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.
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…
Thanks for posting, I don't think I've ever seen those 2 sketches before. The Congolese water elephant sounds interesting, reminds me of those prehistoric elephant species and elephant ancestors I've seen Moth Light Media, PBS Eons and other YouTube channels specialising in obscure and weird prehistoric animals sometimes cover.
ReplyDeleteHi Simon, No, you won't have ever seen these sketches of mine before, because this is the very first time that I've ever published them, either online or in hard copy form - until now, they'd been hidden away in a folder ever since I prepared them way back in the mid-/late 1970s.
DeleteHello, Dr. Shuker! I haven't commented on here before, but I'm a huge fan of your blog and it's always wonderful to see a new post here.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that you posted this now, because I happened to just see another bit of recently rediscovered cryptid-related media just before this: David Attenborough's 1975 show "Fabulous Animals" was posted online a couple of days ago. I've only watched the first episode so far, but it's a nice look at a few different cryptids (including at least one I've never heard of and can't find anything else about--the name of it sounded like "the Sue" but unfortunately that's a bit hard to find further info on), and I thought it might be something you'd be interested in.
Hi Kevin, Thanks so much for letting me know that the full series of Fabulous Animals has been posted on YouTube - I've been waiting 49 years to watch this show again, as it's never been repeated since its original screening in 1975, though I do still own its official companion book. The mystery animal that you're interested in is known as the su or succurath, not to be confused withj the succubus.
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