A FORMER FOXY FRIEND?

 

Reconstruction of the likely appearance in life of the officially-extinct Argentinian avus fox Dusicyon avus (© Juandertail/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

South America's so-called foxes are mis-named, as these native wild dogs are more closely related to wolves and domestic dogs than to the true, Old World foxes, genus Vulpes. They constitute several different species and genera, some very much alive, others long extinct. And then there is one, Dusicyon avus, or Argentina's avus fox for convenience, that although extinct today, died out only recently, in around 400 BP (1454-1626 AD), and for mystifying reasons that have yet to be conclusively established.

Moreover, another, newly-revealed mystery surrounds this enigmatic canid – was it the first (and only) mainland South American fox species to have been domesticated by humans?

The reason for this unexpected line of speculation derives from a new and truly remarkable archaeological discovery – the remains of an avus fox purposefully buried inside a human grave dating back 1500 years in a burial site at Cañada Seca, in Patagonia, Argentina.

Another avus fox had been found inside an even older human grave almost a decade previously elsewhere in Argentina, at Loma de los Muertos in General Conesa, but what makes the later, Patagonian find so interesting is that whereas the diet of the earlier specimen had not been examined, DNA analysis has shown that the Patagonian specimen had dined with prehistoric hunter gatherers and was part of their camp's inner circle. Click here to access the original scientific paper formally documenting this research.

Commenting upon this find's extreme rarity, Dr Ophélie Lebrasseur from the University of Oxford opined here: "I think it was more than just symbolic; I really do think it was companionship".

 

Taxiderm specimen of the Falklands Island wolf or warrah Dusicyon australis held at New Zealand's Tūhura Otago Museum (© Kane Fleury/MothmanNZ/Otago Museum/Wikipedia – CC BY 4.0 licence)

Also relevant is that the avus fox's closest relative is also nowadays extinct, but became so even more recently, in 1876, after being not only hunted for its fur but also deliberately poisoned by farmers concerned that it may pose a threat to their sheep.

Indigenous to the Falkland Islands and traditionally deemed their only native species of land mammal, the so-called Falklands wolf or warrah D. australis has lately been considered by some researchers to have been introduced here in domesticated form by human voyagers from South America (worth noting is that the warrah was remarkably tame, wholly unafraid of humans).

Additionally, DNA analyses have revealed that it diverged evolutionarily from the avus fox a mere 16,000 years ago. In short, a creature intimately allied to the avus fox was still alive as recently as the mid-1870s.

This leads me to wonder whether, as the avus fox's own historical, mainland extinction remains unresolved, perhaps that is because such an event never actually happened. That is, perhaps a remnant avus fox population still lurks scientifically undetected amid the wildernesses of Argentina, within Patagonia's vast pampas expanses, having retreated there once domestic dogs arrived in South Anerica and supplanted the avus fox in the affections of humans?

All of this is currently speculative, of course, but fascinating nonetheless.

 

Vintage illustration of the Falklands Islands wolf, by H. Smith, 1850 (public domain)

PUBLISHED TODAY, MY BRAND-NEW 35TH BOOK - 'SHUKERNATURE BOOK 4: TIJUANA'S ZEBRAS, TURKANA'S DANCING WORMS, AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE BLOG BEASTS'

 

Featuring a vintage, suitably terrifying illustration of Wisconsin's hideous hodag glaring and frimacing at all potential readers, here is the front cover of my latest book, ShukerNature Book 4 (© Dr Karl Shuker/Coachwhip Publications).

Yes indeed – today, 9 Septembe 2024, marks the official publication of my latest, 35^th book. The fourth, and final, volume in my tetralogy of anthology volumes compiled from my long-running, award-winning ShukerNature blog, now in its 16^th year, it is entitled ShukerNature Book 4: Tijuana's Zebras, Turkana's Dancing Worms, and Other Impossible Blog Beasts. That alone should give you at least a hint of the astonishing animals that you will be encountering within its 400+ pages, but if you'd like more details, read on:

Even when dealing with cryptozoology's variously, (in)famously elusive and illusive subjects, there are certain examples that test the credulity of even the most open-minded, objective of investigators. This is because, based at least upon their descriptions, they appear to be, albeit for many different reasons, simply impossible. Not implausible, not unlikely, not unfeasible, not incongruous, but impossible – or are they?

After all, who could believe in the existence of dragonflies with 6-ft wingspans, or spiders so huge that they can hunt down soldiers in the heart of Louisiana, or an unrealistically-reclusive Vietnamese deer whose antlers inexplicably resemble the horns on a Viking's helmet, or a rapacious Beast (or Beasts) that carried out the wanton slaughter of terrified rural peasants despite the most concerted efforts made to end this very different Reign of Terror in France and still remain unidentified over 300 years later, or all manner of kangaroo-like cryptids keeping researchers on the hop far beyond their Australasian homeland? Yet these have all been soberly reported, by sober observers.

And what are the fascinating stories behind the horrific, hideous, horn-bearing hodag, or Tijuana's delightfully faux 'zebras', or the prehistoric worms that dance beneath a tropical African moon and kill with a single bite, or how I managed to lose a multi-headed chimaera from Greek mythology but encounter the skull of a legendary Cornish sea monster, or the unexpected answers to a veritable herd of quagga-themed queries, or how a magnificent yet hitherto-unrecorded painting of what may conceivably be a murderous mystery cat from Tanzania was discovered wholly by chance in an English charity shop?

 

Close-up of a fascinating but highly mysterious painting documented in my book that depicts an extremely distinctive big cat very closely recalling native descriptions of a exceptionally aggressive Tanzanian feline cryptid known as the nunda or mngwa (photograph © Maxine Pearson; artist's identity still currently unknown despite considerable investigations made by me)

So, it's time to suspend disbelief and suppress doubt – for if you choose to surrender to the secrets and surprises awaiting you inside my newest book, you must prepare instead to encounter the reputedly unaccountable, witness the allegedly unimaginable, and be impressed by the ostensibly impossible!

Packed with lavish full-colour and hitherto-obscure b/w illustrations, containing an exhaustive bibliography, plus a detailed index, as well as updating and expanded many of the original blog articles upon which its chapters are based, this fourth ShukerNature anthology goes far beyond its online blog equivalent to provide its readers with unparalleled coverage of its beastly but breathtaking subjects.

Published by Chad Arment at Coachwhip Publications, ShukerNature Book 4 can be purchased instantly and easily here on Amazon UK and here on Amazon USA, and can also be ordered through all good bookstores. So click away if you wish, and prepare as always with my books to be amazed, astonished, and awe-struck by the monstrously fascinating menagerie eagerly awaiting inside its pages to meet you, greet you, and (if only they could break free!) eat you in a trice! Yes indeed, you know it makes sense!

But seriously: from studies of medieval Norse illustrations of bizarre, ostensibly impossible sea monsters, not to mention even earlier Chinese depictions of strange, unfamiliar-looking gibbons, and ancient Middle Eastern ones of long-vanished, long-unidentified equine enigmas, for example (and all documented in my book), it has become abundantly apparent that many major zoological discoveries of the future were actually signposted very clearly in artefacts from the distant past, if only scientists and other scholars had recognized this. So who knows what additional 'impossible' beasts are still to be revealed and verified as real by paying closer attention to pictorial clues hidden in plain sight amid the antiquaries and relics from bygone times?

 

Full cover wrap for my new book, featuring a vintage quagga image on the back cover (© Dr Karl Shuker/Coachwhip Publications)

 

 

 

HIDING FROM THE HIDE? EERIE DEEPSEA ENCOUNTERS WITH ABYSSAL ABOMINATIONS

 

A photo-still from Encounter In The Abyss by Richard Svensson, depicting the nameless horror from the underwater abyss about to encapsulate the stricken shark while the terrified diver stood motionless, on a ledge at the abyss's edge, watching in petrified fascination  (© Richard Svensson)

The decidedly creepy cryptozoological report of a deadly underwater mystery beast documented by me here today is one of my all-time personal favourites, which I've included in several of my books and articles down through the years, and also previously on ShukerNature (click here). Now, thanks to a wonderful new animated short that brings the eerie encounter vividly to life for the very first time (full details at the end of the present blog article), I decided that it was time to revisit this terrifying denizen of a deepwater abyss and provide some additional information, so here it is.

In 1953, while testing a new type of deep-sea diving suit in the South Pacific, an Australian diver named Christopher Loeb encountered a Lovecraftian horror from the ocean’s unpenetrated depths. In my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997) and also in my previous ShukerNature coverage of it, I provided a much-abbreviated paraphrased version of Loeb's report, but here now is his full first-person account, as originally provided by Eric Frank Russell in his own book Great World Mysteries (1967:

All the way down I was followed by a fifteen foot shark which circled around full of curiosity but made no attempt to attack. I kept wondering how far down he would go. He was still hanging around some thirty feet from me, and about twenty feet higher, when I reached a ledge below which was a great, black chasm of enormous depth. It being dangerous to venture farther, I stood looking into the chasm while the shark waited for my next move.

Suddenly the water became distinctly colder. While the temperature continued to drop with surprising rapidity, I saw a black mass rising from the darkness of the chasm. It floated upwards very slowly. As at last light reached it I could see that it was of dull brown colour and tremendous size, a flat ragged edged thing about one acre in extent. It pulsated sluggishly and I knew that it was alive despite its lack of visible limbs or eyes. Still pulsating, this frightful vision floated past my level, by which time the coldness had become most intense. The shark now hung completely motionless, paralyzed either by cold or fear. While I watched fascinated, the enormous brown thing reached the shark, contacted him with its upper surface. The shark gave a convulsive shiver and was drawn unresisting into the substance of the monster.

I stood perfectly still, not daring to move, while the brown thing sank back into the chasm as slowly as it had emerged. Darkness swallowed it and the water started to regain some warmth. God knows what this thing was, but I had no doubt that it had been born of the primeval slime countless fathoms below.

Moreover, this may not be a unique report, for as revealed here by the online Encyclopaedia of Cryptozoology website:

According to Russian sources, at least two other sightings of the amorphous sea monster have been reported in local newspapers. Members of a Chilean hydrographic expedition to the South Pacific in 1968 told the press that they had seen an animal which resembled the Australian diver's "black mass," near an abyssal trench. A fatal encounter with such an animal allegedly occurred off Thailand in 2005, when a French scuba diver named Henri Astor told the press that he had observed a very large "strange brown mass" paralysing and killing a shoal of fish. Astor's unnamed companion allegedly disappeared after attempting to follow the entity.

 

Cirrothauma murrayi, a species of deepsea cirrate octopus (public domain)

In the past, a deepsea octopus has been offered as a possible identity for this disturbing creature, but as I discussed in detail within my book, a far more satisfactory candidate is a deepsea jellyfish, possibly akin to one of the known relatively shapeless types, such as Deepstaria enigmatica, which moves via peristalsis and lacks tentacles. This bizarre species remained undescribed by science until 1967, following its discovery by the famous French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau while exploring the deep waters of the central Pacific Ocean near Southwest Baker Island in a submarine called Deepstar 4000. It is known from the Pacific Ocean, Antarctica, and the Gulf of Mexico, but only at depths below 3,000 ft. Please click here and here to watch on YouTube a couple of short videos of this strange species filmed in its natual habitat.

Whereas all octopuses have tentacles, some deepsea jellyfishes do not. What they do have, however, are potent stinging cells called nematocysts on their bodies (and tentacles if they possess any), armed with venom that swiftly paralyses their prey. This would readily explain the immediate paralysis of the shark. Moreover, jellyfishes do not possess true eyes but they are equipped with sensory structures responsive to water movements. Consequently, the creature would have learnt of the shark’s presence by detecting its movements in the water. How lucky, then, that the diver had remained stationary!

 

Artistic representation of el cuero, the deadly Chilean hide (© Tim Morris)

Interestingly, Chilean legends tell of a very similar beast called el cuero or the hide, as it is likened in shape and size to a cowhide stretched out flat, with countless eyes around its perimeter, and four larger ones in the centre. As it happens, jellyfishes possess peripheral sensory organs called rhopalia that incorporate simple light-sensitive eyespots or ocelli.

Moreover, some jellyfishes also have four larger, deceptively eye-like organs visible at the centre of their bell. In reality, however, these organs are not eyes at all. Instead, they are actually portions of the jellyfishes' gut, known as gastric pouches, with the jellyfishes' horseshoe-shaped gonads sited directly underneath these pouches and also very visible (as in the familiar moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita).

 

Moon jellyfishes Aurelia aurita (© Tila Monto/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

So perhaps the deadly hide is more than a myth after all, lurking like so many other maritime horrors reported down through the ages in the deep oceans' impenetrable black abyss, but only very rarely encountered by humankind – which in view of the dreadful fate that befell the hapless South Pacific shark in 1953 may be just as well!

And now, as noted above, this chilling cryptozoological vignette has been brought to vivid life by longstanding friend and awesome Swedish animator Richard Svensson, aka The Lone Animator, in a wonderful 3-minute mini-movie entitled Encounter In The Abyss, and available to watch for free on YouTube since 8 August 2024 – just click here. Don't miss it!

 

Thumbnail image on YouTube for Encounter In The Abyss by Richard Svensson (© Richard Svensson)

 

 

AN OYSTER-SCALED ODDITY FROM BRAZIL

 

Is this what Lerius's big white Brazilian lizard looked like? My opalescent iguana sculpture met beneath a milky moon (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

One of the earliest mystery beast reports emanating from the Americas came from the pen of French pastor and explorer Jean Lerius (aka Jean de Lery), writing about the notable encounter in his very informative, highly influential book History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, Also Called America (1578), which formally documented a wide range of South American animals for the first time by a European. He was in the company of Admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon, who in 1555 had unsuccessfully attempted to establish a French Protestant colony on an island in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Another mock-up of what Lerius's big white Brazilian lizard may have looked like (modified from an iguana photograph © Carlos Andrés Reyes/Wikipedia – CC BY 2.0 licence)

Approximately two years later, in or round 1557, Lerius and two other members of the company were trekking through a forest in the interior of Brazil with some local Tupinamba Indian guides but armed only with swords or bows and arrows when, while passing through a deep valley there, they abruptly encountered at a distance of only thirty paces or so a very large reptilian creature of extremely distinctive appearance, squatting on top of a hill in the heat of noon, with one of its forefeet raised.

Lerius described it as a lizard bigger than the body of a man, measuring 5-6 ft long, yet its most eyecatching feature was not its size but rather its extraordinary tegument. For according to Lerius, this unfamiliar animal was entirely covered in rough white scales that resembled oyster shells (and presumably, therefore, were opalescent, or nacreous, i.e. resembling mother of pearl?).

White  American alligator (public domain)

The astonished, petrified group of men and this albino-like reptilian apparition stared at one another for around 15 minutes, all remaining totally immobile despite being directly exposed to the extreme heat of the mid-day sun, until the creature suddenly let forth a very loud groaning sound before turning away and swiftly vanishing from sight through the foliage covering the hill. Needless to say, the men made no attempt to follow the monster, making their way instead along their original course, leading them far away from that hill and its dreadful denizen.

The fact that this sizeable lizard was resting on top of a hill during the extreme mid-day heat clearly suggests that like lizards so often do, it was sunbathing, absorbing the sun's radiant heat for thermoregulatory purposes. This is because lizards are ectothermic, i.e. poikilotherms, which are unable to regulate their body temperature via internal homoiothermic mechanisms in the manner that endothermic mammals and birds do.

 

Albino American alligator, (© Sherrif2966/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

What is far less clear, conversely, is this reptile's precise taxonomic identity, as no lizard of that size and pallid appearance is known from Brazil or, indeed, from anywhere else, today. Might it have been albinistic, as I tentatively labelled it a little earlier here, or possibly leucistic? Leucistic American alligators Alligator mississipiensis with shiny white scales but black eyes are well known, for example, as are other reptile specimens of similar form, as well as true albino specimens with pink eyes. Perhaps it was a leucistic or an albinistic iguana, whose size had been over-estimated by an evidently shocked Lerius. Or might Lerius have been incorrect in labeling it a lizard – could it have actually been a white alligator?

I know of no other reports alluding to this singularly distinctive reptile, so the riddle of what it was seems destined to remain forever unsolved – like so many others in the fascinating if frustrating chronicles of cryptozoology.

 

Title page of the Latin translation of Lerius's book, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, Also Called America (public domain)

 

 

SHARING SOME MONSTROUSLY-ENTERTAINING CRYPTO-CREATURE FEATURE REVIEWS IN FORTEAN TIMES!

 

Front cover of the current issue (#446, dated July 2024) of the British monthly magazine Fortean Times, featuring yours truly as its cover star! (© David Sutton/Etienne Gilfillan/Fortean Times/Diamond Publishing Limited – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

One of ShukerNature's several sister blogs and now in its fifth year of existence, my film review blog Shuker In MovieLand hits the big time! A selection of its Fortean (and especially monster)-themed creature feature reviews has been compiled by me in the form of a monstrously-entertaining front-cover-linked lead article that has been published in the current issue (#446, dated July 2024) of the iconic British monthly magazine Fortean Times, or simply FT to its worldwide array of fans.

FT via its countless contributors and readers down through the decades has been steadfastly reporting and investigating across the vast and thoroughly fascinating spectrum of mysterious phenomena ever since the early 1970s (when it started out as The News), and I am very privileged to have been contributing articles and news reports (the latter via my regular, longstanding Alien Zoo column) ever since the 1990s, concentrating upon cryptozoology and animal anomalies of every conceivable (and inconceivable!) kind.

Moreover, as readers of Shuker In MovieLand already know (as do more than a fair few ShukerNature readers too), I am also passionately interested in movies, particularly fantasy and sci fi-themed ones, but never more so than those that incorporate monsters and other mystery or fantastical beasts. So in my latest FT article as now highlighted here, I have collated a diverse selection of my Shuker In MovieLand reviews of creature features that I have very much enjoyed watching over the years. And I hope that it will encourage ShukerNature's numerous fellow beast-movie buffs to watch and enjoy them now too.

I'm not going to say anything more regarding my article's contents, so as not to spoil the surprises awaiting FT readers, but I do wish to express my sincere thanks to FT's editor David Sutton and its art director Etienne Gilfillan for making my article an FT reality, with Etienne not only doing us all proud in not only assembling the dazzling collection of illustrations accompanying its text but also creating the front cover's truly amazing associated artwork!

 

Another magazine front-cover appearance, from issue #14 (November 1997) of the now long-defunct British monthly magazine Uri Geller's Encounters, to which I contributed a number of cryptozoological articles (© Nina Pendred/Paragon Publishing Ltd – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

No doubt you'll recognize the very handsome chap (cough cough!) attired in best Indiana Jones accoutrements taking centre stage on the FT cover as he prepares to cinematically confront a veritable host of horrors...and that's just the audience! – or most of it. For I also wish to highlight the delightful fact that the happy little lady with the extra-large box of popcorn is none other than my dear little Mom, Mary Shuker, who always enjoyed watching monster movies with me back in the good old days. How I wish that she were still here, to know that she was now a front-cover star! She would have been so proud. Thank you so much, Etienne, for such a wonderful and very touching tribute to her.

So, be sure to seek out and purchase a copy of FT #446 if you can (it's out now!), and have a monstrously good time reading about some very varied creature features of the cryptozoological and zoomythological kind. Go on, you know you want to!

For mor information concerning FT, please click here to visit its official website.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Close-up of the front cover of FT #446, showing Mom happily selling popcorn to a truly beastly audience! (© David Sutton/Etienne Gilfillan/Fortean Times/Diamond Publishing Limited – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

VALERO'S ROCK JAGUAR AND RED JAGUAR - TWO LESSER-KNOWN BRAZILIAN MYSTERY CATS

 

Did Valero's kintanari look something like this? (© William M. Rebsamen)

American correspondent Ted Leonard kindly brought to my attention some years ago a fascinating book that mentions two Brazilian mystery cats that were previously unknown to me.

Written by Ettore Biocca, first published in English in 1970 (it was originally published in Italian), and based upon firsthand testimony related to him by its subject, the book is Yanoáma: The Narrative of a White Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians. It recounts the remarkable true-life story of Helena Valero, who was abducted as an 11-year-old Italian girl by Yanoáma natives back in the 1930s and reared by them in the Amazonian jungle.

One of these crypto-felids was known locally as the rock jaguar, and was briefly witnessed one day by Valero while in the company of some Yanoáma women and hunters. She described it as follows:

It was morning that day and we had seen among the rocks, as if in a window, a jaguar's head. It was a kind of jaguar which I did not know: it wasn't one of those spotted ones or those red ones that they call kintanari. It was a brown jaguar and it had long hair on its head: it was the rock jaguar.

If this description is accurate and authentic, I suspect that it was not a jaguar of any kind, but rather some other, unidentified large-sized cat, brown in colour, with what seems to have been a mane. Intriguingly, that is not the only description on record of such a felid from South America, as a maned mystery cat has also been reported from Ecuador (see my mystery cat books for further details).

 

A taxiderm specimen of an apparent reddish leopard (seemingly not sun-faded) spied and photographed by Bill Rebsamen, plus Bill's red jaguar painting (inset) (both images © William M. Rebsamen)

But what of the equally anomalous kintanari or red jaguar that Valero alluded to? Unfortunately, that single brief mention quoted above is the only time that this strange creature is referred to anywhere in the book.

Just as there are freak all-black (melanistic) and all-white (albinistic) jaguar individuals on record, might there also be occasional all-red (erythristic) specimens? Certainly, erythristic individuals have been documented with certain other felid species, including the leopard, tiger, and jaguarundi. Alternatively, perhaps it was not a jaguar at all, but instead some other large felid, with reddish fur - a burly rufous puma, possibly?

And just in case you were wondering about the taxiderm specimen of a reddish leopard depicted above, here’s what I wrote about it in my book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012):

 

THE BLACK PANTHER THAT WAS RED!

On 12 September 1998, American wildlife artist Bill Rebsamen was in Springfield, Missouri, and paid a visit to the Bass Pro Shop's famous Fish and Wildlife Museum. It possessed many spectacular exhibits - but none more so, at least in Bill's eyes, than a certain taxiderm-mounted big cat of amazing appearance (as seen in Bill's photo of it above). It resembled a black panther (i.e. a melanistic leopard), patterned with dark rosettes - but instead of its fur's background colouration being black or dark brown, it was instead a rich mahogany-red!

I have several cases on file of erythristic leopards, i.e. mutant individuals whose fur was reddish (including the rosettes) instead of yellow (with black rosettes), the most recent being the so-called 'strawberry leopard' lately spied within South Africa's Madikwe Game Reserve and photographed there by safari guide Deon de Villiers (National Geographic News, 12 April 2012 [several additional strawberry leopards have ben observed and photographed in Africa since then]), but no previous data concerning red-furred black panthers. Sometimes, a dark taxiderm specimen fades during the course of time, the mounted skin becoming brown in those areas exposed to sunlight - as from a nearby window, for instance. However, Bill viewed this panther from every angle, front and back, and could see no sign of fading on any portion of its skin; it was uniformly red all over.

 

This ShukerNature blog article is excerpted and enlarged from my book Mystery Cats of the World Revisited (2020), the greatly-expanded, fully-updated second edition of Mystery Cats of the World (1989), long recognized as the definitive book on crypto-felids.

 

Mystery Cats of the World Revisited (© Dr Karl Shuker/Anomalist Books, front cover artwork © William M. Rebsamen)

 

 

REVIEWING 'CARNIFEX' - A CRYPTOZOOLOGY-THEMED CREATURE FEATURE FROM DOWN UNDER

 

 

Publicity poster for Carnifex, showing the characters gazing up in awe at some formidable claw marks left upon a  tree trunk by a large unknown animal of seemingly arboreal ability (© Sean Lahiff/Dancing Road Productions/Arclight Films/Universal Pictures Content Group – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Thanks to longstanding Australian FB friend and crypto-enthusiast Tim Morris kindly making it available to me - thanks Tim! – my movie watch on 26 October 2023 was the fairly recent Australian cryptozoology-themed creature feature Carnifex.

Directed by Sean Lahiff, and released just a year ago in December 2022 by Universal Pictures, Carnifex takes its name in a general sense from the Latin word for 'butcher' or even (during the Roman era) 'executioner'. However, wildlife enthusiasts, especially cryptozoologists, will also be aware of its more specific, zoological meaning.

Consequently, if you're of the latter persuasion, you will have no doubt guessed straight away from this movie's title that while conservationists Ben (Harry Greenwood) and Grace (Sisi Stringer) accompanied by documentary camerawoman Bailey (Alexandra Park) are uncovering and recording deep within the Australian outback the vast wildlife devastation caused there by some recent, unprecedented bushfires, they also make the startling, totally unexpected, and truly terrifying discovery of a living marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex. For once they do, they also discover – very swiftly – just how hyper-aggressive and rapacious the creature is, forcing them into a desperate bid for survival against this mega-belligerent blast from the past, their thoughts echoing only too emphatically the film's tagline: "Some species should remain extinct".

This ferocious species was – or is? –  a predatory pouched mammal of feline form, leopard or lioness stature (opinions vary), and possibly arboreal capabilities, but officially deemed extinct for many millennia. However, some cryptozoologists feel that its putative reclusive survival into the present day may explain occasional reports of an Aussie mystery beast known as the yarri or Queensland tiger. It may even have inspired the spoof killer koala called the drop bear (koalas and marsupial lions were actually quite closely related). Most of this pertinent background information, however, is never alluded to in the movie, sadly.

 

Yarri or Queensland tiger, based upon eyewitness descriptions (© Dami Editore srl – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Speaking of which: its build-up to this very dramatic discovery, although very lengthy (see later), is engrossing, and features a trio of lead likeable characters that interact well together, interspersed with plenty of breathtaking shots of genuine Aussie Outback Nevertheless, Carnifex suffers from two very significant, crucial problems.

Firstly, once the story truly gets going, it consists almost entirely of night-time scenes, resulting in actual sightings of the creature (with totally black pelage, thereby rendering it even more difficult to see against the darkness)  being as shadowy and brief as they are seldom and inconclusive, i.e. plenty of growling and flesh-tearing sounds, but visually all but non-existent.

Secondly, when in this 90-odd-minute movie's last 10 minutes we finally - finally! - get to see two blink-and-you'll-miss-them close-up full-face shots of the (very) anatagonistic animal in question (so fleeting in fact that after seeing them I then had to rewind and laboriously seek them out via freeze-frame in order to be sure of what they actually revealed – something, incidentally, that cinema audiences for this movie would not have had the luxury of being able to do), guess what?

The film makers had only gone and got their Thylacoleo carnifex fundamentally wrong – and after having kept their increasingly impatient viewers waiting so long to see it properly too!

 

A selection of photo-stills from Carnifex depicting the latter beast's brief appearances and, especially, its dentition – click picture montage to enlarge for viewing purposes (© Sean Lahiff/Dancing Road Productions/Arclight Films/Universal Pictures Content Group – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

All placental carnivores have fangs consisting of enlarged upper canine teeth (and so too, for that matter, does, or did, the thylacine or Tasmanian marsupial wolf Thylacinus cynocephalus, officially deemed extinct in 1936 but which may still linger on in this island's more remote regions). In stark contrast, conversely, the tusk-like fang counterparts of Thylacoleo were actually greatly-enlarged upper incisors (it also sported a pair of extremely enlarged lower incisors, but its upper canines were only very small and stubby). Yet in this movie, its Thylacoleo has been given enlarged upper canines, not incisors, thereby rendering their Carnifex dentally deranged!

Moreover, the two close-up shots of its front paws also revealed a telling absence of the huge thumb claw constituting another morphologcal characteristic of this unique predator.

Judging from these major morphological discrepancies, I can only assume that someone apparently hadn't done their zoological homework when researching T. carnifex for this Carnifex-entitled movie. Needless to say, this is a great shame, especially as otherwise it is a most enjoyable film, with engaging characters amid the savage beauty of the Australian bush, and it would have been a wonderful showcase for a truly original animal antagonist never previously represented in a cinematic role.

Then again, it is fair to say that many viewers are unlikely to have in-depth knowledge of thylacoleonid dentition anyway. So they will simply not notice or recognize the inaccuracy of the latter's depiction in this movie (particularly as it has no effect upon the plot itself), thereby enabling them to enjoy the movie as an otherwise very watchable, well-presented conservation-minded creature feature, especially one produced by a small independent film company as opposed to a mega-bucks Hollywood studio. Also on the positive side, it does mean that a morphologically-accurate 'living Thylacoleo'-themed monster movie is still waiting to be made.

 

Thylacoleo carnifex model produced by Jeff Johnson and owned by Rebecca Lang, two longstanding Facebook friends of mine (© Jeff Johnson/Rebecca Lang – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Incidentally, a novel written by Australian horror author Matthew J. Hellscream (I'm guessing that this may be a pseudonym…) that was published in 2016, i.e. 6 years before the present movie under review here was released, was also entitled Carnifex, and also featured some visitors to a remote area of the Australian bush encountering living but scientifically-undiscovered marsupial lions. According to various Adelaide Advertiser articles, Hellstream took legal advice when the movie came out because of perceived title and plot similarities, but that is not what I am concerned with here. What I am concerned with is that the very striking illustration of one such beast present on the front cover of Hellstream's novel depicts it with totally accurate dentition – click here to view it, and take note of the greatly enlarged incisors, and all but absent canines, plus the shearing blade-like carnassials further back.

I don't own a copy of this novel (yet), but I've heard tell that the cover artwork was prepared by acclaimed horror artist Frank Walls, who created the front cover for Hellscream's previous novel, Metro 7, but I can't confirm this. Whoever did design it, however, clearly made the effort to portray accurately the unique dentition of this truly unique mammalian predator.

Anyway, if you'd like to peer through the darkness of the Outback at night in search of the toothy terror lurking in this movie, be sure to click here to watch an official Carnifex trailer on YouTube.

Finally: this review originally appeared in ShukerNature's fellow blog, Shuker In MovieLand. To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

My book Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors (2016), which contains a very comprehensive coverage of the yarri or Queensland tiger, and featuring prominently in the bottom-left portion of its front cover an artistic representation by cryptozoology artist William M. Rebsamen of what this elusive, mysterious creature may look like if it is indeed a surviving representative of the marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex, complete with accurate dental depiction for the latter species (© Dr Karl Shuker/William M. Rebsamen/Coachwhip Publications)