TONGUE-TIED BY THE TWO-TONGUES!

 

Is this what Malaya's mystifying two-tongued cryptids looked like? (created by me using Grok)

The days spanning Christmas and the New Year are traditionally ones filled with mystery and magic, a time of weirdness and wonder. So what better day than today, New Year's Eve, to present here on ShukerNature for your entertainment and enjoyument during this time the following cryptozoological conundrum?

In 1997, I included the following account in my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings, hoping that someone reading it might be able to propose an identity for the mysterious creatures described, as I was thoroughly perplexed by them – but no-one ever did. Consequently, I can only assume that these cryptids left them as taxonomically tongue-tied as they have done with me. Nor have I ever uncovered any additional information concerning them. So, 26 years later, in 2023, I reprinted my account in my regular Alien Zoo column on mystery animals and animal mysteries for the British magazine Fortean Times as a fascinating crypto-riddle to ponder over during the festive season, just in case it did elicit a solution from someone that time. Once again, however, answer came there none.

 

My book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (© Dr Karl Shuker/Llewellyn Publications)

Consequently, one year on from its appearance in Alien Zoo, and in the hope that the familiar phrase ""third time lucky" will indeed prove true on this occasion, here yet again is the my account recalling the tangled tale of the two-tongues, in case ShukerNature's redoubtable readers can provide the long-sought key to its locked box of beastly secrets:

On May 27 1939, Modern Wonder documented some 'ultra-mysterious' mammals, allegedly captured by a photographer in the Malayan jungles and later observed by bemused officials in Manila, in the Philippines. Each of the beasts (of unrecorded number) was described as being quadrupedal, weighing about 200 pounds, covered in a furry, mole-like pelage (i.e. dark, dense, and shiny?), with a raccoon-like head [masked?], a pair of owl-like eyes (thus large and staring?), and odd dentition - some of its teeth resembled a man's, others were cat-like – plus a fondness for bananas. Except for their extremely heavy weight (an error on the part of the original report?), there would seem to be a chance of identifying them with some known animal type – until, that is, their most distinctive characteristic is revealed.

For the description also stated that each of these beasts had two tongues! Furthermore, it alleged that they never drank, because they absorbed all of the moisture that they required directly through their skins. This is generally a feature of certain animals living in water or in moist habitats, but the animals concerned are normally amphibians, fishes, and lower life forms, not mammals. Conversely, it is true that many desert-dwelling rodents rarely if ever drink water, because they obtain it from their food (e.g. juicy plant tissues) or from metabolic water released as they digest the dry components of their diet, but they do not absorb water through their skins.

 

 

Masked palm civet Paguma larvata, native to Peninsular Malaysia, named after its raccoon-like facial mask (© Denise Chan/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)

In general appearance (and excluding weight), they are reminiscent of some of the lesser-known, mask-faced forms of Malay civet and badger – elusive, short-furred creatures of nocturnal lifestyle and partial to fruit within their largely omnivorous diet. Moreover, the owl-like eyes call to mind the tarsiers - those orb-eyed, sucker-fingered, lemur-like primates indigenous to southeast Asia (including the Malay Archipelago), and sufficiently strange in appearance to those not familiar with these rarely-seen nocturnal creatures to attract surprise and newspaper attention.

 

Sunda stink (=skunk) badger Mydaus javanensis, native to Indonesia and Malaysia, photographed in Malaysia (© Thompson Hyggen – copyright-free)

Even so, none of those identities can reconcile the mystery beasts' two tongues and the ability to absorb moisture directly through their skins. Could these attributes have been based upon misunderstanding or mistranslation, rather than upon reality? As nothing more is on record regarding the photographer's mystifying finds, there is no way of knowing. 

 

Tarsiers are nothing if not goblinesque, even otherworldly, in appearance, especially to anyone unfamiliar with these curious yet harmless creatures (© LDC Inc Foundation/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence / (© Pieere Fidenci/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)

So there it is, the owl-eyed, twin-tongued, never-drinking plantain-eater – if nothing else (and confirming that I'm easily pleased!), it scans satisfyingly like the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater immortalised in a classic 1958 Sheb Wooley novelty song and 30 years later in a 1988 family movie directly inspired by it!

 

Failing abysmally in my attempts to generate a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater, here's a two-eyed, two-horned flying purple people eater instead! (created by me using MagicStudio)

Meanwhile, any thoughts or suggestions as to the two-tongues' possible identity, or any extra reports/information regarding them, would be very gratefully received!

 

A two-tongue with a banquet of bananas awaiting its pleasure! (created by me using Grok)

Incidentally, as some of you know, I've been experimenting with various AI image-generators, testing their capabilities and limitations so as to be better equipped to recognise AI-generated fake cryptozoologically-themed images with which the Net seems to be increasingly awash of late. So, as no image of the Malayan two-tongues has ever been created to my knowledge, I decided to put to the test two different AI image-generators that I've been exploring, Grok and MagicStudio, and see how they performed when prompted to produce pictures of these bizarre beasts.

And, as I'm sure that those out there who are not AI fans will be delighted to learn, both programs were aptly rendered tongue-tied (or whatever the AI equivalent state is!) by the tortuous challenge posed by the two-tongues. Not only did they fail utterly to depict them as the very sizeable animals that anything weighing 200 lb must surely be (instead presenting what look far more like diminutive cubs!), but also, out of all the numerous images that they generated, only one, produced by Grok, actually featured creatures possessing two tongues apiece – and here it is:

 

A pair of two-tongues actually depicted with two tongues! (created by me using Grok)

Overall, Grok was the superior creator with regard to this particular pictorial task, as it also created a number of images featuring creatures with a single but bilobed tongue that my own digital addition of a hand-drawn line separating the lobes into two separate tongues was sufficient to engender some satisfactory twin-tongued entities that I've included in this article. Even so, they still did not overly resemble the original 1977 verbal description of these creatures, quoted by me above.

As for MagicStudio: usually a very accurate depicter of animals (give or take some extra or deformed fingers/toes and the occasional additional leg, or two...): faced with providing an accurate portrayal of the two-tongues, it threw a veritable generative gasket, and yielded some illustrations of animals that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the two-tongues' verbal description. It even garbled my prompt for their tongues to be pink, bestowing upon its mixed-up mammals some portions of pink fur instead! However, albeit wholly inaccurate zoologically speaking, aesthetically some of the creatures thus created by MagicStudio were so attractive, appealing, and downright adorable that I couldn't bear to delete them. So here is a selection of them, in all of their delightful dottiness:

 

All three images created by me using MagicStudio

If nothing else, designers of prospective new cuddly toys could do a lot worse than be inspired by some of these ultra-cute beasties. You can pay me my 10% creator's commission later!

Today would have been the birthday of Nan, my maternal grandmother Gertrude Timmins (who once experienced a decidedly Fortean event of her own – click here to read all about it), who passed away peacefully in her sleep at the grand old age of 99 back in 1994. Just like me, and also like her daughter, my mother Mary Shuker, Nan loved wildlife and Nature in general, so I'm sure that she would have approved of my writing and presenting this fascinating fauna case here today on her birthday. God bless you Nan, and Mom, and all of my family, all of whom are long gone now but never forgotten by me. Ome day we shall be back together, never to be separated again.

 

My late grandmother, Gertrude Timmins, with Patch, my little wire-haired Jack Russell terrier (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Wishing all of my ShukerNature blog readers, and all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog readers too, a Happy New Year – may 2025 prove to be a kindly, successful year for you.

 

And it's toodle-pip from the two-tongues too! (created by me using Grok)

 

 

REVIEWING RAZORTOOTH, A DECIDEDLY FISHY MONSTER MOVIE - AND NOT FORGETTING FRANKENFISH TOO!

 

My official Lionsgate Region 1 DVD of Razortooth (© Patricia Harrington/Gravedigger Films/Capital Art Entertainment (CAE)/PUSH/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Genetically-modified beasts, i.e. creatures converted from the mundane into the monstrous by mad scientists of the kind beloved by film audiences and directors alike for over a century now, have long been a staple theme in science fiction movies, and the two examples reviewed and mini-reviewed respectively here, both of which are of the piscean persuasion, are definitely no exception to this trend.  So as 2024 winds down on this, its final day, why not wind down too by leisurely perusing these cinematic offerings originally penned by me for my sister blog Shuker In MovieLand? Unless of course you're an ichthyophobe, whereupon the time to look away is right now!

My movie watch almost exactly a year ago, on 20 December 2023, was my long-owned but previously-unviewed Lionsgate Region 1 DVD of Razortooth, in order to find out at long last just how very far short this horror/monster movie would fall in comparison to what I'd always naturally assumed was the extreme visual hyperbole of its DVD's ultra-dramatic front cover illustration (which opens this present ShukerNature blog article) – only to discover to my great surprise that, if anything, the actual movie was even more OTT than said illustration!!

Directed by Patricia Harrington, and released in 2007 by CAE/PUSH, Razortooth is on the surface just another of those numerous modern-day CGI-laden creature features in which a group of diverse people are brought together in a shared spine-chilling experience of a horrific monster on the rampage. The latter usually constitutes either a freakishly large or genetically-altered mutant individual of a known present-day species or some gargantuan prehistoric horror retrieved from the distant past either directly via time-travel or once again via genetic manipulation.

Said monster then systematically slaughters in a variety of different (but usually gory) means virtually every human character in the movie, steadily devouring its way up the cast list from bit-part players to supporting characters and then, finally, confronting the leads in a grand do-or-die climactic battle before expiring with just enough screen time left for the surviving leads to exchange some light banter before the credits roll.

In Razortooth, the titular monster is a genetically-modified Asian swamp eel (much more about which later) of huge size and voracious appetite that has escaped into the Florida Everglades from the laboratory that engineered it, and now is diligently decimating everything and everyone that it encounters there – escaped convicts, Irish wolfhound, teenage canoeists, they all suffer the same gruesome fate, albeit executed in an array of imaginative splatter fests. Incidentally, I should warn you that this particular movie contains far more blood and gore than is usual for a low-budget modern-day creature feature of the Syfy-similar genre, which is why it holds an R rating certificate in the States, so beware.

Normally at this point I'd present my own précis of the plot, but in this case the latter is so generic, and also because there is one particular aspect of the movie, a zoological aspect, that I'd much prefer devoting the majority of this review to (especially as it does not appear to have been covered by anyone else whose reviews I've read), I've elected to save time and space by simply quoting instead a very succinct, accurate summary of it penned by Brazilian viewer Claudio Carvalho that I encountered on IMDb's Razortooth entry, so here it is:

Two prisoners escape through the swamp land in Everglades and the search party is attacked by a giant mutant eel and is considered missing. The Animal Control agent Delmar Coates is searching [for] a missing dog with his ex-wife Sheriff Ruth Gainey-Coates and he discovers the remains of the animal. Meanwhile members of a canoe club organize an expedition through the swamp. When Sheriff Ruth organizes a manhunt to capture the criminals, Delmar informs that his former friend, Dr. Soren Abramson, who is chasing the eel with a group of college students, is the [person] responsible for [this] mutant species [sic – specimen]. Sheriff Ruth organizes two teams to hunt the prisoners and the eel.

The two lead characters are Delmar Coates (played by Doug Swander) and Sheriff Ruth Gainey-Coates (Kathleen LaGue), so it will come as no surprise to learn that they are still standing, just about, by the time that we reach this movie's big, explosive finish – and I do mean big, and explosive!! What may indeed come as a surprise, conversely, is spotting a familiar face playing one of the lesser characters – yes indeed, Josh Gad (playing ill-fated Jay Wells), in one of his earliest big-screen roles before going on to the likes of Pixels with Adam Sandler, Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast, and the voice of Olaf the snowman in Frozen, among many others.

 

Eyeballing the razortooth: not a sight that you'd ever want to see close-up – or from any distance, for that matter! Please click composite picture to enlarge individual photos in it for viewing (© Patricia Harrington/Gravedigger Films/Capital Art Entertainment (CAE)/PUSH/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

But now, let's move on to what for me was the all-important feature of this monster movie – the specific zoological nature of the razortooth!! (Curiously, despite someone in the production company having specifically devised this memorable moniker for it, I don't actually recall 'razortooth' being employed anywhere within the film, other than as its title). As I mentioned earlier, this creature is supposed to be a genetically-modified, super-sized mutant specimen of a genuine species known zoologically as the Asian swamp eel Monopterus albus.

Native to shallow, muddy freshwater wetlands across eastern and southeastern Asia, this air-breathing eel-shaped species (but a synbranchid rather than a true eel), measuring only a very modest 3 ft or less, has indeed been introduced into the USA – beginning during the 1990s in Georgia, from where they themselves migrated into the Florida Everglades (their air-breathing ability enabling them to move overland in limited fashion if the land in question is water-saturated, but not if dry).

Due to the deleterious effect that its presence is having upon various native crayfish species, however, the Asian swamp eel is nowadays deemed an invasive species in these States, with attempts being made to control its burgeoning numbers and physically remove specimens where possible.

Needless to say, however it does not exist in any kind of mutant, extra-large version, and in any case this species confines itself to a diet of aquatic worms and insects, frogs, fishes, terrapin eggs, and crustaceans – as opposed to gorging itself upon humans and wolfhounds! But these are not the only major differences between the real Asian swamp eel and its monstrous movie counterpart.

Although much was made during the film regarding the disturbing nature of its true-life invasive presence in Florida's Everglades, in terms of its morphology the Asian swamp eel is nothing remotely frightening or dangerous, possessing only small, inconspicuous jaws and a totally smooth, featureless body. So how was this innocuous creature going to play the central role of a bloodthirsty terror? By not only greatly increasing its size but also appending to it some decidedly horrific characteristics purloined from various real but visually hideous piscean predators, that's how?

As a zoologist, moreover, I could readily recognize which predators had been utilized, and they were all from a specific taxonomic family of deepsea marine fishes – Stomiidae, the barbelled dragonfishes.

Totally unrelated to swamp eels, but once again only a few feet long at most (usually a lot less), these dragonfishes exist in several visibly different types, and it looks as if certain specific characteristics sampled from three of these types were deftly combined with the elongate body of the Asian swamp eel to yield the murderous razortooth of this movie, as I duly demonstrate below via the following series of comparative illustrations:

 

From top to bottom: the Asian swamp eel Monopterus albus; the viperfish Chauliodus sp.; the black dragonfish Idiacanthus atlanticus; Alcock's boatfish Stomias nebulosus; and the composite result, the razortooth; please click  picture to enlarge individual images for viewing purposes (top four pix public domain; razortooth composite pic © Dr Karl Shuker)

As can readily be seen from this comparison: if the viperfish's head and jaws brimming with javelinesque teeth, the black dragonfish's nearly membrane-less spiny dorsal fin (but extended along the eel's entire dorsal surface, not just the posterior half of it as in the dragonfish), and the boatfish's unusual arrowhead-like dorsal and ventral pre-terminal fins are added to the Asian swamp eel, the result is the razortooth. Apparently, Jeff Farley, the special effects expert who worked on Babylon 5, created the razortooth, so he had evidently conducted some sound ichthyological research during this process.

Moreover, there is no doubt that for much of the time, whether in the water or on land, or even when it slithers up into trees, the razortooth is impressive enough to keep the viewer's eyes glued to the screen, but most especially when it is very rapidly undulating horizontally in dramatic whiplash manner as it pursues its human prey on land, thus adopting the same mode of movement that snakes utilize.

The big problem comes from this monster's body size, which is anything but constant. One moment the razortooth is so huge that it rears vertically above the water like a latter-day plesiosaur from those now-dated prehistoric animal books from the 1960s and 70s that habitually portrayed these aquatic reptiles as swan-necked. The next moment it is small enough and narrow enough to swim up through the exit pipe of a toilet or shower unit in order to seize hold of the unsuspecting, hapless human utilizing said facility. Then suddenly it's big enough again to bite a man in half, or to be wrestled with by the redoubtable Delmar, and so on…

By way of mitigation for such morphological inconstancy, at one point scientist Dr Abramson (Simon Page) tells his students about how flexible the muscular bodies of eels are, enabling them to squeeze through holes and crevices ostensibly too small for this to be possible. That is true, but there are limits, even for a mutant eel ('mutant' being another oft-utilised get-out-of-jail card in monster movies for explaining seemingly impossible feats performed by the monster in question!).

Anyway, such quibbles aside, and if you're not hoping for any in-depth characterization of the mega-eel's numerous victims either, Razortooth is certainly an enjoyable creature feature (unless you're not only ichthyophobic but also haemophobic!). And unlike many of its oh-so-serious contemporaries in this genre, it even purposefully includes a blacker shade of black vein of tongue-in-cheek humour running through it, but without descending to spoof or parody levels. Monster movie purists may well hate this flick, of course, but at least its choice of animal antagonist makes an interesting, diverting change from the more usual giant invertebrates, prehistoric survivors, and belligerent ape-men that tend to dominate this cinematic category.

Razortooth is currently available to watch free of charge on YouTube, so if you'd like to do so, just click here. Or click here if you'd simply like to watch an official trailer for it.

 

No escape from the razortooth – whether in the water, out of the water, on dry land, or even up a tree, it's gonna get ya! Please click composite picture to enlarge individual photos in it for viewing (© Patricia Harrington/Gravedigger Films/Capital Art Entertainment (CAE)/PUSH/Lionsgate – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Several months after viewing Razortooth, I purchased and watched in quick succession another monster movie with genetically-engineered mega-fishes as its animal antagonists. This movie was the aptly-entitled Frankenfish, and here is the mini-review that I wrote about it afterwards:

 

FRANKENFISH

 

My official UK DVD of Frankenfish (© Mark A.Z. Dippé/Columbia TriStar/Syfy – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 16 May 2024, I watched my recently-purchased DVD of the 20-year-old TV monster movie Frankenfish.

Directed by Mark A.Z. Dippé, and released in 2004 by Columbia TriStar for the TV channel Syfy), Frankenfish is a very generic MM, and is all about some huge, voracious, genetically-modified Chinese (aka northern) snakehead fishes Channa argus that have been let loose into a Louisiana bayou where they wreak bloodthirsty havoc upon its alligators and human inhabitants alike. (In real life conversely, this gourami-related species does not exceed 5 ft long at most, and is usually less than 4 ft.)

Consequently, the appropriately-named Sam Rivers (played by Tory Kittle), a medical examiner, is dispatched to the besieged bayou, together with biologist Mary Callaghan (China Chow), only to discover that they have as big a battle on their hands with the locals' firmly-ingrained superstitions and faith in black magic solutions to the situation as they do with the monsters themselves – which lose no time in picking off the humans, one by one...

 

A real Chinese (northern) snakehead (public domain)

Amusingly, whoever wrote the DVD's back-cover blurb presumably had no idea what a snakehead is and was therefore led badly astray by its name (and had apparently not even watched the movie itself, in which snakeheads are accurately described).

For the blurb writer described the movie's monsters as being not only "massive, genetically-engineered, flesh-eating fish" but also as having been "scientifically bred with a deadly snake"! Now that's a monster movie I'd definitely pay good money to watch!!

As for this one, the monster fishes when seen briefly out of the water are ok, but as the main storyline takes place almost entirely at night, I didn't see as much of them as I'd like to have done. But in compensation, there is a very unexpected and entertainingly chilling closing scene to look out for, featuring the ever-troublesome character Dan (Matthew Rauch).

If you'd like to watch an official Frankenfish trailer, please click here to view one on YouTube.

 

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.

 

The official American DVD for Frankenfish (© Mark A.Z. Dippé/Columbia TriStar/Syfy – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

MONTEZUMA'S MYSTIFYING WOLF-PUMA – LESSER-KNOWN MEXICAN MYSTERY CATS, PART 3 (OF 3)

 

Life-sized reconstruction of the North American scimitar cat Homotherium serum (© Dr Karl Shuker)

So far, in Parts 1 and 2 (click here and here to read them) of my comprehensive 3-part article on lesser-known Mexican mystery cats, I have documented no fewer than six different examples, incorporating a great deal of valuable information supplied to me on Facebook by Mexican palaeo-artist and cryptozoological enthusiast Hodari Nundu, who is also a longstanding friend of mine on FB. In addition, he has very kindly permitted me to include in my article a number of his exquisite illustrations – thanks Hodari!

And now, here is its third and final part, which deals with one final, seventh feline cryptid from Mexico, but which may conceivably be the most mysterious one of all.

 

THE CUITLAMIZTLI – MONTEZUMA'S WOLF-PUMA

You may have noticed previously in this lengthy article that I have sometimes employed the less specific term 'feline cryptids' (rather than consistently utilising 'mystery cats') when referring to its subjects – and here's why. The subject under consideration here now was apparently feline (i.e. cat-like) in superficial appearance but may not have actually been a bona fide felid (i.e. a cat).

The creature in question is the cuitlamiztli, the mystifying so-called wolf-puma or wolf-cat that was exhibited in the private zoo, the Totocalli, of the Aztec emperor Montezuma (=Moctezuma) II (c.1471-1520) and was seen there by one of the Spanish conquistadors – before their leader Hernán Cortés ruthlessly authorized its total destruction in 1521, along with many other significant buildings and edifices in the Aztec Empire's capital city, Tenochtitlan. But what exactly was it – a wolf, a puma, or something else entirely? Read on, and decide for yourself.

 

Might Montezuma's cryptic 'wolf-cat' have looked something like these? (created by me using MagicStudio)

Here is what I wrote about this enigmatic beast in my book Mystery Cats of the World Revisited:

What may be the earliest known reference to this felid [the onza] (although the term 'onza' was not actually used here) was made by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (c.1496-1584) – under the command of the infamous conquistador Hernán Cortés. In a report some time after having visited the famous zoo of the Aztec king Montezuma, Castillo recorded seeing "tigers [jaguars] and lions [pumas] of two kinds, one of which resembled the wolf". In view of the wolf's long limbs and the corresponding characteristic of the onza, it is traditionally assumed that Castillo's 'wolf-cat' (known to the Aztecs as the cuitlamiztli) was indeed the onza...

 

Artistic representation of Montezuma's wolf-puma as a bona fide felid (© Hodari Nundu

[However,] one further tantalising matter to consider regarding the onza is whether it really is the same creature as the 'wolf-cat' spied by Castillo in Montezuma's zoo. For although one would naturally assume this to be the case, it is by no means conclusively established. After all, despite its long limbs the onza does not really resemble a wolf to any degree. Is it conceivable, therefore, that the Aztec 'wolf-cat' was actually some other, still unknown beast? I would be inclined to dismiss this idea totally – were it not for a certain tantalising fossil species.

Although more closely related to cats, hyaenas are quite dog-like in outward appearance. Moreover, whereas typically looked upon as Old World species, some hyaenas did exist at one time in the Americas too, which leads us into the most fascinating aspect of this subject.

In several different Mexican localities, skeletons have been found of a truly remarkable hyaena, which lived during the Pleistocene, i.e. a contemporary of M. trumani [the now-extinct Truman's cheetah – see Part 2 of this article]. However, this species, the hunting hyaena Chasmaporthetes ossifragus, shared much more than a geological time period and a geographical locality with the latter American felid.

 

Artistic representation of a giant ground squirrel Paenemarmota confronting the hunting hyaena Chasmaporthetes in Pliocene Mexico (© Hodari Nundu)

For C. ossifragus was a cursorial dog-like hyaena – possessing notably long, slender limbs, and a very gracile body. In short, its appearance in life would have been the very epitome of the descriptive term 'wolf-cat'. Is it possible that C. ossifragus did not die out during the Pleistocene, but instead persisted at least to the time of the Aztecs in the more remote Mexican mountain lands? No reports of such a creature are known today, hence even if it had survived to such a recent date, it is surely extinct now.

I feel that it is less likely for Mexico's mountains to possess two mystery gracile carnivores than one in modern times, especially when they may have competed with one another to some extent, having adapted to occupy similar ecological niches. Nevertheless, it is certainly a thought-provoking coincidence that a creature fitting Castillo's description even more closely than the onza should have existed within this very same country at least as late as the Pleistocene.

In his Facebook message to me of 13 January 2024 regarding the tiricuate (see Part 2 again), Hodari also suggested a new and, in view of a recent, very remarkable discovery in Siberia (see below), very pertinent putative identity for Montezuma's wolf-puma. Namely, the scimitar cat Homotherium, belonging to the taxonomic family of machairodontids or sabre-toothed cats, all of which are officially long-extinct.

 

Two Homotherium scimitar cats (© Hodari Nundu)

Here is his suggestion:

You mention Chasmaporthetes [in my mystery cats books] as a possible identity for the wolf-puma in Montezuma's zoo – have you considered though the possibility of it being Homotherium itself? As far we know Chasmaporthetes died out around one million, 700,000 years ago. Homotherium was likely still around [in Mexico, represented there by the North American species H. serum] in the late Pleistocene.

There's no described remains from Mexico from this time, but the mummy* shows they were present in the late Pleistocene in Eurasia where they were thought to die out earlier than in the Americas so it wouldn't be a stretch to think some of them may have survived late in Mexico.

[* = the recently-described mummified anterior half of a three-week-old Homotherium latidens cub discovered in 2020 after its frozen carcase had emerged from Siberian Upper Pleistocene permafrost – click here to read the official scientific paper documenting this unique, spectacular find, which was approximately 35,500 years old, making it the youngest-known Asian specimen of Homotherium, and see photo below]

The last Homotherium species were rather wolfish-bodied, endurance runners, long legs, relatively small paws with semi-retractable claws – already pretty wolf-like in that regard. Their jaws would be longer. Their front incisors are protruding. Those are potentially wolf-like features too.

Of course Homotherium was much bigger than a wolf or a puma as far we know but we would be talking about the southernmost population of Homotherium in North America, meaning maybe Bergmann's rule would apply [i.e. within a broadly distributed taxonomic clade, populations and species of larger size are found in colder regions, whereas populations and species of smaller size are found in warmer regions].

Cat food for thought!

Absolutely!

Hodari's insightful comments provide a fascinating new line of well-reasoned speculation to ponder over concerning the nature of Montezuma's mystery specimen. The mummified Homotherium cub's discovery was extremely dramatic – the first time that physical remains (other than fossilised bones) of a semi-complete machairodontid had ever been procured – so how truly incredible it would be if researchers one day revealed that a living machairodontid species had persisted until as recently as the 1500s in Mexico, or anywhere else for that matter!

 

The head of the three-week-old Homotherium latidens scimitar cat discovered in frozen, mummified condition in Siberia and formally documented in 2024 (© A.V. Lopatin et al., 2024/Wikipedia –CC BY 4.0 licence)

 

In summary re my 3-part article: I have to ask whether it is credible that even a country as large and ecologically diverse as Mexico could at one time or another have been home to no fewer than eight feline cryptids (including the onza). Might it be more prudent to assume that certain of these mystery cats (or cat-like entities) are synonymous with certain others? Having said that, none of them appears to be based merely upon distorted descriptions of any present-day species known to exist here. Perhaps, therefore, if indeed real, some of them are actually already known to science but as various officially extinct, prehistoric species whose erstwhile existence in Mexico is confirmed by fossil evidence, yet which may have lingered elusively into the present.

As ever in cryptozoology, without physical contemporary evidence of them that can be formally examined, there is no means of verifying the reality of any of the mystery beasts reported here (if only Sanderson's ruffed cat skins had survived – see Part 1). Nevertheless, documenting these reports of them is the next best procedure, to ensure that such details are readily available for perusal by other researchers and are therefore never lost – even though, sadly, at least some of these creatures themselves may well be.

 

Once again, I wish to thank Hodari most sincerely for his kindness in permitting me to include his illustrations here and for sharing such fascinating crypto-felid information with me.

 

No article on Mexican mystery cats, lesser-known or otherwise, would be complete without at least one onza-related illustration, so here is the front cover of the definitive book on this crypto-cat (© Neil B Carmony/High-Lonesome Books – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)