THE TANTALISING TWO-TONGUES IDENTIFIED AFTER ALMOST A CENTURY?

 

A representation of what a two-tongues may have looked like based solely upon the original report's verbal description of this mystery mammal, created by me using Magic Studio

Just over a year ago, in my Alien Zoo column for the British monthly magazine Fortean Times, I introduced readers to a cryptozoological conundrum that had been puzzling me ever since I first encountered it during the 1990s, and which dated back a further six decades, to a 1930s news report from the periodical Modern Wonder.

In December 2024, moreover, I also documented it on ShukerNature (click here to read my blog article) The report, dated 27 May 1939, claimed that some mysterious beasts had been captured by a photographer in the jungles of Malaya (now Malaysia) and had been shown to some officials in Manila, capital of the Philippines, but that no-one had been able to identify them.

They were each said to be quadrupedal and to weigh approximately 200 lb, to possess a raccoon-like head (masked?), a furry mole-like pelage (dense and/or dark?), a pair of owl-like eyes (very large and indicating a nocturnal lifestyle?), an odd dentition combining human-like teeth with cat-like teeth, a fondness for bananas, and – by far their most bizarre feature – each animal possessed two tongues! (Hence I have dubbed their mystifying species the two-tongues.)

 

Native to Malaysia and Indonesia, a Sunda slow loris Nycticebus coucang – note the distinctive black mask-like markins encircling its extremely large eyes and its very dense fur (© David Haring. Duke Lemur Center. North Carolina/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

I'd speculated in AZ and on ShukerNature that were it not for their substantial weight and, needless to say, their extraordinary twin-tongued condition, these cryptids might conceivably have been Malaysian tarsiers, as those very small and single-tongued but decidedly goblinesque creatures always arouse considerable curiosity from observers unfamiliar with them.

Having documented this mystifying case in various of my writings without eliciting any opinions from readers as to what these animals may be, I now hoped that AZ and ShuikerNature aficionados might prove more forthcoming. And sure enough, at long last I have received a suggestion, made by two different ShukerNature readers wholly independently of each other, that may finally have solved this tantalising riddle.

One reader gave his name as Lars Dietz, the other chose to remain anonymous, but both brought to my attention in December 2024 the fascinating fact that lorises – those big-eyed, nocturnal, densely-furred, fruit-eating, Asian relatives of Africa's pottos and bushbabies, as well as Madagascar's lemurs – possess a veritable second tongue, the sublingua. Consisting of a relatively large, muscular tongue-like structure positioned beneath the primary tongue, and also possessed by the lorises' above-named African and Madagascan relatives, and by the tarsiers too, it lacks taste buds, its function instead being to keep clean another dental characteristic of such creatures, the toothcomb, which is used in oral grooming. Outwardly, however, the sublingua does look like a second genuine tongue.

 

In this close-up photograph of a slow loris's face, its pale, pointed sublingua can be clearly seen projecting out of its mouth beneath its longer, pink-coloured primary tongue (© David Haring. Duke Lemur Center. North Carolina/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

Consequently, it is easy to understand how a loris – or a tarsier – may have been described as a two-tongued creature by anyone with no previous experience of it. Having said that: as lorises and tarsiers exist in the Philippines as well as in Malaysia it seems strange that they would not have been recognised by officials there.

Also, of course, there is the not inconsiderable matter of the two-tongues' claimed weight of 200 lb to explain, which is far greater than that of lorises and tarsiers – unless the report had been garbled during its documentation in Modern Wonder, with the animals' true weight having been 200 g, not 200 lb. This would compare well with that of lorises and also that of the heaviest tarsiers.

In view of the sublingua's evident anatomical relevance to this crypto-case (not to mention the black mask-like circles of fur encircling the extremely large eyes of slow lorises, plus their bodies' very dense fur), I feel that some such confusion between the metric and imperial systems of weights may well have occurred, thereby causing the true taxonomic identity of the two-tongues as either lorises (most probably) or tarsiers to become obscured.

 

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)

Moreover, perhaps the officials who saw these creatures simply weren't well-versed in their country's native fauna anyway. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that this situation has been true!

My sincere thanks to those two ShukerNature readers for steering me in what I feel sure is the right direction in resolving this curious cryptozoological puzzle after almost a century.

And be sure to click here to read my previous ShukerNature article on this subject.

 

Another of my most probably now-obsolete (but still visually-engaging) two-tongues reconstructions, based solely upon the Modern Wonders report's verbal description of these creatures, and created by me using Magic Studio

 

"BRING ME THE HEAD OF KING KONG!" – A SHUKERNATURE PICTURE OF THE DAY

 

Vintage photograph of a man-made pantomime stage prop in the form of a giant primate head (but NOT derived from a real, dead animal) (public domain/Wikipedia)

It’s been quite a while since I last posted a 'ShukerNature Picture of the Day', but this particular photograph seemed an ideal candidate for such a role, especially as it's one that I've been meaning to blog about for ages, so here it is, together with what I've managed to uncover concerning its nothing if not visually striking subject.

Needless to say, had I encountered this picture recently I would probably have simply assumed it to be an AI-generated image and therefore may not have investigated it, as the head was certainly far too big to be from any type of anatomically-feasible primate, even one of the cryptozoological kind.

In reality, however, I first encountered it online some years ago (on Wikipedia, if memory serves me correctly), and its arresting appearance was such that I decided to do whatever I could to identify exactly what it depicted and where it had originated. Here is what I discovered.

As indicated by this present ShukerNature post's tongue-in-cheek title, parodying the biblical Salome's imperious demand to King Herod Antipas for John the Baptist's head (served on a platter, which it duly was!), I had initially wondered whether this public-domain photo may have been in some way related to the original, classic King Kong monster movie released by RKO Radio Pictures in spring 1933, directed by Marian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and starring Fay Wray alongside this movie's titular stop-motion mega-star created by celebrated animator Willis H. O'Brien. Perhaps it was a spare giant ape head for close-up shots, or used for publicity purposes?

Although that idea ultimately proved false, I suspect that it nonetheless contains an element of relevance to the latter movie. For what I finally found out was that the object in this photo is actually a gaff, in this instance specifically a stage prop that had featured in a major pantomime performed just a few months after the release of King Kong, so it seems possible that the prop was inspired by this film, which had proved such a massive hit worldwide earlier that same year.

 

Publicity photo-still of American actress Fay Wray promoting the 1933 film King Kong (public domain)

According to an unidentified, tantalizingly-brief newspaper report published on 11 December 1933 that had contained the photo, what it depicted was a 4.5-ft-tall giant ape or monkey head made from cardboard and paper (NOT from the remains of any real, dead animal) that had been specially constructed by a stage props company for a pantomime staged in Glasgow, Scotland, during the winter 1933/34 pantomime season.

Sadly, the report gave no further details, not even naming the pantomime in question or the theatre where it was staged. According to the Panto Archive website's comprehensive listing of Glasgow pantomime venues and productions (click here to view the entire list), the only pantomime staged in Glasgow during the 1933/34 season was 'Babes In The Wood', at the Theatre Royal, and featuring veteran Scottish music hall comedian Tommy Lorne (1890-1935) as its principal star.

Perhaps, therefore, the giant monkey/ape head had appeared in it in the capacity of a guardian to the babes abandoned in the wood, or possibly as a comic bogeyman-type character. This is only speculation on my part, however, as I have been unable to discover any further information concerning either the head itself or the pantomime in which it appeared, but I did succeed in locating a second newspaper photo of it. Dating from the same period, but this time showing the head of a man inside the prop's gaping mouth and a woman standing alongside it, this second photo can be accessed here. I wonder if this eyecatching effigy still survives somewhere, stored away, perhaps, in the vaults of some theatre or stage props provider?

At any rate, we can all be reassured now by the comforting knowledge that somewhere deep within the cloud-shrouded Skull Island of make-believe movie-land, the real King Kong is still striding majestically through his stop-motion domain with his huge head held high, still firmly attached to his mighty neck and shoulders, whereas, tragically, the same cannot be said for John the Baptist's.

Speaking of Skull Island: be sure to click here to read my full review of the more recent King Kong-starring monster movie Kong: Skull Island in my film review blog, Shuker In MovieLand.

 

Me with a gargantuan statue of King Kong at Wookey Hole's Dinosaur Valley in Somerset, southwest England, on 29 August 2010 (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

PRESENTING THE PYRALLIS - BORN (AND BORNE) WITHIN THE FIERY FURNACES OF ANCIENT CYPRUS

 

Is this what the fire-sustained pyrallis is said to have looked like in ancient Cyprus? This is #1 of ten original pyrallis representations included by me in this article.

The classical mythology of ancient Greece is plentifully populated by all manner of famous legendary beasts – from centaurs, satyrs, gorgons, and Stymphalian birds to harpies, sirens, the minotaur, and much more. There are also some far less familiar but no less fascinating examples, including the diminutive but thought-provoking fusion of herpetology and entomology presented here now – namely, the pyrallis of ancient Cyprus.

Also known variously as the pyrausta, pyragones, or pyrotocon, the pyrallis derives all of its names from the Greek word 'pyr', which translates as 'fire', because it is intimately associated with this traditional fundamental element. According to traditional classical Greek legend, the pyrallis was a tiny incandescent beast resembling a winged, four-limbed, golden insect but in more recent times it is often represented with a scaly reptilian body and the head of a fire-breathing dragon too.

 

A 16^th-Century woodcut engraving of a basic copper-smelting furnace like those in ancient Cyprus (public domain)

Moreover, not only was it born in but also spent its entire life flitting amongst the coruscating flames of copper-smelting furnaces in Cyprus, living amid these blazing domains in great swarms resembling gleaming showers of glowing sparks, borne upon the furnaces' billowing heat and smoke. Should any of these minute insectoids fly beyond the confines of their infernal abode for even a split-second, however, they would instantly turn to ash and die.

In that respect, the pyrallis, although entirely different in form and size, is reminiscent of another creature from Greek fable, the fire-inhabiting salamander, after which real-life salamanders are named (even though they certainly do not inhabit fire!).

 

Image of the fire-inhabiting mythical salamander, created by me using Magic Studio

Needless to say, it was long assumed that such a fanciful animal as the pyrallis was indeed entirely fabulous, with no basis in reality. However, as will now be revealed here, although attracting scant scientific attention even at the time of its original presentation in a published article, and nowadays, 75 years later, having been all but forgotten, there is one compelling line of speculation that seeks to identify this mythical mini-beast with a certain bona fide species, one whose own intimate association with fire may have genuinely inspired the pyrallis legend.

The earliest record relating unequivocally to the pyrallis as described by me above is a brief passage that can be found in Chapter 36 (not 42 as sometimes incorrectly claimed) of Book #11 from Naturalis Historia (The Natural History). This is the  encyclopaedic magnum opus produced by the eminent 1^st-Century Roman scholar/naturalist Pliny the Elder (23/24 AD to 79 AD), which consists of 37 books contained within ten volumes.

 

Portrait engraving of Pliny The Elder (public domain)

In the 1855 English translation of Naturalis Historia prepared by Dr John Bostock, the relevant passage reads as follows:

That element [fire], also, which is so destructive to matter, produces certain animals; for in the copper-smelting furnaces of Cyprus, in the very midst of the fire, there is to be seen flying about a four-footed animal with wings, the size of a large fly: this creature is called the "pyrallis," and by some the "pyrausta." So long as it remains in the fire it will live, but if it comes out and flies a little distance from it, it will instantly die.

 

Pyrallis #2

True, it was not the first pyrallis mention. In his comprehensive work History of Animals, celebrated Greek scholar Aristotle (384-322 BC) stated that the turtle dove was at war with the pyrallis. However, he seemingly considered the latter creature to be merely some form of unspectacular bird, as this mention was contained within a paragraph devoted entirely to warfare between different types of familiar bird, such as the owl, crow, raven, kite, green woodpecker, gull, tern, and buzzard. Consequently, it would appear to have no relevance to the fire-sustaining insect-dragon under investigation by me here. (Indeed, various Aristotlean researchers have identified this avian pyrallis as a type of pigeon, the pygmy dove.)

Conversely, and also confusingly, elsewhere in his same work Aristotle described in some detail a creature that he did not name but which is evidently one and the same as the pyrallis that would be named and documented by Pliny three centuries later.

 

Aristotle bust, a marble, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BC (public domain)

Here is Aristotle's account of his unnamed version:

Living animals are found in substances that are usually supposed to be incapable of putrefaction…In Cyprus, in places where copper-ore is smelted, with heaps of the ore piled on day after day, an animal is engendered in the fire, somewhat larger than a blue bottle fly, furnished with wings, which can hop or crawl through the fire. And…perish when you keep the one away from the fire…Now the salamander is a clear case in point, to show us that animals do actually exist that fire cannot destroy; for this creature, so the story goes, not only walks through the fire but puts it out in doing so…Such is the mode of generation of the insects above enumerated.

 

Pyrallis #3

It is clear that this passage by Aristotle describing an unnamed blue bottle-sized fire-inhabiting creature was the primary source utilized by Pliny for his own version, in which said creature was referred to by him by name, as the pyrallis (or pyrocausta), and also that Aristotle deemed it to be some type of insect. Less clear, meanwhile, is why Aristotle applied that very same name, pyrallis, to an entirely different, wholly unrelated creature, a kind of bird. All very strange, and bewildering!

Anyway, one subsequent early work also documented the pyrallis, albeit not by that name. This work was Book 2 of De Natura Animalium, a 17-book collection of brief accounts and anecdotes concerning natural history, written by Roman author Aelian, aka Claudius Aelianus (c175-c235 AD), with a particular emphasis upon extraordinary or fabulous cases.

 

A vintage claimed likeness of Aelian (public domain)

Here is the short passage that he wrote about creatures that he termed fire-flies but which obviously referred to the pyrallis:

That living creatures should be born upon the mountains, in the air, and in the sea, is no great marvel [I'd beg to differ regarding creatures being born in the air!], since matter, food, and nature are the cause. But that there should spring from fire winged creatures which men call 'Fire-flies,' and that these should live and flourish in it, flying to and fro about it, is a startling fact. And what is more extraordinary, when these creatures stray outside the range of the heat to which they are accustomed and take in cold air, they at once perish. And why they should be born in the fire and die in the air others must explain.

 

Pyrallis #4

Notwithstanding Aelian's naming of them as fire-flies, these mythical entities' fire-generated, fire-inhabiting lifestyle sets them wholly apart from the real-life insects known to us today as fire-flies, which are bioluminescent lampyrid beetles, and also include the familiar glow-worms. For their only connection to fire is the fiery light that they emit. Perhaps, therefore, Alien had somehow conflated the legendary pyrallis with the genuine fire-flies and glow-worms.

Whatever the explanation for his nomenclatural confusion, however, Aelian certainly seemed to believe in the authenticity of the pyrallis, so might there be a real-life insect known to him that gave rise to this legendary mini-monster? Such a fascinating notion was put forward as a very plausible possibility in 1950 by Emile Janssens, via a fascinating yet little-known paper published in French by the scientific journal Latomus, in turn published by the Société d'Études Latines de Bruxelles, in Belgium.

 

A smoke fly, Microsania sp., greatly enlarged (public domain)

As Janssens noted in his paper, pyrophilic or pyrophilous (fire-loving) insects are far from unknown. Take, for example, the aptly-dubbed smoke flies of the genus Microsania, belonging to the taxonomic family Platypezidae, the flat-footed flies. Just a few millimeters long at most, typically hump-backed in appearance, and of global distribution, these diminutive dipterans seem to appear from nowhere wherever there is a fire and smoke, and swarm amidst the fire like motes of black ash, then vanish as swiftly as they appeared once the fire dies and the smoke dissipates.

Their attraction to fire was first scientifically recorded by Belgian entomologist G. Severin via a 1921 paper, in which he revealed how, after having sought in vain for any Microsania specimens for 20 years within a particular area of Belgium, he unexpectedly observed numerous individuals dancing in swarms amidst the smoke generated by a heath fire in that very same locality, but that was not all. Not one specimen could be found more than a few feet (1 m) beyond the perimeter of the fire and its smoke; and once the fire had ceased and its embers had cooled, every last fly disappeared, not a single one remaining in the area.

 

The common blue bottle fly Calliphora vomitoria (© Shiv's fotografia/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

This scenario bears much more than a passing resemblance to that of the pyrallis legend, as Janssens commented in his paper. Nevertheless, he dismissed these flies as the likely identity for the latter entity on account of how tiny they are, in stark contrast to the classical writers quoted by me earlier here all stating that the pyrallis was the size of a large blue bottle fly, i.e. Calliphora vomitoria, a very familiar species of blow fly, which measures 1-1.5 cm long and is therefore considerably bigger than a Microsania fly.

Although far from unknown as noted earlier, out of the more than 1 million insect species currently described by science (and with countless more still awaiting description) only around 50-60 of them are pyrophilic. Of these, moreover, the vast majority are beetles, plus ten dipterans (true flies), eight hemipteran bugs, one wasp, and one moth. Two of the best-known pyrophilic beetles are a pair of European carabid (ground beetle) species – Sericoda quadripunctata (attracted to severe burning outbreaks) and Pterostichus quadrifoleolatus (to weak burnings).

 

Sericoda quadripunctata, a European species of pyrophilic carabid (ground beetle) (©Yves Bousquet/Wikipedia – CC BY 3.0 licence)

By far the most famous and best-studied pyrophilic beetle species, however, and which was favoured above all other real-life creatures by Janssens as the identity of (or at least the inspiration for) the pyrallis, is a certain European species of buprestid wood-boring beetle. Despite its sombre black colouration, Melanophila acuminata is colloquially known as the fire beetle or fire bug, due to its decidedly fiery lifestyle, in every sense.

For just like the smoke flies, this insect species is irresistibly drawn to fire (hence yet another name for it, the fire-chaser beetle) – so much so that whenever there is a forest fire and all other creatures are fleeing away from it, these beetles are seen fleeing towards it! Indeed, rural fire fighters are often greatly hindered by large swarms of them while trying to extinguish such blazes, to the extent that they often have to wear special beekeeper attire in order to prevent these beetles from penetrating their clothes and biting them!

 

An adult fire beetle Melanophila acuminata (© AG Prof. Schmitz/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.5 licence)

Several studies of this bizarre beetle, which is approximately 1 cm long, the size of a blue bottle fly, have uncovered the reason for its obsession with fire and the various anatomical accessories that it has evolved to assist it in locating conflagrations. As is so often true in so many disparate walks of life, it all has its basis in sex!

The fire beetle has evolved to copulate specifically upon the still-burning wood of newly-scorched trees, especially conifers, and to lay its eggs beneath the charred bark of such trees, which then serves as food for this beetle's white maggot-like larvae once hatched. Even its feet have evolved an asbestos-like resistance to high temperatures that enables it to scuttle around unharmed on smoldering wood and sizzling embers too hot for a human hand to dare touch.

 

Melanophila acuminata larva on Pinus sylvestris, the Scots pine (© Gilles San Martin/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)

But how do fire beetles sense the presence of a fire? Examinations of their micro-anatomy have revealed that just like certain heat-sensing snakes such as pit vipers and rattlesnakes, these beetles possess a pair of thermal infra-red receptors, resembling tiny pits. These sensory organs are present on their thorax's undersurface, each containing a small water droplet that expands when heat is detected, triggering a nervous system response to follow the heat source.

They are extraordinarily sensitive to heat, enabling the beetles to home in on a fire from very considerable distances. In fact, one study whose results were published in 2012 estimated via the use of modeling that this particular species could detect a fire from as far away as 80 miles (roughly 130 km)!

 

Pyrallis #5

In addition, there are olfactory organs on the antennae of this species that some researchers believe may detect smoke and thereby further assist it in its fire-sensing needs. No doubt such organs explain instances in which these insects have been known to swarm en masse at American football stadiums during a game, lured there by the thick haze of tobacco smoke resulting from the game's numerous smoking spectators.

Bearing in mind, however, as I've revealed earlier here, that the fire beetle is not the only known European species of pyrophilic beetle, why did Janssens favour it above all of the others as a possible explanation for the pyrallis legend?

 

Pyrallis #6

After referring briefly to one of those others, here is what he stated in his paper:

But there is better. We know, thanks to the English entomologist W[illiam]. E. Sharp, the extraordinary habits of a Buprestid beetle which flies with the vivacity of a fly and which has the size required by the indications of ancient authors. It is Melanophila acuminata.

 

Pyrallis #7

He then quoted a very pertinent excerpt concerning Sharp that had appeared in a 1934 scientific account written by fellow entomologist A. Collart and published in the Société Entomologiquede Belgique's Bulletin. Knowing that this species could be found on charred pine tree trunks, Sharp had set about seeking specimens of it in a Berkshire pine forest where a fire had recently broken out. As documented by Collart:

It was only after a long search that a single specimen of Melanophila was caught on a charred stump of Pine; this was a meagre harvest, when, guided by a distant smoke, Mr. Sharp and the friend who accompanied him arrived at a place where the fire was still active. Immediately several specimens of Melanophila were captured; some were running on ground too hot for the hand to be able to rest on it. Others were installed, often in copula on burning pine stumps or, under a bright August sun, flew through puffs of acrid smoke released by the burning peat; and, grilled by the peaty materials on fire, blinded by a suffocating smoke, the two researchers made a painful but very fruitful hunt for the Melanophila!

 

Pyrallis #8

As Janssens judiciously pointed out, the above description certainly parallels that of Aelian (as well as Pliny's and Aristotle's) for the pyrallis. Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that the fuel used in the copper ore furnaces of Cyprus long ago consisted mainly of resinous pine wood.

And whereas fire beetles do not actually die when they eventually depart from the fire and smoke that initially attracted them, they do disappear back into their rural surroundings with extraordinary rapidity, plus their dark colouration makes them difficult to observe when no longer illuminated by the bright glow of a fire. So again it is not unreasonable to assume that ancient Cypriot observers assumed that they had simply turned to ash and died.

 

Pyrallis #9

Consequently, I certainly feel that Janssens's proposal that the pyrallis myth was inspired by sightings of fire beetles swarming and flying amidst the burning, smoking pine wood fuel in copper ore furnaces to be a tenable one, and it is a great shame that it did not receive the scientific attention and further investigation that it so richly deserved.

NB – All pyrallis illustrations included here were created by me using Magic Studio, and represent this legendary beast in a variety of different forms, including insect-headed, dragon-headed, four-limbed, and six-limbed, all of which are descriptions that have been attributed to it by various authors down through the ages.

 

Pyrallis #10

 

SHEDDING LIGHT UPON THE MYSTERY OF LUMINOUS BIRDS - Part 2: ALL AGLOW WITH SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS!

 

Is this what a luminous or glowing owl would look like?

Sceptics notwithstanding, the phenomenon of luminous birds whose lengthy history I surveyed recently on ShukerNature in Part 1 of this two-part review (click here to read Part 1) is assuredly genuine, but how can it be explained? Five principal potential solutions have been suggested by amateur naturalists and professional scientists alike down through the ages, and these are as follows:

 

1) It is due to the bird having made physical external contact with phosphorescent organisms living on decayed wood in tree holes

The idea behind this suggested solution – the most familiar and extensively documented of the five under consideration here – is that such contact would cause phosphorescent bacteria, plants, and fungi growing on the wood to become attached to the bird's feathers, thereby yielding an area of luminescence upon its plumage.

 

How a glowing barn owl with a particularly luminous breast might look

However, whereas the parts of a bird's body most likely to make contact with wood when entering or exiting a tree hole would be its wings and head (brushing against the rim of the hole), the body region actually exhibiting most (or all) of its perceived luminescence in those specimens that have been reported has tended to be the breast, with the wings and head sometimes giving off little (if any) light.

Also, it must be remembered that glowing examples of extremely large birds, such as North America's great blue heron Ardea herodias, standing 45-54 inches tall, have been recorded – and it seems highly unlikely that birds of this stature would (or could) inhabit tree holes.

 

A great blue heron (© Mike Baird/Wikipedia – CC BY 2.0 licence)

In addition, and as its common name suggests, the barn owl, the most popular identity for luminous owls, prefers to roost in barns or deserted out-houses rather than in tree holes (though it will roost in them if need be).

Yet if this option is nonetheless a viable one in relation to certain bird species, a common phosphorescent fungus likely to be involved is the honey fungus Armillaria mellea – a very abundant, widespread, edible species (or species complex, as is nowadays deemed to be the case) that lives on trees and woody shrubs, and sports bioluminescent mycelia yielding an ethereal greenish-blue glow commonly referred to as foxfire.

 

The honey fungus Armillaria mellea (© Stu's Images/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

Indeed, I remember reading long ago a fascinating snippet of information demonstrating just how powerful the foxfire glow of this fungal species can be. Edited by Dilys Breese, and published by the BBC in 1981, the multi-contributor book Wildlife Questions and Answers included the snippet in question, provided by correspondent R. Watling, and which reads as follows:

I have often seen the eerie light of the honey fungus in a tropical rain forest. You see all the leaves and stems and trunks, twenty-five feet tall maybe in an old tree, with this beautiful glow, just like a silver lady among the trees. And these fungi can even take their own photographs! If you set up a camera next to one of them, given enough exposure time, you will get a picture of the fungus all bright and shiny, taken by its own luminescence.

 

Schistostega luminous moss inside a Japanese cave (© Dr TerraKhan/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

Another species likely to play a part in this particular proffered solution is a phosphorescent plant officially called the luminous moss Schistostega pennata, but also known by such charming colloquial names as goblin gold and rabbit's candle. As noted by bryologist Sean Edwards in a letter published by BBC Wildlife Magazine in April 1994, its luminous portions are the first cells produced by germinating spores, which act like thousands of pear-shaped microscopic cat's eyes, collecting and concentrating even the faintest light. It is often found growing inside (and illuminating) rabbit holes, hence its 'rabbit candle' moniker, yielding a greenish-gold glow.

2) It is due to the bird having ingested phosphorescent microbes

As the luminescence of birds is external, and has actually disappeared in some cases following moulting, one would assume this to be a phenomenon associated exclusively with the bird's external covering, i.e. its plumage, rather than due to any digestive or other metabolic process (but see also Solution #4 for some ostensible exceptions to this statement).

Of course, we could speculate that if any phosphorescent microbes were inadvertently ingested with food, they could pass out of the bird's body within its faeces, which might then in some way become smeared upon its plumage, perhaps during preening, rendering it phosphorescent in turn.

Also, it should be borne in mind that not all phosphorescent bioluminescent fungi are harmless. One such species that is poisonous is Omphalotus olearius, the so-called jack-o'-lantern mushroom. This orange-gilled European fungus grows around the bases, stumps, and buried roots of hardwood trees (a related species, O. illudens, occurs in North America). A bird perching upon it may conceivably find itself with fragments of this fungus attached to its plumage, especially upon its breast feathers, rendering them phosphorescent, but if the bird then attempts to remove such fragments by preening, it could inadvertently swallow some of them and thereby become ill from the toxic nature of this fungus.

 

Jack-o'-lantern mushrooms (public domain)

Perhaps this is why some luminous birds that have been physically examined have been found to be in poor health, such as Rolfe's barn owl, and the specimen documented later here that was captured by a Norfolk engineer in his back garden.

Nevertheless, although such a scenario is not impossible, it is certainly not very plausible as an all-embracing solution.

3) It is due to the growth of feather-specific phosphorescent microbes upon the bird's breast plumage

In some ways paralleling the previous two proffered solutions, this third one proposes that phosphorescent bacteria or fungi may grow upon a bird's breast feathers if they have become damp or dirty. Propounded by British zoologist William P. Pycraft (1868-1942) among others during and beyond the Norfolk luminous owl 'flap', it derives support from the fact that breast feathers are often particularly dense (as with those of pigeons, for instance), thereby encouraging microbial proliferation upon them. Also, the breast is a difficult region for many birds, especially short-billed ones, to reach satisfactorily when preening.

 

How an owl with plumage infested with green-glowing phosphorescent fungi may look

Furthermore, in his article, de Sibour noted that avian luminescence is particularly powerful during flight. He sought to explain this occurrence as an effect of superoxygenation, pointing out that if a medium containing phosphorescent particles is agitated, that medium's luminescence does increase.

Consequently, this third suggested solution to the enigma of luminous birds would seem to be the most tenable of the three considered by me here so far. Even so, in view of the comparative rarity of glowing birds while concomitantly bearing in mind that a very great many birds must at some time or another possess damp and/or dirty breast feathers, this solution still falls some way short of providing a wholly satisfactory explanation.

4) It is due to some internal light-generating metabolic process

There are certain especially mystifying cases in the luminous bird files that if accurate seem to indicate that those individual birds' luminosity was directly linked not to any externally-sited phenomenon but instead to their own internal metabolism. For in each case, its external luminosity vanished once the bird itself had died. The earlier-mentioned gamekeeper Fred Rolfe who in 1897 had shot down a luminous sphere in Norfolk and found it to have been a barn owl in very poor condition made no mention of any such occurrence, but it was a notable feature of the two incidents now documented by me here.

The July 1911 issue of The Irish Naturalist contained several reports and reviews by different writers appertaining to luminous birds, especially luminous owls, but the report of especial interest here concerned a luminous specimen of North America's afore-mentioned great blue heron, as I'll be documenting below shortly.

 

How a luminous specimen of a great white heron, the white colour phase of the great blue heron, might look

In his own Irish Naturalist survey of reports, C.B. Moffat referred to a very interesting rural belief apparently prevalent in both Europe and North America that I hadn't previously encountered but which is very pertinent to the luminous great blue heron specimen. Here is what Moffat revealed:

A belief has long prevailed ascribing similar luminosity [to that of owls] to several of the herons and bitterns, which are supposed to be assisted in their nocturnal fishing operations by a phosphorescent light emitted from the "powder-down patches" of the breast-feathers, a light that is thought to serve, perhaps, the double purpose of attracting fish to the vicinity and helping the watchful bird to see them.

Powder-down feathers are specialized down feathers that grow continuously, in specific tracts, but are only produced by four taxonomically-unrelated bird groups (parrots, herons, bustards, and tinamous). In some such species, the tips of these feathers' barbules disintegrate, yielding fine powdery grains resembling dust or talc but composed of keratin; in others, the powder grains originate from cells surrounding the barbules of growing powder-down feathers. When a bird spreads these grains over its body during preening, they assist in protecting, ridding of parasites, and waterproofing the bird's plumage and skin, but well worth noting here is that they also confer upon its feathers a noticeable sheen.

 

James E. Harting (public domain)

Moffat then stated that wildlife observer James E. Harting had presented a resume of the principal evidence relating to this belief within a chapter entitled 'The Fascination of Light' contained in his book Recreations of a Naturalist (1906). In particular, Harting had referred to a detailed account by Philadelphia-based hunter W.J. Worrall of how he had shot a luminous specimen of the great blue heron. According to Worrall, the heron had possessed three phosphorescent spots – "one in front, and one on each side of the hips between the hips and the tail". The description went on to state that as the fatally-wounded bird expired, so too did its luminescence, its lustre "disappearing entirely with death".

Of interest, the location of this heron's three phosphorescent spots matches the location of some of the paired, dense patches of powder-down feathers in herons, which occur on their breast, flanks, and rump. So, might those phosphorescent spots simply have been extra-powdery (thence unusually pale and shiny) patches of powder-down feathers? Worth noting here is that in a Forest & Stream article written by American naturalist Charles S. Westcott and published in 1874, Westcott stated that he had experimented in a dark room with the powder from the powder-down feathers of least bitterns Botaurus exillis, the New World's smallest species of heron, "and found it to be of the same nature as 'fox-fire'". Moreover, J.P. Giraud, Jr., author of The Birds of Long Island (1844), affirmed that the powder-down of dead herons "gives out a pale glow, not unlike that produced by decayed timber, familiarly termed 'light wood,' or 'fox fire'".

 

A least bittern (public domain)

How, then, can we not only reconcile the above evidence provided independently by Westcott and Giraud that powder-down luminescence is not linked to a bird's life or death with Worrall's contradictory claim that the luminescence of the glowing heron that he had shot faded away once the bird itself died, but also (assuming its veracity) explain his latter claim?

The fundamental biological problem that Worrall's claim poses was highlighted by none other than Charles Fort – America's premier collector and chronicler of newspaper cuttings reporting anomalies across the entire spectrum of "damned" (i.e. scientifically-rejected or ignored) phenomena – when reporting in his book Lo! (1931) a second case in which this same luminescence-themed incongruity featured.

 

Charles Fort (public domain)

Fort referred to a report published on 7 February 1908 in Norwich's Eastern Daily Press newspaper (Norwich being a major city in Norfolk), in which engineer Edward S. Cannell of Lower Hellesdon, Norwich, claimed that on the early morning of 5 February when still dark he had seen something shining on a grass bank in his back garden, and that when it fluttered down a path there he discovered that it was a "bright and luminous" owl. He was able to capture the owl, which seemed to him to be ailing, and took it indoors, where it soon died. According to Cannell: "It was still luminous, but perhaps the glow was not as strong as when I saw it first" – i.e. its luminescence began fading following the owl's death. Moreover, in a sequel report, published by the same newspaper on 8 February, it was revealed that Cannell had taken the dead bird to a Mr Roberts, of Norwich-based taxidermists Roberts & Son, who claimed in an interview: "I have seen nothing luminous about it".

Needless to say, if both Cannell and Roberts were telling the truth, i.e. regarding the former's claim concerning the owl's brighter luminocity when alive than when newly dead and the latter's claim that when he later examined its corpse there was no luminosity at all, this is a most unexpected turn of events. For as Fort astutely pointed out:

Of course a phosphorescence of a bird, whether from decayed wood, or feather fungi, would be independent of life or death of the bird.

Indeed it would. Consequently, the only plausible explanation for any cases like Worrall's heron and Cannell's owl that feature synchronicity between a luminous bird's death and the disappearance of its luminescence would seem to be that the latter characteristic was caused by some intrinsic physiological, bioluminescent process – whereby the living bird was actively generating its luminescence via a specialised metabolic process, which obviously would therefore cease once the bird died.

 

Might a glowing owl's luminescence in reality be bioluminescence?

Yet although bioluminescence is well-documented from a wide range of organisms, it is currently unknown from any birds. (What has been confirmed, meanwhile, is that many bird species possess plumage that glows in the ultraviolet section of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum; but as human eyes cannot detect ultraviolet light, this particular type of plumage glow remains invisible to us.) Nor has this physiological condition been confirmed from any other tetrapod vertebrate (but click here for my investigation of a highly-controversial Trinidad lizard claimed by some researchers to be bioluminescent).

Of significance, furthermore, as revealed in his earlier-cited American Midland Naturalist article from 1947, is that during his researches into glowing birds, McAtee requested fellow American scientist Edwin R. Kalmbach to send him some specimens of the powder-down tracts from American black-crowned night herons Nycticorax nycticorax, a nocturnal species often claimed by eyewitnesses to be luminescent. He duly tested these tract specimens for the presence of luciferin and luciferase, the compounds inducing bioluminescence in known bioluminescent species, but he found no traces of them.

 

Black-crowned night heron (© ramidos/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 4.9 licence)

Consequently, even if certain bird species are indeed somehow bioluminescent, they nonetheless must also be externally luminescent if like herons they possess powder-downs, judging not only from McAtee's failure to link these feathers to metabolically-induced bioluminescence, but also to the above-reported findings of Westcott and Giraud that samples of these feathers' powder derived from dead birds continue to be luminescent. To my mind, however, this seems a superfluous and therefore impractical, implausible duplication of glowing ability.

5) It is due not to birds at all but features non-living BOLs instead

Investigators of the unexplained will be well aware that all manner of anomalous non-living phenomena involving mysterious glowing balls of light (frequently abbreviated to BOLs or BoLs) have been reported from many parts of the world, and include spooklights, foo fighters, ball lightning, and min-min lights, as well as more familiar, scientifically-resolved examples like the will-o'-the-wisp or ignis fatuus (resulting from the oxidation of phosphine, diphosphane, and methane, compounds produced via organic decay in marshes, bogs, and swamps). So might reports of luminous birds in reality involve BOL phenomena and not feature birds at all? Whereas it is certainly possible that some may have done, examples of such entities being shot down and found to be birds obviously cannot be explained away like this. Moreover, whereas it is true that the Haddiscoe sightings took place in marshes, where will-o'-the-wisp activity would not be surprising, others have occurred far from such terrain.

 

Coloured wood engraving of a will-o'-the-wisp in a marsh, by Charles H Whymper (© wellcomeimages.org/Wikipedia – CC BY 4.0 licence)

Equally problematic for a BOL explanation regarding luminous birds are those examples in which the luminous entities have been observed moving in an evidently conscious, self-aware manner. Relevant here is that in an exact reversal of the above-mentioned suggestion that luminous birds may be BOLs, many investigators of Australia's most famous unexplained BOL phenomenon, the mysterious min-min lights long encountered in Queensland, nowadays deem it more likely that these glowing enigmas are not of any meteorological or chemical-based origin but are actually living creatures, specifically barn owls, precisely because of the ostensible curiosity and inquisitiveness that min-mins demonstrate towards their human observers. Here is a prime example, as documented by me in my book The Unexplained (1996):

In the days of Australia's early European settlers, the Min-Min Hotel was a staging post between Boulia and Winton in western Queensland, whose best-known feature for the people living nearby were the ghostly balls of light that regularly flitted through the air, often white but sometimes changing colour. Still seen today and referred to as min-min lights, these are reminiscent of American spooklights and English will-o'-the-wisps, and display a marked if disconcerting tendency to follow and even taunt their perplexed observers.

For example: You Kids Count Your Shadows, a collection of Wiradjuri aboriginal lore and beliefs from New South Wales compiled by Frank Povah [and published in 1990], contains an account of a sheep drover who was checking his flock on horseback one evening when a blue min-min light appeared over his shoulder, and persistently followed him during his work. In exasperation, he chased after it, still on horseback, but was unable to catch up with it – until he gave up, and began riding home, whereupon the min-min cheekily appeared over his shoulder again!

 

 Man vs Min-Min – envisaging a rider in Australia's outback being trailed one evening by a min-min light (image created by me using Grok)

An alternative 'living entity' explanation for such sightings may be luminous insect swarms, which have also been suggested as explanations for certain UFO reports (click here for my ShukerNature article documenting this possibility), but a curious, inquisitive barn owl, especially if encountered while out hunting at night, could surely explain at least some min-min reports.

 

Reading back through my analysis of the five suggested solutions presented here, I think it most likely that as with so many other mysterious phenomena, luminous birds may not involve just a single solution but instead features a combination of different ones, with some cases resolved by one solution, certain others by a second, and so on. For it is abundantly clear that none of the solutions individually provides a comprehensive explanation for all of the cases documented here.

 

It is sad that such a captivating phenomenon as luminous birds has fallen out of scientific favour in modern times, especially as science is now equipped with so much readily-available sophisticated technology with which to investigate it thoroughly. Of course, this is due in no small way to the equally sad scarcity of reports nowadays. Saddest of all, however, as noted by David Clarke in his Fortean Studies article chronicling the luminous owls 'flap' reported in Norfolk during the early 1900s (referenced by me in Part 1 of this review), is that this scarcity may well be due in turn to how much rarer, as a result of habitat destruction and poisoning by pesticides, the barn owl has become in Britain and elsewhere during the century or more that has passed since the Norfolk 'flap'. Then again, if the numbers of this species, now extensively protected, do eventually re-attain their former level, perhaps this most delightful and whimsical of wildlife anomalies may once again attract the attention of professional and amateur enthusiasts and eyewitnesses all over again, back in fashion at long last.

 

Close encounter of the glowing kind!

Finally: worth noting here is that phosphorescent bacteria were declared the official answer to the anomaly of a leg of lamb that glowed in the dark and which had recently been purchased in the Worcestershire town of Kidderminster, England, during spring 1988. As reported by the Sandwell Express & Star newspaper on 12 March 1988, when the discovery was first announced there were fears of Chernobyl-derived radioactive fall-out from its nuclear power station's explosion two years earlier. However, Hereford-Worcester's county analyst and scientific advisor Geoffrey Keen rightly rejected this melodramatic notion in favour of phosphorescent bacteria being responsible, thereby solving with Sherlockian skills of deduction the curious case of the luminous leg of lamb.

If you haven't already done so, be sure to check out Part 1 of my luminous birds review article here on ShukerNature.

NB – All images of luminous owls included here were created by me using Grok X1.

 

More close encounters of the glowing kind!