AT LAST - MY VERY OWN MYSTERY ANIMAL SIGHTING!

Did I see a wallaby (i.e. like this specimen photographed elsewhere by me a year or so ago) on the loose tonight in the wilds of Walsall, England - or something far stranger? (© Dr Karl Shuker)

I dimly remember reading somewhere, a long time ago, veteran cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans stating something along the lines of how pleased in one sense he was that he had never personally seen a mystery animal, because if ever he did do so, it would destroy his objectivity when attempting to assess future anecdotal cryptozoological evidence. (Since writing this, I have been informed by Australian correspondent Malcolm Smith that it appeared in Heuvelmans's 1968 book, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, and that he was referring specifically to the Loch Ness monster - thanks for looking this up for me, Malcolm!). I know how Heuvelmans felt, because apart from encountering an anomalously large praying mantis in South Africa a few years ago (click here for full details) and an unusually sizeable curly-coated taxiderm mole in junior school (click here), I had never seen a mystery animal myself – until tonight, that is. For this is when I had two close-up (albeit very fleeting) observations of a creature that in spite of my decades of field observations of wildlife throughout the world coupled with my professional training as a fully-qualified zoologist and my lifelong fascination with animals of every kind (the more exotic and unusual the better), I was (and remain) completely unable to identify.

So now, gentle reader, in the hope that you may have better luck in doing so, based upon the information that I shall provide, here is my account (while the details are still fresh in my mind) of what I saw a mere 4 hours ago – i.e. a few minutes before midnight on the evening of Monday 15 September 2014.

T'was a dark and stormy night…  Sorry, couldn't resist that! Seriously, however, it was indeed a dark night, and it had been raining heavily earlier too, but the rain had now stopped. I had been to a quiz in a pub on Lichfield Road (A461) just outside the town of Walsall in the West Midlands, England – and no, I hadn't drunk anything alcoholic! – and was now driving back home along Lichfield Road heading towards Walsall town centre.

Just before midnight, I was approaching a series of small side-roads on the left-hand side of Lichfield Road, with a petrol station a little further along on the right-hand side, and a crossroads just beyond that with a large side-road branching off to the right, leading to the Walsall suburb of Pelsall (if fellow Fortean writer Nick Redfern is reading this, he will know exactly where I am describing, as he once lived only a mile or so away, in Pelsall itself.)

A brown hare Lepus europaeus, native to England (public domain)

As I was coming up to the left-hand side-roads as mentioned above, travelling at no more than 30 mph, my headlights lit up a stationary object positioned on the centre-line markings of Lichfield Road. I thought at first that it may be a large rock or even possibly a cardboard box or something that had fallen from a car or lorry. As I drew up to it, however, just a few feet away, the 'thing' suddenly moved, away from my car, and heading across the right-hand side of the road to the kerb.

In the fleeting moments when it was fully illuminated by my headlights (my sighting only lasted about 5 seconds at most), I was able to observe that it was a creature about the size of a wallaby or a large hare (why I am using these particular animals as size comparisons will become clear shortly), it was light/medium-grey in colour (or at least it appeared so in the headlights' beam), and it had long shaggy hair (this feature was very visible). Its head was long, but I didn’t spot any ears (hence I am assuming that they were not large or otherwise distinctive). Similarly, I do not recall seeing a tail, so possibly this was not of conspicuous size either?

In any case, by far its most distinctive feature was not morphological but rather locomotory, because when it moved away from me across the road, it did so in a very distinctive, eye-catching manner. Instead of simply running or scurrying, it moved via a series of low, hunched, quadrupedal bounds, revealing that its hind limbs were powerful and seemed larger than its forelimbs. This mode of locomotion resembled that of various Australian wallabies seen by me close-up in various zoos, bounding around on all fours, and seen at greater distance in the wild Down Under too. It also called to mind the movements of hares that I have encountered in the wild here in Britain, though these bounded in a much faster, more active manner than this creature did. Moreover, although hares only sport very short tails, they have very large noticeable ears, and they do not have long grey shaggy fur. Wallabies, conversely, do have grey fur in some species, but it is not long and shaggy, their ears are quite large, and they have very long, conspicuous tails.

An Australian Bennett's wallaby in quadrupedal stance (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Furthermore, even if this mystery beast were indeed some species of escapee wallaby on the loose (long shaggy fur notwithstanding!), where had it come from? Over the years, a sizeable number of wallabies have absconded from captivity throughout Britain, and some have even established naturalised colonies here, but there are no zoos or wildlife parks in the specific area where I saw the animal documented by me here.

Another possibility is an escapee mara or Patagonian cavy Dolichotis patagonum, a fairly large South American rodent with big ears and long legs that looks superficially hare-like, has brown-grey (but not long and shaggy) fur, is commonly maintained in captivity in Britain, and has been known to abscond from time to time. Again, however, there is no likely origin for such a creature in this specific location. Reeves's muntjac deer Muntiacus reevesi, native to China but existing in naturalised form in many parts of Britain, are known to live in the wild in this vicinity, and are around the same size as the creature that I encountered, but they do not have long shaggy fur and do not move in this manner. I even wondered whether it might be an injured or deformed dog or fox (it bore no resemblance whatsoever to a cat), but it did not seem ill or in pain, and its mode of locomotion, although unusual, did not appear abnormal or forced in any way. Instead, it seemed a totally normal facet of its behaviour, and enabled the creature to move swiftly and easily.

A mara, hare-like in superficial form (© Jagvar/Wikipedia)

After registering my initial sighting of this mystery creature, I naturally wanted to stop the car, get out, and pursue it on foot, but I couldn't do so because, frustratingly, I had a car tailgating me – had I braked and stopped dead in my tracks, this car was so close behind me that it would very probably have driven straight into the back of mine. So I was forced to drive on for a little way until, just past the garage on the right, I was able to find a left-hand side road to turn into and shake off the car behind, which duly carried on along Lichfield Road. So I was then able to perform a u-turn on that road and head back along it to where I had seen the creature.

When I approached the spot, I caught sight of it again, now standing stationary on the grass verge on the right-hand side of the road. This of course had been the left-hand side when I had been driving along the road earlier and had originally spied the creature squatting in the middle of the road. Consequently, for it to be where it was now, it had evidently re-crossed the road during my brief journey onwards when attempting to shake off the car behind me.

A male Reeves's muntjac – a naturalised Chinese species in much of England nowadays, including the West Midlands, but not possessing long grey shaggy fur (© Margoz/Wikipedia)

I stopped the car and watched it from the opposite side of the road (which is only a single carriageway), hoping to get a better look at it this time, and although my car's headlights were now not trained upon it, I could clearly perceive its long shaggy fur, which even without headlight illumination still appeared grey in colour, thereby indicating that this was indeed its pelage's true colour. Within just a few moments, however, the animal began moving along the verge, via the same low, hunched, quadrupedal bounding movements, until it came to a small side road named Wilsford Close, and disappeared into it. I started the car again at once, and was able to drive straight across Lichfield Road into this side road without having to pause for any traffic. Wilsford Close proved to be a very short cul-de-sac (blind-ending road, with no exit at its far end), consisting of a high wall running along the length of its left-hand side and a series of front gardens fringing the length of its right-hand side. All of the gardens led up to houses and were open, i.e. none was closed-off with gates, and there was no sign of the creature, which meant that it must have concealed itself in one of these gardens, but which one, and where? As they were all large, and as it was additionally concealed by the cover of darkness, the creature could have been anywhere.

Needless to say, it did not seem the most sensible option from a legal perspective to commit trespassing by stalking around other peoples' gardens with a torch but without asking permission. Equally, it would have wasted far too much time knocking on their doors to ask each home owner in turn if I could explore their garden. In addition, the chances are that they wouldn't have allowed me to do so anyway – after all, a complete stranger claiming to be looking for a mystery animal in a person's garden during the dead of night is unlikely to receive the most cordial of receptions from said garden's owner! Consequently, albeit with great reluctance, I had no option but to abandon the chase for 'my' elusive cryptid. True, I did drive back out of Wilsford Close and wait in my car near its entrance for a while, just in case the creature did re-emerge, but it didn't.

So here is where my story ends, in unsatisfyingly inconclusive manner – an all-too-familiar feature in cryptozoological encounters but no less frustrating for that. Any thoughts concerning the animal's possible identity would be welcomed here. As someone who normally has no problem whatsoever in identifying living mammals (or birds), if not always to the precise species then at least to their basic taxonomic grouping (genus or family), the fact that I am unable to do so with this creature (even when taking into account that I only saw it very fleetingly and at night) is nothing if not surprising and, indeed, very disconcerting for me – especially as I have seen foxes, a badger, all manner of dogs and domestic cats running around at night and have always readily identified them. If pressed to say what it reminded me of most closely, I would have to say a huge, wallaby-sized (but not wallaby-resembling), very shaggy-furred (and possibly tail-less or only very short-tailed) rat, yet which moved with the gait of a wallaby, albeit one less given to vertical bounds than a typical wallaby. I would also greatly appreciate receiving news regarding any other sightings of a similar beast that may have been reported lately from this locality. Thanks very much indeed!

Google map showing Wilsford Close (arrowed), just off Lichfield Road or A461 (© Google, 2014)

STOP PRESS 19 September 2014 - A SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERY?

As I have already noted, if I had to say what my mystery beast most resembled I'd nominate a huge rat but which moved somewhat like a wallaby, via a series of short crouching bounds. Sitting here at home tonight, reminiscing about my sighting, I suddenly remembered a thought that had momentarily popped into my head when I saw it the first time as it moved away from my car, but which I had promptly forgotten afterwards. Namely: "That looks like a coypu!". My surprise at seeing the creature must have consigned this thought to the back of my mind ever since, until tonight. As soon as I recalled it, however, I started researching the coypu, paying particular attention to the appearance and described gait of this very large, notable species of non-native rodent.

Known in the fur trade as the nutria, the coypu Myocastor coypus is a species of large-bodied, short-tailed, semi-aquatic rodent that superficially resembles a giant rat (it averages around 3ft in total length), but is sufficiently distinct taxonomically from rats and indeed from all other rodents to require housing within a taxonomic family all to itself. It sports brown bristly guard hairs that protect its very dense grey under-fur (much prized in the fur trade), and although native to South America, it has been maintained and bred in fur farms in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa for its valuable pelt. During the early 1960s, however, a number of specimens escaped in the East Anglia region of England, where they found this region's marshy freshwater wetlands very much to their liking, and soon began breeding very prolifically, becoming a major invasive pest species due to destructive herbivory and profound burrowing behaviour. After reaching a peak population of around 200,000 individuals, the coypu was subjected to an intensive government-sponsored eradication programme, and was officially declared exterminated within the UK in 1989. However, a number of unconfirmed sightings have been reported since then, and very occasionally a specimen has actually been obtained - leading to speculation by some researchers as to whether there might possibly be a small but viable population still out there.

A coypu with wet fur, making it look greyer than it would do when dry (© Petar Milosevic/Wikipedia - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3-0 Unported Licence) 

Checking out images of the coypu online, there is little doubt that this species resembles my mystery beast more closely than anything else that I know of. True, its grey dense under-fur is normally concealed by its bristly brown guard hairs, but pictures of it newly-emerged from water show that it appears greyish (and very shaggy) in such circumstances, because the wet guard hairs are matted together in clumps, thus exposing portions of the under-fur beneath, which appears shaggy due to its soaking in water.

What makes this trait even more interesting and pertinent is that after doing some more research concerning the area where I saw the creature, I discovered that it contains not only fields, open spaces, and even a small nature reserve (the Lime Pits Nature Reserve), but also some very large pools and the Rushall Canal. If the creature is indeed a coypu, such a location as this offers a very compatible habitat for its continued survival. But that is still not all.

A coypu with drier fur, but still readily showing it to be long-haired (© Silverije/Wikipedia)

Checking up the coypu's gait, I found consistent descriptions online stating that under normal conditions this species moves slowly on land with "a crouching gait", but if disturbed it will "bound rapidly away". This is of course a perfect description of the mystery creature's movements as witnessed by me. Moreover, the coypu normally emerges from its burrow and becomes active just before sunset, and returns to its burrow just before sunrise, thus corresponding with the time that I saw it.

Taking all of the above into account, I therefore offer a coypu as a tentative but plausible contender for my mystery beast in terms of both morphology and movements. But if this is truly its identity, one major mystery still requires a solution - where has the coypu originated? Coypus have certainly been maintained in zoos here in England in modern times, as well as in fur farms. Has there been a recent escape locally in the Midlands, or might such an event have occurred elsewhere but with the coypu subsequently making its way here, possibly following the canal system in its search for the river plants upon which it feeds? Obviously, all of this is highly speculative, but for the first time since Monday night, I feel somewhat less disconcerted regarding my failure to identify straight away this most unexpected mystery beast.

A fair-furred coypu in captivity - not relevant to my sighting but still interesting in its own right (© Norbert Nagel/Wikipedia)

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