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 four long-awaited, much-requested ShukerNature blog books (2019-2024).

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

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my ShukerNature blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my published books (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Eclectarium blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Starsteeds blog's poetry and other lyrical writings (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

IMPORTANT: To view a complete, regularly-updated listing of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's articles (each one instantly clickable), please click HERE!

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Saturday, 30 November 2024

FINDING THE FEATHERED LIONS OF LARRY HAGMAN – AGAIN!

 
Did American actor Larry Hagman see something like this during his 'trip'?

My memory has always been akin to an exceedingly eclectic but generally well-organised, well-maintained filing cabinet whose innumerable drawers contain all of the myriad facts that I've acquired throughout my life, including the 40 years that I've spent researching and writing about cryptids, mythological beasts, and fantastical fauna (flora too) of every imaginable, and unimaginable, kind. Occasionally, however, a fact file somehow becomes misplaced, misfiled, or just plain missing. And so it was with the slim but stimulating file of the feathered lions.


Quite a few years ago now, I distinctly remember reading about some celebrity's autobiography in which he'd referred in passing to some feathered lions – enough in itself to attract my attention and thereupon file away this intriguing snippet for some future use. As the years passed by, however, and it remained unused and unreturned to by me, its details began to fade from my mind. Still, not to worry, I thought, I have it filed safely away in my physical archives as well as in my cerebral ones – until, that is, the subject came to mind again earlier this week, prompting me to seek out the relevant information in my archives and write it up at long last for ShukerNature. But could I find it? Not a chance!


Moreover, by now no longer able even to recall who the celebrity was in whose autobiography these ethereal entities had appeared, there seemed no chance of tracking anything down (online searches drew a blank). So I finally abandoned the subject, and started looking up a totally different one instead – at which point the Library Angel, aka the Seraph of Serendipity, clearly took pity on me, as has happened so many times in the past, to my undying gratitude.

 
If such an exotic creature as a feathered lion existed, what a spectacular sight it would be!

Opening on my laptop a cryptozoology-themed folder of chronologically-arranged files consisting of reports, articles, and other info downloaded by me from the Net during the year 2016, I started looking for the file that I needed for my new investigation, but there were a very sizeable number of files in it, and I had no idea of the specific date on which I'd downloaded the file in question. So I automatically rearranged all of that folder's files into alphabetical order instead, by file title, hoping to spot the file quickly by way of its title's subject. The titles were organised into columns, and while casually casting my eyes across and down a few of these columns before beginning the full painstaking scrutiny of each file title in each column, my eyes alighted upon one particular file title, and opened wide as they did so – 'Larry Hagman sees feathered lions'! Of course – Larry Hagman! Even before opening the long-overlooked file, its title alone was sufficient to usher forth the basic information that it contained, but obviously I still opened it anyway. And here is what I read.


The relevant information had appeared in a posthumously-published newspaper article recalling some of the wild events from Hagman's life that he'd documented back in his 2001 autobiography Hello Darlin': Tall (and Absolutely True) Tales About My Life. Hagman had of course been an American actor best known for his role as astronaut Tony Nelson in the 1960s fantasy comedy TV show I Dream of Jeannie; and, above all else, for his globally-acclaimed tour de force as ultra-villainous oil baron J.R. Ewing in the glossy mega-successful American soap Dallas, originally running from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, then revived in various spin-offs that began a decade later.

 
A multicoloured monarch of all that he surveys!

The newspaper article had been published back in 2012 (thus explaining why I'd not thought to look for it in the 2016 folder, the reason why it was in there and not in the 2012 folder being that I'd only learnt about this article and downloaded it on 7 June 2016, but I'd long since forgotten that small yet crucial fact!), by London's Daily Mail, on, of all days, 9 December (my birthday!), which was just over a fortnight after Hagman had passed away, on 23 November 2012.


Anyway, reading through this article it transpired that some time prior to 2001, feeling very stressed after always having been a total workaholic and perfectionist had eventually taken a sizeable toll upon his emotional well-being (a situation exacerbated after he had perhaps unwisely also decided to give up two longstanding vices – smoking and slimming pills – on the very same day), Hagman had sought aid, advice, and assistance from all quarters. Two years after his issues had begun, however, one of those he'd consulted now suggested that perhaps he should "drop some acid", i.e. try taking some tabs of the potent hallucinogenic drug LSD.

Although Hagman initially dismissed this idea, it became firmly lodged in his mind, until eventually he gave into temptation, and obtained some pure LSD tabs from none other than the late American rock singer/songwriter David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame, after he'd attended one of their concerts and had gone backstage to meet them afterwards. Even so, it still took Hagman a month before he finally summoned up the nerve to take one, and thereby experience his first trip. Here is how he described it:

Just a few moments after I'd swallowed a tab, part of the room I was in became a cave that was guarded by two feathered lions as well as octopus-like creatures with long, writhing tentacles.

So there it is, such that it is, simply a Hagmanian hallucination of the plumed and tentacled trippy kind, but nonetheless notable as the only reference to feathered lions that I've ever encountered (other than certain legendary lions with avian wings, documented by me in my book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery), albeit from a most unlikely source, and generated in a very unexpected fashion. Yet even though this case may not contribute greatly, therefore, to our shared global lore on fantasy felids, it is nothing if not interesting, and memorable – which is why it has compelled me to track it down almost a decade later, and document here on ShukerNature the exotic creatures mentioned in it.

 
Cave-dwelling ctopus-like creatures also featured in Hagman's drug-induced hallucination

Finally: all of the very eyecatching illustrations of feathered lions and cave-dwelling octopuses included here were created by me specially for this article yesterday, utilizing the MagicStudio image-generation program.



Friday, 1 November 2024

PUTTING THE QUEENSLAND TIGER AND THE CONGOLESE WATER ELEPHANT IN THE PICTURE!

 
My illustration of the Queensland tiger aka the yarri, which I prepared as a teenager back in the mid-/late1970s (© Dr Karl Shuker

Serendipity has played a big part in my life, usually involving my looking for one thing and, while doing so, finding something entirely different but equally worthwhile. And so it proved again today.

As a teenager during the mid-/late 1970s, I'd written a letter to Prof. Christopher Evans, a very notable Welsh scientist and psychologist who at that time was also acting as scientific advisor for ITV's hit British teenage-oriented sci fi TV show The Tomorrow People. My letter concerned a biological subject touched upon not only within one of this show's series but also, and this time in much more detail, within an episode of the original, classic Star Trek TV show. I didn't really expect to receive a reply, as I assumed that he must receive countless letters from fans of the show, so I was both surprised and delighted when I did indeed receive one, in the form of a charming, insightful letter from the man himself, which I greatly treasured – and especially so when Prof. Evans tragically died not long afterwards, of cancer, in 1979, aged only 48.

It occurred to me recently that I sought to scan this precious letter from Prof. Evans and post it here on ShukerNature with the background details leading up to it, thereby preserving it publicly for posterity. So today I sought out the folder in which I always believed it to have been placed by me long ago for safekeeping – only to realize to my horror when searching for it that I no longer had any idea where said folder was! After several hours, however, I finally uncovered it – only to discover once again to my horror that it did not contain said letter! So now I have to start searching all over again for it.

However, in that very same folder I did find two other items that caught my attention, both of which I'd hitherto entirely forgotten – a pair of colour illustrations of two mystery mammals that I'd prepared at much the same time that I'd written my letter to Prof. Evans, meaning that they are almost 50 years old and have never been seen outside that folder – until now. For although I freely confess that my artistic attempts fall far short of those wonderful artworks created by my various bona fide artist friends on social media and elsewhere, as they nonetheless constitute one of my earliest forays into creating cryptozoological output I felt that followers of my Shukernature blog might like to see them, and also it means that they are now at least for the present preserved online. So here they are.

 
My copy of the hardback First Edition of On the Track of Unknown Animals, by Dr Bernard Heuvelmans, featuring several line illustrations by Monique Watteau on its dustjacket, including her rendition of the Queensland tiger (© Dr Bernard Heuvelmans/Monique Watteau/Rupert Hart-Davis – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The first one, opening this particular blog post, is my colour illustration of Australia's elusive Queensland tiger or yarri (documented by me here on ShukerNature), which was inspired by a b/w line drawing prepared by French artist Monique Watteau that appeared in veteran cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans's seminal tome On the Track of Unknown Animals (1958). In addition, when I prepared my above illustration, I had never encountered a full-colour image of the Queensland tiger anywhere, so mine may actually have been the very first one prepared (but don't quote me on this, just in case!).

The second one, posted below, is of Africa's enigmatic Congolese water elephant (documented by me here on ShukerNature), which I recall being inspired by another original line drawing in a publication, but I haven't been able to trace which one. I thought that it was another Watteau line illustration from Heuvelmans's afore-mentioned book, but I cannot find any such image in it.

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy viewing them here. Meanwhile, my search for the lost letter from Prof. Evans continues…

 
My illustration of the Congolese water elephant, which I prepared as a teenager back in the 1970s (© Dr Karl Shuker

 

Sunday, 27 October 2024

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)

Monday, 9 September 2024

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, 35th book. The fourth, and final, volume in my tetralogy of anthology volumes compiled from my long-running, award-winning ShukerNature blog, now in its 16th 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)

 

 

 

Tuesday, 20 August 2024

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)

 

 

Friday, 12 July 2024

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)

 

 

Sunday, 9 June 2024

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)