also had and armored shell over it's back. What is normally not mentioned about the glyptodont is that it was not a borrowing animal and it was probably not capable of doing so. There is also the fact that they do not fit any descriptions of the Minhocão.
Yet another theory goes on to say that the Minhocão is a lepidosiren (serpentine South American lungfish). If a lepidosiren were to grow to a large enough size it could explain the sightings of Minhocão near waterways. The large trenches could also be caused by a lepidosiren when it unburrows itself from the ground and returns to the rivers. One of the most likely theories of the Minhocão's identity was proposed by cryptozoologist Karl Shuker. He believes that the Minhocão may be a form of caecilian, a worm-like burrowing amphibian. Caecilians are native to South America and some fit the description and lifestyle of Minhocão perfectly, only in a smaller form. The largest of the caecilians only gets up to 5 feet. If one species does grow to enormous lengths then the Minhocão mystery would be solved.
The true identity of the Minhocão will remain hidden until one can be caught or good footage of it can be obtained. However it seems unlike that we will ever know the truth. Without a sighting of an actual animal in over a 130 years it may be extinct by now. Hopefully this is not the case and some day soon a living Minhocão will be discovered in the rainforests of South America.
P/S:i think i watched the movie about this creature before..
The Moca vampire
Coinciding with the overwhelming number of cattle mutilations occurring in the United States and in the rest of the world at that time, Puerto Ricans discovered that their livestock was being slain by a mysterious, unseen assailant. They would have been even more distressed to learn that the same situation would replay itself twenty years later, courtesy of the ubiquitous Chupacabras.
In February 1975, a Puerto Rican newspaper ran one of the very first headlines concerning the wave of mysterious animal deaths to occur in the vicinity of the small town of Moca, on the island’s western side.
The entity, dubbed “The Moca Vampire” by the press, kicked off its killing spree in Barrio Rocha, a sector of the town of Moca, where it took the lives of a number of animals in a grisly manner never seen before. Fifteen cows, three goats, two geese and a pig were found dead with bizarre perforations on their hides, suggesting that a sharp instrument had been inserted into the hapless bovines. Autopsies showed that the animals had been thoroughly relieved of blood, as if consumed by some predator.
On March 7, 1975, a cow belonging to Rey Jiménez was found dead in Moca’s Barrio Cruz, presenting deep, piercing wounds on its skull and a number of scratches around the wounds on its body. Jiménez’s cow was added to the growing list of victims, which now totaled well over thirty.
As the number of victims grew, the Moca Vampire acquired an identity of its own, much in the same way that the Chupacabras would twenty years later. Speculation as to its nature was rife: many believed it was a supernatural “bird”, like the one seen by María Acevedo, a Moca resident who noticed that a strange animal had landed on her home’s zinc rooftop in the middle of the night. According to Acevedo’s testimony, the bird pecked at the rusty rooftop and at the windows before taking flight, issuing a terrifying scream. Others more readily accepted any suggestion that it was a space alien, an occupant of the UFOs reported on an almost daily basis over Puerto Rico at the time. Some clung to the belief that a gigantic vampire bat had somehow made it from the mainland to the Caribbean, slaking its thirst on the local cattle. Only days later, farmer Cecilio Hernández notified authorities that the elusive Moca Vampire had slain thirty-four chickens on his property at some point during the night. The supernatural entity was by now responsible for ninety animal deaths in a two week period.
A faint ray of hope—soon to be dissipated by harsh reality—appeared during this critical moment in the crisis: another farmer, Luis Torres, became the man of the hour after slaying two enormous snakes (Puerto Rican boas) measuring an unheard-of length of six feet. Torres had captured the snakes as they stood ready to attack a 600-pound heifer. The media hailed this act of heroism as the “solution to the mutilation riddle”; citizens could finally issue a collective sigh of relief.
However, the Moca Vampire had its own agenda. On March 18, 1975, two goats belonging to Hector Vega, a resident of Moca’s Barrio Pueblo, were found drained of blood. Puncture marks on the goats’ necks were the unmistakable sign that the strange entity causing the deaths was still at large and hungrier than ever: it returned to Vega’s farm the following night to finish off ten more goats and wound another seven. The horrified farmer also discovered that ten additional goats had gone missing.
P/S:sounds creepy..dont u think so?
In February 1975, a Puerto Rican newspaper ran one of the very first headlines concerning the wave of mysterious animal deaths to occur in the vicinity of the small town of Moca, on the island’s western side.
The entity, dubbed “The Moca Vampire” by the press, kicked off its killing spree in Barrio Rocha, a sector of the town of Moca, where it took the lives of a number of animals in a grisly manner never seen before. Fifteen cows, three goats, two geese and a pig were found dead with bizarre perforations on their hides, suggesting that a sharp instrument had been inserted into the hapless bovines. Autopsies showed that the animals had been thoroughly relieved of blood, as if consumed by some predator.
On March 7, 1975, a cow belonging to Rey Jiménez was found dead in Moca’s Barrio Cruz, presenting deep, piercing wounds on its skull and a number of scratches around the wounds on its body. Jiménez’s cow was added to the growing list of victims, which now totaled well over thirty.
As the number of victims grew, the Moca Vampire acquired an identity of its own, much in the same way that the Chupacabras would twenty years later. Speculation as to its nature was rife: many believed it was a supernatural “bird”, like the one seen by María Acevedo, a Moca resident who noticed that a strange animal had landed on her home’s zinc rooftop in the middle of the night. According to Acevedo’s testimony, the bird pecked at the rusty rooftop and at the windows before taking flight, issuing a terrifying scream. Others more readily accepted any suggestion that it was a space alien, an occupant of the UFOs reported on an almost daily basis over Puerto Rico at the time. Some clung to the belief that a gigantic vampire bat had somehow made it from the mainland to the Caribbean, slaking its thirst on the local cattle. Only days later, farmer Cecilio Hernández notified authorities that the elusive Moca Vampire had slain thirty-four chickens on his property at some point during the night. The supernatural entity was by now responsible for ninety animal deaths in a two week period.
A faint ray of hope—soon to be dissipated by harsh reality—appeared during this critical moment in the crisis: another farmer, Luis Torres, became the man of the hour after slaying two enormous snakes (Puerto Rican boas) measuring an unheard-of length of six feet. Torres had captured the snakes as they stood ready to attack a 600-pound heifer. The media hailed this act of heroism as the “solution to the mutilation riddle”; citizens could finally issue a collective sigh of relief.
However, the Moca Vampire had its own agenda. On March 18, 1975, two goats belonging to Hector Vega, a resident of Moca’s Barrio Pueblo, were found drained of blood. Puncture marks on the goats’ necks were the unmistakable sign that the strange entity causing the deaths was still at large and hungrier than ever: it returned to Vega’s farm the following night to finish off ten more goats and wound another seven. The horrified farmer also discovered that ten additional goats had gone missing.
P/S:sounds creepy..dont u think so?
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