Dr KARL SHUKER

Zoologist, media consultant, and science writer, Dr Karl Shuker is also one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world. He is the author of such seminal works as Mystery Cats of the World (1989), The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century (1993; greatly expanded in 2012 as The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals), Dragons: A Natural History (1995), In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995), The Unexplained (1996), From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997), Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999), The Hidden Powers of Animals (2001), The Beasts That Hide From Man (2003), Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008), Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (2010), Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012), Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (2013), Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture (2013), The Menagerie of Marvels (2014), A Manifestation of Monsters (2015), Here's Nessie! (2016), and what is widely considered to be his cryptozoological magnum opus, Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors (2016) - plus, very excitingly, his first two long-awaited, much-requested ShukerNature blog books (2019, 2020).

Dr Karl Shuker's Official Website - http://www.karlshuker.com/index.htm

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Thursday 24 February 2011

NEVER TANGLE WITH A TYGOMELIA - OR TANGO WITH A TOKANDIA!

Tygomelia (Tim Morris)


Having taken many years to summon up enough courage to air in public this particular post's alliterative extravaganza of a title, I now have to justify it - so here goes!

For every Nessie, bigfoot, Beast of Exmoor, yeti, or Mongolian death worm, there is a veritable host of other, far less familiar mystery beasts on record - elusive creatures that have been all but forgotten even by the cryptozoological cognoscenti, let alone by mainstream scientists. Consequently, I am using this post to spotlight three of my particular favourites from this forgotten company of cryptids - a unique trio of weird but very wonderful examples that appear somehow to have slipped through the cracks between the paving stones of cryptozoological prominence, and have descended ignominiously into the dark realms of scientific obscurity.


TYGOMELIA – A GIRAFFE IN MOOSE’S ANTLERS?

One of the most incredible of putative crypto-crossbreeds made its media debut in an Ottawa Times newspaper article of 22 November 1870, after which it vanished from the headlines as swiftly as it had entered them:

"Sir John E. Packenham, an officer in the English army, who has been spending the last year in her Majesty's northern provinces, arrived at Fort Buford [in North Dakota] with an animal of rare beauty, and never before caught on this continent, nor has it been known till late years that the species existed in this country. It is of the same family as the giraffe, or camelopard, of Africa, and is known to naturalists as the tygomelia. They are known to inhabit the high table lands of Cashmere and Hindoo Kush, but are more frequently seen on the high peaks of the Himalaya Mountains. The animal was taken when quite young, and is thoroughly domesticated, and follows its keeper like a dog. It is only four months old, and ordinarily stands about five feet high, but is capable of raising its head two feet, which makes the animal seven feet when standing erect. It is of a dark brown mouse color, large projecting eyes, with slight indications of horns growing out. The wonderful animal was caught north of Lake Athabasca, on the water of the McKenzie's River. It has a craw similar to the pelican, by which means it can carry subsistence for several days. It was very fleet, being able to outfoot the fastest horse in the country. The black dapper spots on the rich brown color make it one of the most beautiful animals in existence, more beautiful than the leopard of the Chinese jungle. Sir John did not consider it safe to transport this pet by water down the Mississippi River, fearing the uncertain navigation and the great change of climate from the Manitoba to the sunny south. He has, therefore, wisely concluded to go by way of St. Paul, Minnesota. The commander of Fort Buford furnishes him with an escort for the trip. He will then proceed through Canada to Montreal, where he will ship his cargo to England. "

In reality, no such beast is known from India or North America (or, indeed, from anywhere else!). Moreover, the only plausible suggestion regarding its identity that has been offered to date (always assuming, of course, that the report was not a journalistic spoof) is one suggested by Edmonton-based cryptid investigator Kevin Stewart. Namely, that this ‘tygomelia’ was a young, freakishly-mottled moose Alces alces (such specimens have occasionally been documented in the wild). But with no images or further accounts of it known to exist, there is little likelihood that we shall ever know for sure.


The rose-horned, claw-footed cryptid of Fredericksburg (Tim Morris)



A ROSE-HORNED, CLAW-FOOTED ENIGMA

A comparably curious mystery beast was the snowy-furred, rose-horned, goat-like creature constantly seen in the company of a Comanche woman visiting the town of Fredericksburg, Texas, during the first half of the 19th Century. What made it much more intriguing, zoologically speaking, than any goat, however, was its size – no bigger than a cat – and, remarkably, the fact that its feet were clawed, not hoofed.

According to the Abbé Emanuel Domenech, a Texas missionary who documented this walking wonder in his book Missionary Adventures in Texas and Mexico (1858), an American officer, who had told him about the woman’s strange pet, had offered her 500 francs for it. However, she would not sell it to him or to others who had also offered riches, stating that she knew of a wood where these animals lived in abundance. She promised that if she ever returned she would catch some for them, but apparently she never did return.

As this odd little animal inexplicably combines the horns of an ungulate (hoofed) mammal with the claws of a non-ungulate, its identity is certainly mystifying. True, a few fossil ungulate forms with claws instead of hooves are known from the palaeontological record, including chalicotheres and certain notoungulates, but these all died out long ago – didn’t they?


TOKANDIA – A LOST GIANT FROM MADAGASCAR

Madagascar is unquestionably the kingdom of the lemurs, with approximately 100 species currently known and new ones still being discovered here on a regular basis. A mere millennium ago, however, there were even more – and some of them were quite enormous, far bigger than any species known to exist today. Officially, these mega-lemurs are long extinct, but native Malagasy folklore and superstition include accounts of various monsters that bear more than a passing resemblance to certain of these ‘lost’ giants. A case in point is the tokandia.

According to local legends, this supposedly mythical, largely terrestrial beast was as big as a bear, and moved on the ground via a dancing series of bounding leaps, but would also on occasion jump into the trees and spend time there. Although not man-like in form, it was said to utter very man-like cries. Is it just a coincidence that the only known fossil creature recorded anywhere in the world that closely resembles the tokandia’s description both in form and in predicted behaviour just so happens to be the koala lemur Megaladapis edwardsi - a huge semi-terrestrial Madagascan species weighing around 75 kg, and known to have still existed here as recently as 1500 AD? Perhaps a few reclusive individuals survived even later, inspiring the legends of the tangoing tokandia.



A 19th-Century engraving of Megaladapis - identity of the tokandia?

5 comments:

  1. Very interesting creatures. I wish we had more evidence, fossils, etc.

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  2. The Indian Tygomelia seems to be a late surviving Sivathere while the American one some sort of Antilocaprid. I believe a young Sivathere may have really looked like a Pronghorn-like animal, hence the wrong connection made between those two cryptids. I would like to add both Antilocaprid and Sivathere are closely related to Giraffes.

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  3. The first two creatures seem suspiciously like a hoax. The last one I recall you mentioned in the article on Malagasy living giant lemurs, like the tratratratra. Unfortunately, the tokandia is probably on the verge of extinction. It seems a shame that in this fascinating article, the only creature that happens to exist may be one of the rarest cryptids on the planet. But otherwise, good work on this page. A very good article as all your articles are.

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  4. The little rose-horned creature has always fascinated me. I thought I'd have a little look for uninhabited places not too far from Fredericksburg. 150-200 miles SW of the town lies a sparsely populated area in the Mexican state of Coahiula. It looks to be the south side of a mountain and its foothills. The area is all ridges and valleys, quite green, and several rivers flow from it. On a map of Comanche territory c. 1840, it's just outside Comancheria but well within the area labelled Comanche Raiding Zone. A little further SW (but still within the raiding zone) are seemingly taller ridges, sparsely populated on their peaks, green especially on the NE side.

    On Google Maps, the names El Durazno, El Granizl, and Burroel appear near the center of the first-mentioned region, but there doesn't seem to be any habitation associated with them. In satelite view, I can't see so much as a farmhouse.
    map link

    Some aspersions have been cast on the accuracy of the Comanche territor map I used, (link,) but it seems close enough. The Comanche were expanding southward in the first half of the 19th century, and if I understand right, it looks like they raided to the southeast in preference to fighting the heavily defended white settlers.

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  5. This little, white, horned animal remotely reminds me of the Ceratogaulus, an unique horned rodent that lived in Nebrasca and Kansas in miocene and early pliocene, cca 5,3 milion years ago. Perhaps it could be an unknown, mara-like relative of Ceratogaulus, better adapted to running than to burrowing? Is possible, that Ceratogaulus had whiteish, silky fur resembling african mole-rat Heliophobius argenteocinereus. Abbé's pseudogoat is most likely a hoax, but the Ceratogaulus seems to be more plausible explanation than South American clawed Notungulate Homalodotherium ot even a Chalicotherid.

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