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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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)