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