SEEKING THE MISSING THUNDERBIRD PHOTOGRAPH - ONE OF CRYPTOZOOLOGY'S MOST TANTALISING UNSOLVED CASES

Could this very striking photograph of a large marabou stork standing upright with long beak open, huge wings held outstretched, and flanked by human figures have influenced some observers into later believing that they had seen the legendary thunderbird photograph? (public domain)

One of the most perplexing sagas in the fascinating chronicles of cryptozoology is the long-running search for the thunderbird photograph, supposedly missing, presumed lost, for over a century. Here is an investigation that I conducted quite a while ago with regard to this mystifying picture, which has never previously been published in full, but is presented here now as another ShukerNature exclusive.

THE THUNDERBIRD OF TOMBSTONE

According to traditional Native American Indian lore, thunderbirds were enormous birds of prey that flew through the skies on immense wings, creating thunder when flapping them together, and sometimes even abducting unwary humans. Once dismissed as wholly mythical, many sightings have been made during modern times in the U.S.A., however, notably in the Pacific West and mid-West states, of unidentified yet seemingly gigantic condor-like or vulture-like birds soaring high through the skies and even occasionally encountered perched on the ground, which seem to be veritable 20^th/21^st-Century thunderbirds.

However, science needs something more tangible than eyewitness accounts to consider before accepting the existence of such astonishing creatures - which is why the thunderbird photograph's history has attracted such interest.

It all (allegedly) began back in 1886, when an Arizona newspaper called the Tombstone Epitaph supposedly published a very striking photograph, which depicted a huge dead pterodactyl-like bird with open beak and enormous outstretched wings, nailed to a barn and flanked by some men. This bird was reputed to be a thunderbird, and judging from the size scale provided by the height of the men standing alongside it, its wingspan appeared to be an awesome 36 ft! In other words, it was three times greater than that of the wandering albatross Diomedea exulans - the bird species currently holding the record for the world's biggest modern-day wingspan.

A wandering albatross in flight (© J.J. Harrison/Wikipedia; to see more great photos by J.J. Harrison, please subscribe to his Facebook profile here)

Since then, countless people claim to have seen this same photo in various magazines published some time during the 1960s or early 1970s, but no-one can remember precisely where. Those publications thought to be likely sources of such a picture include Saga, True, Argosy, and various of the many Western-type magazines in existence during this period in America, but searches through runs of these publications have failed to uncover any evidence of it.

Nor has anyone come forward with a copy of this photo as published elsewhere, and the archives of the Tombstone Epitaph do not have any copy of it either.

A COUPLE OF HOAXED THUNDERBIRD PHOTOS

A number of photos claimed to be this evanescent, iconic image have been aired over the years, especially online, but these have all been exposed as hoaxes. To keep this section of the present article in proportion to the rest of it, I'll refrain from documenting every one of them here (the subject of a future ShukerNature article instead, perhaps?), and will just confine myself to two representative examples.

The first of these is one that I was personally able to expose, on behalf of Strange Magazine. Below is how it was written up and published in the Fall 1995 issue:

How I exposed a fake thunderbird photo in Strange Magazine (click image to enlarge it for reading purposes) (© Dr Karl Shuker/Strange Magazine)

The second hoax thunderbird photograph that I'm documenting here, and which is reproduced below, is of much more recent occurrence. Of unknown origin, it seemingly first appeared online in 2011, was rapidly included in numerous websites and blogs devoted to cryptozoology and to mysterious phenomena in general, and engendered much bemusement and controversy as to whether or not it was genuine, particularly as the thunderbird in it was a pterodactyl rather than a bird. Happily, however, when American student and ardent cryptozoological researcher Jay Cooney saw it, he realised that it looked familiar to him, so he conducted an internet image search of pterodactyl models. And sure enough, in one particular online stock-photo library he succeeded in finding a photograph of a model of the late Jurassic pterosaur Pterodactylus (click here to see it) that corresponded precisely with the pterodactyl in the supposed thunderbird photo. The latter's image had been lifted directly from the online stock photo of the Pterodactylus model. Another alleged thunderbird photograph duly discredited. Congratulations to Jay for his astute discovery – click here to access his own full coverage of it in his excellent Bizarre Zoology blog.

The hoaxed thunderbird photograph exposed by Jay Cooney (creator/s unknown)

LOOKING FOR THE LOST WITH A SEARCH THROUGH SAGA

While researching for my book In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, published in 1995 and containing a large section dealing with thunderbirds, I decided to conduct some investigations of my own concerning this elusive picture.

I began them by focusing my attention upon Saga. This is an American magazine that has published many cryptozoological articles and illustrations over the years, and was deemed by longstanding thunderbird photo seekers such as the late W. Ritchie Benedict and the late Mark Chorvinsky to be a promising source of such a picture.

As there does not appear to be a complete or even near-complete run of this magazine on file in any British library, I contacted the Library of Congress in Washington DC, whose research specialist, Travis Westly, very kindly agreed to search through every Saga issue published between January 1966 and March 1969 - a likely period during which this type of photo would have been published in Saga. Alas, no such picture was present, nor even a mention of any type of gigantic mystery bird.

THE THUNDERBIRD PHOTO ON TELEVISION?

Another widely-popularised claim that I decided to pursue is that a copy of the thunderbird photo was displayed on television by American cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson during the early 1970s, when appearing as a guest in an episode of the long-running Canadian series 'The Pierre Berton Show'.

Consequently, I contacted the Audio-Visual Public Service division within the National Archives of Canada, to enquire whether a copy of the Sanderson episode in this series had been preserved. Unfortunately, however, I learnt from research assistant Caroline Forcier Holloway that she had been unable to locate this particular episode, and needed a precise production or release date for it in order to continue looking, because there were 597 episodes in this series still in existence, each of which contained more than one guest. Moreover, there were others that seemed to have been lost, so there was no guarantee that the episode containing Sanderson was among the 597 preserved ones anyway.

Ivan T. Sanderson on the cover of his book Ivan Sanderson's Book of Great Jungles (© Julian Messner)

However, one of my correspondents, Prof. Terry Matheson, an English professor at Saskatchewan University with a longstanding interest in the thunderbird photo, claimed in a letter to me of 22 September 1998 that Sanderson appeared on 'The Pierre Berton Show' not in the early 1970s, but actually no later than the mid-1960s. This is because Prof. Matheson vividly remembered seeing this episode and talking about it afterwards with a friend with whom he was working on the Canadian Pacific Railway as a summer job, and he only worked there from 1965 to 1967.  Here is what he wrote:

"The particular episode of the programme...did not take place in the early 1970s. I remember watching the segment dealing with the thunderbird - part of an extended interview Pierre Berton had with Ivan Sanderson - from my home, when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Winnipeg in the mid-1960s. By the 1970s I was in graduate school in Edmonton. I know the programme could not have aired much later than 1965, because I recall discussing it initially with my mother and grandmother, who had also watched the show; with college friends, who made me the subject of much good-natured ridicule; and sometime later with a friend from Calgary whom I had met while employed on the Canadian Pacific Railway, as I was (over the summer months) from 1965 to 1967. I cannot recall the precise date of this conversation with my railroad friend, nor can I recollect the date I watched the programme with pinpoint accuracy, but would guess that it aired the winter before my first summer on the railroad, that is, 1964-65; at the very latest, the following year (1965-66). That might be a good place to start."

Prof. Matheson's confident placing of his well-remembered conversations concerning the above TV show within the mid-1960s, coupled with his precisely-dated period of employment on the railway in the 1960s, as well as his undergraduate studies also occurring exclusively in the 1960s, would certainly seem to disprove previous assumptions that this particular show was not screened until the early 1970s - unless, perhaps, it was re-screened at that time, following its original screening in the mid-1960s? However, his letter also contained another notable challenge to traditional assumptions regarding this show:

"To the best of my recollection, the photograph was not shown, at least not on this particular programme. I definitely recall Sanderson's allusions to the photograph, which he described vividly and with great precision. Although I can envision Sanderson's description as if it were yesterday - the bird nailed to the wall of the barn, the men standing in a line spanning the wingspan, etc - he did not, however, have the photograph in his possession when the interview took place, although he certainly claimed to have seen it. Incidentally, some time after this, Sanderson set up a society for the investigation of paranormal phenomena [SITU - the Society for the Investigation of The Unexplained]. I joined, and in response to my inquiry about the photograph, was told that they did not have a copy. Receiving this news led me to wonder at the time if the photograph might be an example of an urban myth or legend."

If, as would now seem to be the case, the thunderbird photo was not shown by Sanderson on 'The Pierre Berton Show' after all, one of the most promising avenues for tracing it - by seeking an existing copy of this specific show - has gone.

URBAN FOLKLORE, OR FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME?

Perhaps, therefore, as sceptics have often suggested, the thunderbird photo has never existed at all, and should therefore be dismissed as nothing more than an example of urban folklore. Having said that, there are others, including myself, who wonder whether at least some of those people who claim to have seen it have actually seen a superficially similar picture, depicting some large but known species of bird with wings outstretched, and years later have mis-remembered what they saw, erroneously believing that they had actually seen the thunderbird photo. Such an event would be a classic case of false memory syndrome.

Interestingly, one photograph that could certainly have inspired people to believe that they had seen the genuine thunderbird photo is one of a large marabou stork held with its beak open and its massive wings outstretched by some native men, reproduced at the beginning of this present ShukerNature post and again below. Tellingly, it appeared in a number of popular books worldwide during the early 1970s, including none other than the Guinness Book of Records, which at that time was second only to the Bible as the world's bestselling book, so was certainly seen by a vast number of people around the globe.

The iconic – and highly influential? – marabou stork image (public domain)

I first proposed the marabou stork picture as a possible false memory trigger in relation to the real thunderbird photo (always assuming, of course, that the latter image really does/did exist!) way back in 1993 - in a letter sent to Bob Rickard at Fortean Times on 15 February 1993 and in one sent to Mark Chorvinsky at Strange Magazine on 2 July 1993. My letter to Mark was subsequently published by Strange Magazine in its Fall/Winter 1993 issue (for a comprehensive Strange Magazine article of mine on this same subject, check out its December 1998 issue) . Here is what I wrote in my letter:

"Numerous people around the world believe that at one time or another they have seen the notorious "missing thunderbird photograph," allegedly published within a Tombstone Epitaph newspaper report in 1886 (see Strange Magazines #5, 6, 7, 11). In view of its extraordinary elusiveness, however, in many cases it is much more likely that their assumption is founded upon a confused, hazily recalled memory of some other, superficially similar picture instead – i.e. a "lookalike" photograph. A particularly noteworthy "lookalike" for the missing thunderbird photograph appeared on p. 35 of the British version of the Guinness Book of Records (19^th edition, published in 1972), and is reproduced alongside this letter of mine. It depicts a large African marabou stork Leptoptilus crumeniferus standing upright with its extremely large wings (which can yield a wingspan in excess of 10 ft.) held outstretched by some native tribesmen flanking it, and with its startlingly pterodactyl-like beak open wide. This picture thus incorporates a number of features supposedly present in the thunderbird photograph – a very big bird with a pointed pterodactyl-like head, and an extremely large wingspan, whose wings are outstretched, and flanked by various men. Bearing in mind that the photo is a very old one (possibly dating back to the first half of this century [i.e. the 20^th Century]), and also that the Guinness Book of Records is a worldwide bestseller, and that this photo might well have appeared not only in the English version but also in many (if not all) of this book's other versions around the world [as far as I am aware, the same picture layout does indeed appear in all versions worldwide within any given year], it is evident that countless people will have seen it over the years, of which some may well have been unconsciously influenced by its striking (indeed, archetypal) image when contemplating the issue of the missing thunderbird photograph."

It is not even the only such photo of a marabou stork in existence either. Below is a second, albeit slightly less evocative one, which appeared in a book by Richard Tjader entitled The Big Game of Africa, and published in 1910:

Another photo of a marabou stork held with wings outstretched, this time from Richard Tjader's book The Big Game of Africa (public domain)

Returning to Prof. Matheson's letter to me, he raised an equally thought-provoking but very different point concerning false memory syndrome and the thunder bird photo:

"Although your suggestion that people's memories of a similar photograph might have been confused with that of the thunderbird is entirely possible, as I'm sure you know, Sanderson was a great raconteur, a man whose verbal gifts could cause anyone to imagine that they had actually seen something he had only described in words. Indeed, many years after watching the programme, I met an individual who had also seen the Berton interview and was initially positive that the picture had been shown."

Yes indeed, the power of verbal suggestion. Wars have been instigated as a result of the mesmerising oratory skills of certain leaders, let alone belief that a picture had been shown on a television programme when in reality no such appearance had occurred.

Incidentally, the December 1997 issue of Fortean Times not only contained a detailed account of modern-day thunderbird reports by veteran American cryptozoologist Mark Hall but also included a succinct account of my suggestion that the marabou stork photo in the Guinness Book of Records 1972 edition may have influenced some people in their belief that they had seen the missing thunderbird photo. Deftly combining our separate contributions to the subject, this issue's front cover duly sported a breathtaking illustration by artist Steve Kirk of a marabou stork-inspired thunderbird!

The spectacular marabou stork-inspired thunderbird artwork gracing the cover of the December 1997 issue of Fortean Times (© Steve Kirk/Fortean Times)

GOING BACK TO THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE MYSTERY

Elsewhere in his letter, Prof. Matheson mentioned a line of investigation of his own that he had conducted in relation to the thunderbird photograph, and highlighted a fascinating and extremely pertinent fact, but one that seems to have attracted little or no attention from other investigators. What he did was to go right back to the starting point of the entire mystery – by writing directly to the Tombstone Epitaph, and enquiring whether such a picture had indeed ever appeared in their newspaper:

"In an interesting reply, they both denied any knowledge of the picture and also pointed out that the reproduction of photographs in newspapers was at that time – the late nineteenth century – not common anywhere in North America. In checking our local newspaper – the Winnipeg Free Press – to see if this was the case, I found that photographs rarely if ever appeared before the early 1900s, at least in that newspaper."

So is the thunderbird photograph fictitious, illusive rather than elusive, nothing more than a fable of our times, perpetuated into the present day by false memory syndrome – inspired in turn by visual lookalikes and seductive verbal suggestion?

Or, against all the odds, might it truly be real? Could there actually be a missing thunderbird photo, concealed in some old, yellowing magazine somewhere?

Next time that you clean out your attic and find a pile of dusty mags there, have a look through them before you throw them out – just in case. You never know what you may discover inside! And needless to say, if you do find the thunderbird photograph, be sure to contact me and let me see it!

I wish to dedicate this ShukerNature blog post to the memory of the late Mark Chorvinsky, the founder and editor of Strange Magazine and a wonderful friend to me, whose encouragement, friendship, and support during my formative years as a cryptozoological researcher and writer boosted my confidence and credibility enormously. Thank you always, Mark.

For plenty of additional information concerning putative modern-day thunderbirds, be sure to check out my book In Search of Prehistoric Survivors.

OGLING THE OGRIDGE, OUTDOORS AND ONLINE - IDENTIFYING A LONGSTANDING MYSTERY BIRD OF MINE

Chukar (top left), ogridge (middle right), and red-legged partridge (bottom left) - click to enlarge (original illustration source/copyright holder unknown to me, but illustration featured in Bird Watching, February 1988)

As I've mentioned elsewhere on ShukerNature, even as a child I enjoyed cutting out and saving newspaper articles reporting unusual or controversial animals. Pasted in a series of scrapbooks, these humble offerings were the foundation of what gradually expanded during subsequent years into what is now my personal and still-expanding archive of material on cryptozoology and animal anomalies.

One of these early documents was a short newspaper report concerning a supposedly new type of bird dubbed the ogridge. Back in those very early, formative years as a budding cryptozoological archivist, however, my youthful zeal for saving such reports was not always matched by my remembering to note their complete bibliographical details. And so it was with this particular cutting: I'd noted down that it had appeared on 16 November 1972, but I'd neglected to record the name of the newspaper that had published it. However, I do recall that the newspaper in question was one of two London-based red-top tabloids – either the Sun or the Daily Mirror. So if I ever do need a full reference for it, this shouldn't be too difficult to track down.

Anyway, the report itself reads as follows:

THE OGRIDGE

New birds are rare these days but one new bird is the ogridge. The ogridge is bred from the partridge but its markings are a lot bigger and bolder. It is gentle, unlike a mere partridge which pecks other birds to death out of sheer boredom. And, to top it all, the ogridge is a much better sport. Partridges walk away from the gun. The ogridge knows better – it flies. The ogridge has been bred by Lincolnshire game breeders, Ormsby Games. They said yesterday that it is in great demand, with day-old chicks selling at 80p. After all, ogridges may be harder to shoot, but they're easier to live with.

Obviously, the notion of a new bird greatly intrigued me, and in the years that followed I sought to discover more about this avian novelty, seeking references to it in books, journals, library archives, etc, but all to no avail. Not a mention of the ogridge could be found by me anywhere (this was of course back in those grim, dark years before the instantly-available plethora of online information proffered by the internet existed!). So recalcitrantly elusive was the enigmatic ogridge, coupled by the somewhat whimsical, tongue-in-cheek write-up of the lone newspaper report on it that I had preserved back in 1972, that I eventually began to wonder if it was nothing more than a journalistic joke, created to amuse its readers but not to be taken seriously.

It was now the late 1980s, and one day I was browsing through some books in a local charity shop when I noticed a pile of magazines nearby. Idly flicking through them, I came upon a few issues of Bird Watching. Knowing that this magazine often carries reports and articles concerning rarities sighted in Britain or elsewhere, I started looking through them. One was the February 1988 issue, and as I thumbed through its pages I came upon an article by Ian Wallace entitled 'Whirring Wings and Cackles', whose subject was partridges in Britain. And there, in a full-colour plate depicting the various types of partridge on record from the U.K., was a portrait of…an ogridge!

Red-legged partridges (© Archibald Thorburn, 1915)

Needless to say, I lost no time in purchasing this precious publication that had verified the reality of the evanescent ogridge, and when I read the full article back home I discovered that it was a specially-bred hybrid of the red-legged partridge Alectoris rufa (a non-native species originally introduced into Great Britain from France in 1673 as an additional game bird to the native grey partridge Perdix perdix, and which has been successfully breeding here since 1790 in a fully-naturalised state) and the chukar A. chukar (another foreigner, native to Asia and southeastern Europe, and first introduced into Britain as yet another target for game bird shooters in 1972 – along with releases of its hybrid progeny, the ogridge).

Chukar (© Mdf/Wikipedia GNU FDL)

The mystery was finally solved. The ogridge did indeed exist, and was a red-leg x chukar crossbreed. However, as I learnt from Wallace's article, it was also something of an albatross – metaphorically speaking! – in that it had proved to be a rather undesirable addition to the British avifauna. This was because the red-legged partridge's gene pool here was becoming increasingly diluted by such hybridisation, the resulting interspecific gene flow potentially threatening the continuing existence of Britain's pure-bred red-leg stock, the latter now having to compete for survival with both the chukar and their crossbred creation the ogridge (which apparently was expected to be sterile but subsequently proved otherwise). Certainly in recent years red-leg numbers in Britain have declined.

As a result, the licence for permitting the introduction into the wild here of ogridges and pure-bred chukars was not renewed when it expired in October 1988, and all such introductions were officially banned in 1992. However, there are still plenty of both forms out there, especially in southern Britain, and escapes from captivity no doubt also occur from time to time.

Even for twitchers, their presence is problematic, due to their great outward similarities. Indeed, it took several years before any fairly constant plumage differences could be verified – prior to then, even certain birdwatching field-guides were depicting them incorrectly. Perhaps the most evident distinguishing characteristic between red-leg, ogridge, and chukar is their solid-black throat gorget and their throat colour immediately above it.

From left to right: close-up of the head and necklace patterns of the rock partridge Alectoris graeca (not occurring in the UK but native to southeastern Europe and closely related to the chukar and red-leg), chukar, ogridge, and red-leg – click to enlarge it (original illustration source/copyright holder unknown to me, but illustration featured in Bird Watching, February 1988)

In the red-leg, the gorget possesses a deep 'necklace' of speckles immediately below it and predominantly white plumage above it. In the ogridge, conversely, the depth of necklace present below the gorget is much-reduced, whereas immediately above the gorget is a rufous-buff crescent (though as with all hybrids, there is much variation upon this basic theme!). And in the chukar, there is normally no necklace at all below the gorget (though a few necklace-sporting specimens have been recorded), whereas immediately above it is a pronounced rufous-buff crescent.

In spite of its modern-day familiarity to ornithologists and game bird hunters alike, online coverage of the ogridge is surprisingly sparse. When preparing this present ShukerNature article, I could only find a handful of reports appertaining to it, and not a single ogridge illustration anywhere. Consequently, and presumably for the reasons outlined above, the ogridge failed to sustain, or possibly even stimulate, the degree of interest and enthusiasm predicted for it in my newspaper cutting from 1972 – the year in which the first specimens were released into the British countryside.

Not such an easy bird to live with, after all?

Complete colour plate featuring the chukar, ogridge, red-leg, and two other game birds (common quail and grey partridge) – click to enlarge it (original illustration source/copyright holder unknown to me, but plate featured in Bird Watching, February 1988)

GROUSING ABOUT THE RACKELHAHN – A SPECTACULARLY CROSS-TEMPERED CROSSBREED OF THE FEATHERED VARIETY!

19^th-Century painting of a male rackelhahn

Whereas mammals on the whole are somewhat conservative as far as interspecific matings in the wild are concerned (all manner of exotic mammalian hybrids have of course been produced by deliberate captive breeding), birds show far less restraint in such matters, yielding all manner of spectacular crossbred creations. Some of these are famous, some are controversial, but all embody a fascinating montage of mixed morphology, yielding curious combinations of features drawn from both of their parental species so that they are at once similar to yet dissimilar from each of them.

One of my favourite examples of an interspecific avian hybrid (indeed, an intergeneric one if its two progenitor species are retained in the separate genera that they were long accorded before more recently being lumped back together within the same single genus) is not particularly well known outside gamebird hunting circles. Yet it is very distinctive in form as well as being quite large (and hence conspicuous) in size, and often uncompromisingly bellicose in behaviour too. Consequently, I felt that it was high time that this noteworthy bird receive some publicity here on ShukerNature. And so, without further ado, I give you…the rackelhahn.

Taxiderm specimen of a male rackelhahn (© Markus Bühler)

Also known as the rackelhane or rackelwild (all three names are apparently of Swedish origin, derived from the word 'rachla' - meaning 'snoring' or 'wheezing' - and refer to the curious pig-like grunting sounds that it is wont to give voice to in addition to combinations of the calls of both parental species), this interesting interspecific results from matings between two very readily-distinguishable species of grouse.

These are the Western capercaillie Tetrao urogallus and the Eurasian black grouse T. (=Lyrurus) tetrix, both of which occur across much of Europe and yield this hybrid throughout the zones of overlap within their respective distribution ranges, especially in Scandinavia. Having said that: because their ranges have become rather fragmented in modern times due to over-hunting, however, these overlap zones have diminished, and rackelhahn occurrence has decreased accordingly. Hence it is much rarer now than was once the case.

Male and female Eurasian black grouse (above) and male and female Western capercaillie (below)

Bearing in mind that the male capercaillie is considerably larger than the female black grouse, thereby making matings between them both difficult and unlikely, most rackelhahn specimens result from the reverse cross, i.e. between male black grouse and female capercaillies. Rackelhahn specimens also occur in regions where the distribution range of the Eurasian black grouse overlaps with that of the black-billed capercaillie T. urogalloides (native to eastern Russia as well as parts of northern Mongolia and China).

Another taxiderm specimen of a male rackelhahn (© Markus Bühler)

 Although long known to European naturalists (it was listed by Linnaeus back in 1758 when he was compiling his binomial system of nomenclature for plant and animal species), the rackelhahn was deemed by some to be a valid species rather than a hybrid, and thus received various binomial names, including Tetrao medius and T. hybridus (though as can be seen, such names clearly reflected the prevailing thought that it represented a form intermediate between the capercaillie and black grouse), but these were soon abandoned when its true, hybrid nature was confirmed by observations of successful matings in the wild between the two species.

Male rackelhahn, engraving in Alfred Brehm's Animal Life, 1882

Male rackelhahn specimens are much more common than females, but both sexes are apparently eager to mate. The first comprehensive description of the male rackelhahn's form was produced by Adolf Bernhard Meyer, who in 1824 also became the first person to describe the female rackelhahn's form – prior to then, there had only been unconfirmed speculations concerning the latter's appearance. Having said that, however, just like many other interspecific hybrids there is some degree of morphological variation between individual rackelhahn specimens, but in general terms they can be described as follows:

The male is intermediate in size between the larger male capercaillie and the smaller male black grouse, and is mostly dark in colour, with brownish-black shoulders and wings, plus deep metallic blue-purple to copper-red sheens upon its head, its chest, the front of its neck, and sometimes the start of its back too. As in both parental species, it has a white spot upon each shoulder, and some specimens also have white spots upon the upper surface of their tail feathers and/or white tips to their tail feathers' underside. Its eyes' irises are brown, its eyebrow-wattles are bright red, and its beak is blackish-horn in colour. The terminal edge of its tail is semicircular, but sometimes has pronounced curving edges, reminiscent of the male black grouse's famously lyrate tail.

Female rackelhahn (above) and male rackelhahn (below), from Naturgeschichte der Vogel Mitteleuropas by Johann Friedrich Naumann, 1896

Like the male, the female rackelhahn is intermediate in size between the larger female capercaillie and the smaller female black grouse, and can be readily distinguished from both via its blackish-brown plumage, sprinkled with brown, grey, and rust-red. The tail of some specimens has a relatively straight terminal edge like a female capercaillie's tail, whereas in others it is lyrate, like that of a female black grouse.

Male rackelhahn, engraving in Richard Lydekker's The Royal Natural History, 1895

Both the capercaillie and the black grouse exhibit what is known as lekking behaviour. In each species, males congregate together in an aggregation known as a lek, and engage in competitive displays in order to attract females for mating purposes. In areas where male capercaillies have been depleted due to over-hunting, female capercaillies will sometimes enter black grouse leks and mate with these male black grouse, yielding rackelhahn specimens. Sometimes, they will even mate with rackelhahn males, but offspring from these backcrossings have not been verified in the wild, though they have occurred in captivity. Due to the larger size of male capercaillies in relation to rackelhahn males, the latter do not enter capercaillie leks, but display only on the outskirts or margins of such leks.

Conversely, rackelhahn males do sometimes invade black grouse leks, and due to their much larger size and aggressive temperament they have been known to disperse these leks by intimidating and directly attacking, even occasionally killing, some of the male grouse there. They will also kill female black grouse, especially if the latter are indifferent to their advances, showing no inclination to mate with them. Having said that, there are also reports on file of rackelhahn males that have been frightened away by smaller but belligerent male black grouse, so the rackelhahn does not always triumph in such confrontations. Rackelhahn females that have mated with male black grouse have laid eggs, but the hatching of viable offspring from them does not seem to have been confirmed.

A male rackelhahn (© F.C. Robiller/Wikipedia)

A video of a male rackelhahn interloper displaying in a black grouse lek and attacking one of the male black grouse in the lek can be accessed here

An even more pugnacious male rackelhahn can be viewed here fearlessly attacking a hapless cameraman gamely attempting to photograph it!

And here three male rackelhahn specimens can be seen fighting each other in a black grouse lek at Landvik, Grimstad, Norway, on 1 May 1994; a week earlier, this lek had also been visited by a single female capercaillie

Male rackelhahn, taxiderm specimen at the Zoological Institute of the University of Tübingen, Germany (© Markus Bühler)

It has sometimes been said that love is a battleground, and this is certainly true as far as warring, cross-tempered rackelhahn males are concerned!

Male rackelhahn portrayed on a card issued by Suchards Chocolate (© Suchards Chocolate)

Incidentally, the rackelhahn should not be confused with another unusual grouse hybrid, the riporre - which is a hybrid of the Eurasian black grouse and the willow grouse Lagopus lagopus. Here are two riporre specimens from northern Sweden that were documented in 1904 by Dr Einar Lönnberg and had resulted from a successful mating between a male willow grouse and a female black grouse:

THE MENAGERIE OF MARVELS IS HERE!! – MY TRILOGY OF BOOKS ON EXTRAORDINARY ANIMALS IS NOW COMPLETE

My newly-published, 21^st book – The Menagerie of Marvels (© Dr Karl Shuker/CFZ Press)

Until recently, I hadn't fully realised that the vast majority of my 21 published books consist of pairs or trilogies – in most cases, I hadn't planned this, it just seems to have happened.

Thus I have written two books on controversial felids (Mystery Cats of the World and Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery); two on dragons (Dragons: A Natural History and Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture); two specific compilations of articles of mine that originally appeared in the magazines Fate and Fortean Times respectively (From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings and Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo); two non-specific compilations of articles of mine, now updated and expanded but which originally appeared in a range of different magazines (The Beasts That Hide From Man and Mirabilis); two books on general mysteries that were published by Carlton, with the second being a direct sequel to the first (The Unexplained and Mysteries of Planet Earth); and a trilogy on the subject of new and rediscovered animals (The Lost Ark, followed by The New Zoo, and then The Encyclopaedia of New and RediscoveredAnimals).

In addition, there are advanced plans afoot to publish a new, retitled edition of In Search of Prehistoric Survivors; and also an expanded edition of my poetry volume Star Steeds and Other Dreams (as well as a downloadable spoken version of the original edition).

My trilogy of books on the subject of new and rediscovered animals (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Meanwhile, my second trilogy of books is now complete, with the publication of The Menagerie of Marvels, whose subtitle, A Third Compendium of Extraordinary Animals, reveals that it is volume #3 in my series dealing with extraordinary animals from both cryptozoology and mainstream zoology. Its two predecessors were Extraordinary Animals Worldwide and Extraordinary Animals Revisited. But what can you expect to find inside it? Well…

Welcome one and all to my Menagerie of Marvels! Where else would you encounter venomous bis-cobra lizards from India and a never-before-documented flying dragon-lizard from Zimbabwe, minuscule fairy armadillos and clamorous go-away birds, genuine roc feathers and a veritable werewolf paw, whale-headed pseudo-pterodactyls and hammer-headed lightning birds, a park of monsters in Italy and mystery beasts in the Vatican, beech martens in Britain and winged toads in France, an invisible catfish and a dicephalous kestrel, the cryptic comadreja and a controversial Caribbean racoon, reverse mermaids and the music of Ogopogo, Africa's missing marmot and Vespucci's vanished mega-rat, earth hounds, vampire shrews, moonrats, nandinias and Nandi bears, undiscovered ajolotes, bemusing bristle-heads, monumental mammoths, gorilla-sized man-eating baboons and giant rhinoceros-eating terror birds, some fishy lake monsters and duplicitous sea serpents, Rift Valley mystery reptiles, vermiform rock-slicing laser gazers, and so much more too, all within the scenic yet comfortingly-secure confines of a single book?

The Menagerie of Marvels can be purchased on Amazon (click here for direct links to it on the UK and on the USA sites), and there is also a special offer on it if purchased directly from its publisher, CFZ Press (click here). It can also be ordered through all good online and physical bookstores.

So, I hope and trust that you will enjoy your visit to my menagerie, and please do return whenever you wish – its unique collection of extraordinary zoological esoterica and inexplicabilia will always be here to mystify and mesmerise you anew. You have only to step inside...if you dare!

My trilogy of books on extraordinary animals from zoology and cryptozoology (© Dr Karl Shuker)

FLYING TOADS AND FLYING GURNARDS

A flying gurnard, depicted in Marcus Bloch's 12-vol Encyclopedia of Fishes, 1782-95; note its toad-like profile

In my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997), the flying toad in question that I chronicled was the llamhigyn y dwr or Welsh water leaper. At that time, it was popularly assumed to be an obscure yet bona fide legendary creature from traditional Welsh folklore. However, I subsequently learnt that it was almost certainly a modern-day hoax invented during the early 1800s by an inveterate, infamous spinner of yarns and other tall tales called Han Owen, as exposed by CFZ researcher and native Welshman Oll Lewis.

My Flying Toads book alongside my very own flying toad! (© Dr Karl Shuker)

In later years, conversely, as documented and assessed within an entire chapter devoted to them in my newly-published book The Menagerie of Marvels: A Third Compendium of Extraordinary Animals (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2014), I uncovered and received a number of reports featuring mystifying but seemingly genuine creatures variously likened to winged toads, flying toads, or flying frogs that had been reported from the U.K., France, and the Far East, yet which were decidedly different from the famous flying or (more accurately) gliding frogs Rhacophorus spp. of southeast Asia (which are wingless but after leaping from trees can glide through the air for short periods by virtue of their toes' enlarged interdigital webbing membranes acting as mini-parachutes).

A real-life flying frog in gliding mode, as depicted on the cover of the Czech edition of my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (© Dr Karl Shuker)

So bizarre in form are these creatures that they remain unidentified, decades or even centuries after they were first reported. To read about them, check out my new book here. 

My Balinese flying toad, carved from wood and brightly painted (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Just a few days after I sent my book's final version to the publishers and thence to the printers for publication, I received from English bibliographical crypto-sleuth Richard Muirhead (thanks, Richard!) a fascinating newspaper report concerning what was described in it as a flying toad, but this time from the USA. Sadly, the downside was that it was too late for me to include this report in my book, but the upside was that after reading it I felt confident that unlike those in my book, this was one flying toad whose identity I could definitely lay bare.

Here is the text (there were no images) of the report in question, which had appeared on 28 August 1869 in an English newspaper called the Grantham Journal:

"An American paper reports the capture of a flying toad at Cape Henry [on Virginia's Atlantic shore] a few days ago, and says it is now in Washington. It is of most singular conformation and of beautiful variated hues, measuring about six inches in length, with a perfectly flat, bony back, eyes wide spaced and in the centre of a…mouth, and fins as large as wings about the centre of the body on each side."

The reference to the specimen being "now in Washington" suggests that following its capture it was sent to the Smithsonian Institution, so that would seem to be the most promising place to contact in the hope of uncovering further information concerning this strange creature. Having said that, however, I feel sure that we can ascertain its identity with a high degree of probability just from the report alone. For although the above account may sound truly bizarre, it is in fact an accurate description of an extremely distinctive and quite spectacular species of small marine fish – Dactylopterus volitans, the so-called flying gurnard.

Atlantic flying gurnard Dactylopterus volitans with its beautiful wing-like pectoral fins outstretched (© Beckmannjan/Wikipedia GFDL)

Flying gurnards, of which there are several species, are exceptionally difficult to classify. Measuring up to 1 ft long, the Atlantic flying gurnard Dactylopterus volitans (whose distribution along the USA's eastern coast includes Virginia, where the so-called flying toad was captured) and the comparably-sized starry flying gurnard Dactyloptena (=Daicocus) peterseni from the Indo-Pacific are among the most familiar representatives of these curious fishes. Over the course of time, they have been variously categorised with the true gurnards, the sea-robins, and the sea-horses, but are nowadays generally housed in their own suborder within the taxonomic order Scorpaeniformes, or even within an order entirely to themselves. Apart from Dactylopterus volitans, flying gurnards are mostly of Indo-Pacific distribution, and are benthic (bottom-dwelling) species.

Note the unquestionably toad-like appearance of the flying gurnard's head and face (© Marco Chang/Flickr)

Superficially similar to true gurnards but distinguished from them anatomically by subtle differences in the arrangement of their head bones and the spines of their pectoral fins, flying gurnards are characterised by their large, bulky heads encased in hard bone and surprisingly toad-like in appearance when viewed both in profile and face-on; their brightly-coloured, box-shaped bodies, dappled with multi-hued spots; and, above all else, by the enormously enlarged pectoral fins of the adults, expanded like giant, heavily-ribbed fans or paired wings.

Compare this description with that of the 'flying toad' of Cape Henry and it seems evident that they are referring to one and the same creature.

But this is not the only mystery of natural history to feature the flying gurnards. Even more perplexing is whether, in spite of their longstanding 'flying' epithet, these wing-finned fishes ever actually do become airborne.

Flying gurnards, depicted airborne in a chromolithograph from 1893 – but can they really glide through the air?

Back in 1991, I investigated this curious riddle in the first of my trilogy of extraordinary animals books – Extraordinary Animals Worldwide; and returned to it 16 years later in my trilogy's second book – Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007). Here is what I wrote and revealed in that latter book:

Records dating back as far as Greek and Roman times tell of how these attractive fishes are able to launch themselves out of the water and glide over the surface for a notable distance, just like the better known ‘flying fishes’ (Exocoetus spp.), before plunging back down into the sea again, and even compared their gliding with that of swallows. According to early authorities such as Salvianus, Belon, and Rondelet, the reason for this behaviour was to escape predators in the water (even though by leaping out of it they surely exposed themselves to the danger of being swooped upon by gulls and other seabirds).

A true flying fish taking off (public domain)

Yet whatever the reason for gliding, for a long time there seemed no reason to doubt that they did glide. There are numerous reports on record from schooners and other ocean-going vessels, recounting the impressive sight of whole schools of these colourful sea creatures suddenly breaking through the surface of the sea and gliding for up to 300 ft or more on their varicoloured outstretched pectorals, before sinking back beneath the waves, only to be replaced by a second school, and then by a third, and so on, in a breathtaking display of piscean aerobatics.

One of the chief reasons for subsequent scepticism arose from a grave error by naturalist H.N. Moseley and fellow researchers aboard the late 19th Century research vessel Challenger. Their reports testified to the frequent occurrence of schools of flying gurnards rising up out of the water and gliding past on wing-like pectorals; tragically, however, it was later shown that they had misidentified these fishes. Instead of flying gurnards, they had been the true Exocoetus flying fishes! Naturally, this did not help the flying gurnard’s case. Since then, the general consensus has been that flying gurnards are too heavy and cumbersome even to lift themselves up out of the water, much less to soar above it. Not everyone, however, is convinced by this.

Drawing of an Oriental flying gurnard Dactyloptena orientalis (public domain)

During communications with distinguished ichthyologist Dr Humphrey Greenwood, I learnt that he once saw a single flying gurnard (probably a Dactyloptena orientalis) glide up out of the disturbed waters at the bows of a small tug moving slowly in shallow water (about 10 ft deep) off the Indo-Pacific island of Inhaca, in Maputo Bay. Dr Greenwood stressed that when the fish emerged, it did become airborne, and that its passage through the air seemed to be supported by its spread pectoral fins (spanning roughly 8 in). The movement genuinely appeared to be a controlled glide, tracing more of a gentle parabola than the sharp, uncontrolled, haphazard leap out of and back into the water that many authorities consider to be the very most that could be expected of such fishes, especially benthic types like the flying gurnards. Greenwood believes that the reason for his fish’s uncharacteristic occurrence in shallow water was most likely disturbance by the noisy, water-displacing passage of the tug, the fish ascending to the sea’s surface as an escape response.

Correspondingly, it seems reasonable to assume that although the flying gurnards’ lifestyle is one that does not normally involve gliding, their pectoral fins can sustain it if some exceptional circumstance should arise to warrant such activity. Yet until precisely monitored (preferably filmed) observations of flying gurnards engaged in purposeful gliding are (if ever) obtained, it is likely that their aerial capability will continue to be dismissed as (in every sense of the expression) a pure flight of fancy.

A flying toad of the photoshopped variety!

For more cases and information concerning supposed winged toads and other alleged amphibians of the aerial variety, and to complete your extraordinary animals trilogy, be sure to check out my newly-published book The Menagerie of Marvels: A Third Compendium of Extraordinary Animals.