IN SEARCH OF PREHISTORIC SURVIVORS - HOW IT CAME TO BE, AND WILL BE AGAIN (CRITICS NOTWITHSTANDING!)

Of all of my 20 books, none has attracted such acclaim but also such controversy as In Search of Prehistoric Survivors. Next year will mark the 20^th anniversary of its original publication in 1995, and having received countless requests from readers over the years for its republication (after having been out of print for a number of years now), I am happy to say that following a protracted period of time doing the rounds of prospective publishers, it was accepted for publication just over a year ago, and I am working upon it with a view to its achieving a timely 2015 reappearance.

Having said that, I am still uncertain as to whether to prepare a straight reprint of the text but with additional illustrations (courtesy of the many wonderful ones that have become available to me since 1995), or whether to update it – and, if I do, how extensive that update should be. Mindful of the book's enormous scope of cryptids (the only major group not represented in it are the man-beasts, and that itself was only for reasons of limited space), a major update would see the book's size grow dramatically, to the point where it might simply be financially unviable to produce it. So I need to reflect further upon that. Nevertheless, after having received so many enquiries, I can definitely confirm that Prehistoric Survivors will be returning, so watch this space!

Meanwhile, and after having given the matter much thought, I feel that it may be instructive to reveal precisely how this particular book of mine came to be, because ever since it appeared in 1995 there has been a degree of confusion and controversy in some quarters as to where I stand in relation to its theme and contents. Consequently, I hope that the following explanation (which I have already outlined privately to various colleagues down through the years but have never got around to disclosing publicly before) elucidates all of this satisfactorily.

In many ways, this book is the most unusual of any of mine, inasmuch as its final, published form was not how I had originally conceived it at all. Let me explain. Following the publication in 1991 of my second book, Extraordinary Animals Worldwide, I was planning a major book on herpetological cryptids – everything from alleged living dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and plesiosaurs, to mystery lizards of many kinds, giant snakes and crowing serpents, chelonian cryptids of all shapes and sizes, anomalous amphibians, and even a major section devoted to the possible origin of and inspiration for the world's plethora of legendary dragons.

A synopsis of this proposed book did the rounds of publishers (during which time, incidentally, my third book, The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20^th Century, was published, in late 1993), with Blandford Press being particularly interested in it (and ultimately publishing it two years later). Mindful, however, of the enormous worldwide popularity of Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie Jurassic Park at that time (the first film had been released in 1993), they suggested a fundamental change to the contents and slant of my book. Instead of confining it to herpetological mystery beasts, they proposed that I should expand its range of subjects to that of cryptids spanning the entire zoological spectrum, but concentrate exclusively upon those that have been suggested at one time or another by cryptozoologists to constitute prehistoric survivors.

It was certainly a most intriguing brief (albeit very different from my original concept), and one that I therefore decided to accept, even though – and I must emphasise this unequivocally here - I did not personally consider it likely that all of those cryptids truly were prehistoric survivors. But my personal opinion was irrelevant as far as the book's brief was concerned. What was required was for me to present for each cryptid a dossier of reports and native traditions, and then assess them in the context of whichever prehistoric creature(s) it had been likened to in the cryptozoological literature (with theories not appertaining to prehistoric survival receiving only minimal treatment, as they were not the focus of this study). So that is precisely what I did. Consequently, out went most of the mystery lizards and amphibians as well as the snakes and also the dragons section, and in came putative mammalian methuselahs like chalicotheres, thylacoleonids, amphicyonids, and sabre-tooths, alleged lingering avians like teratorns and Sylviornis, the giant carnivorous shark megalodon, and even some reputed eurypterid survivors.

A stunning cover design prepared by cryptozoological artist William Rebsamen for a proposed updated, retitled edition of In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (© William Rebsamen)

During the years that have followed, the concept of prehistoric survivorship – or what British palaeontologist Dr Darren Naish refers to as the Prehistoric Survivor Paradigm (PSP) - has received some harsh criticism from cryptozoological sceptics. And indeed, I am the first to concede that such survival becomes increasingly untenable the greater the span of time that exists between any modern-day cryptid and its most recent alleged fossil antecedents (i.e. its so-called ghost lineage, with the cryptid itself thereby constituting a Lazarus taxon). However, as my trilogy of books on new and rediscovered animals have disclosed time and again, some truly extraordinary, spectacular, and entirely unpredictable, unexpected zoological discoveries have been made in modern times.

And yes, these do indeed include some bona fide prehistoric survivors, taxa known only from fossils until living representatives were unveiled - e.g. the Chacoan peccary, mountain pygmy possum, Bulmer's fruit bat, kha-nyou, goblin shark, neoglyphean crustaceans, monoplacophoran molluscs, and of course the coelacanth. (And yes again, I am well aware that post-Mesozoic coelacanth fossils are now known, but these were only uncovered and recognised for what they were after the discovery in 1938 of the living Latimeria, when the unexpected resurrection of this ancient lineage of fishes no doubt acted as a significant spur to palaeontologists to seek post-Mesozoic coelacanth fossils that they now knew must exist if suitably preserved, and which would help to close up what could now be seen to be a very extensive and therefore anomalous ghost lineage for these fishes; so at its time of discovery, the modern-day coelacanth was definitely a valid prehistoric survivor.) Hence I remain reluctant to discount PSP out of hand.

Having said that, although I have often been accused of "believing" that a given cryptid is a particular type of prehistoric survivor, this is simply not true, for the simple reason that it is impossible to state definitely (although certain cryptozoologists habitually attempt to do so) what a given cryptid must be. Without tangible evidence to examine (and I am referring here to physical remains, not photographic evidence, which can be convincingly faked with alarming ease nowadays), all that can be done is pass a personal opinion as to how likely or unlikely a given identity appears to be. However, opinions are not facts, and should never be put forward, or be mistaken, as such. In short, therefore, I do not "believe" that any cryptid is any specific identity – I merely indicate what I personally consider to be likely (or unlikely) identities for it, nothing more.

Reviving this book has posed something of a dilemma for me, because doing so meant that its original brief (and also therefore my own misgivings regarding the plausibility of prehistoric survival for certain of its cryptids) would remain fundamental to its raison d'être. The only alternative would be for me to rewrite it completely, with an entirely altered slant, but the result of that would be not only a totally different but also a much more extensive book – so extensive, in fact, that I sincerely doubt whether it would be financially viable for any publisher to take on. Yet whatever one's own personal opinion may be concerning prehistoric survival in any capacity, the wealth of historical reports and cryptozoological coverage presented in its pages is such that it would be a tragedy for this book to remain out of print, especially when – as I have been made continually aware for many years – there is a very considerable demand among readers for it to reappear.

Consequently, now that I have outlined here how it came to be and why it is what it is, so that there can no longer be any confusion or contention regarding it, I am very happy to engage upon recalling back into existence what many people consider to be my finest cryptozoological volume. When complete, it may contain various updates and certainly some major new illustrations, but its basic context and content will otherwise remain unchanged.

Last, but definitely not least, I wish to thank most sincerely all of its numerous supporters for their kind words through all the intervening years, urging me to resurrect it - just like a veritable prehistoric survivor itself, in fact!

The eyecatching original cover design for In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, prepared by artist Kevin Maddison and featuring a very striking Queensland tiger or yarri (albeit one with enlarged canines like placental felids, rather than with enlarged incisors like thylacoleonids!), but which the publisher ultimately rejected in favour of the plesiosaur flipper cover – ah, well... (© Kevin Maddison)

MY TOP TEN NEW AND REDISCOVERED ANIMALS OF MODERN TIMES

A young saola, depicted upon a postage stamp issued by Vietnam in 2000

It is widely known that many remarkable species of animal have become extinct or at least highly endangered in modern times. However, it is far less well known that during this same time period, a startling number of equally spectacular species have been newly discovered (having been previously unknown to science) or rediscovered (after having been written off as extinct by science). Here, then, in no particular order, is my personal Top Ten of our planet's most extraordinary and scientifically significant zoological arrivals and revivals of modern times – with my interest in cryptozoological philately providing the illustrations.

THE OKAPI

Discovered in 1901, the okapi remains one of the most famous and dramatic new animals to have been unveiled for over a century. Back in 1890, explorer Henry Morton Stanley noted that the Wambutti pygmies inhabiting the Ituri Forest in what is nowadays the Democratic Republic of Congo had informed him that they sometimes trapped in concealed pits a kind of 'forest donkey' known to them as the atti. When Ugandan governor Sir Harry Johnston learnt of this, he made enquiries, as a result of which some soldiers from the Congo gave him two strips of vividly striped skin from one such animal. Convinced that this elusive beast, which he learnt was actually known locally as the okapi, was an unknown forest zebra, he sent the skin strips to London's Zoological Society, where they could not be identified with any known species.

In 1901, Sir Harry succeeded in obtaining a complete okapi skin as well as two skulls, and he sent these to London's Natural History Museum, to await the experts' verdict on the okapi's zoological identity. To everyone's amazement, it proved not to be a zebra at all, but something far more extraordinary. It was a giraffe, but no ordinary one. A totally separate species from the familiar long-necked spotted giraffe of the savannahs, the okapi was a relatively short-necked, stripe-rumped species with purple-brown skin, which was adapted for an exclusively forest-dwelling lifestyle. Although similar species were known from the fossil record, it had been assumed that all of these short-necked giraffes had died out millions of years ago, but the okapi's sensational discovery emphatically disproved this. In honour of Sir Harry's successful investigations, the okapi was formally named Okapia johnstoni.

THE CONGO PEACOCK

The okapi wasn't the only modern-day zoological surprise revealed in the Ituri Forest. During a scientific expedition there in 1913, American Museum of Natural History ornithologist Dr James Chapin spied a native head-dress containing an unusual feather that he had never seen before. He was so intrigued that he purchased the head-dress, but after a long, vain attempt to identify the feather's mysterious species he finally placed this perplexing plume in his desk, but he never forgot it.

In 1936, during a visit to the Congo Museum at Tervueren, Belgium, Chapin spotted a pair of shabby, forgotten taxiderm birds on top of a dusty cabinet separated from the museum's principal collection - and was amazed but delighted to see that the female bird had wing quills identical to his mystifying feather. Investigating this fortuitous discovery, Chapin learnt that these birds' species inhabited the Ituri Forest, where it was known as the mbulu.

By mid-1937, he had acquired several fresh specimens of the mbulu for detailed examination, which revealed it to be a species of peacock hitherto unknown to science, and the only one native to Africa. Very primitive in appearance, it lacked the exquisite fan-like train typifying the familiar Asian peacocks. Chapin dubbed this remarkable new bird Afropavo congensis, the Congo peacock, and it is still deemed to be the most significant ornithological discovery of the past 100 years.

THE MOUNTAIN GORILLA

As far back as 1860, the explorer John Speke had collected native reports of a huge, man-eating hairy ogre that inhabited the Virunga Volcano range of mountains constituting the physical border between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda, but science dismissed such stories as mere superstition and folktales.

In 1902, however, a Belgian army officer called Captain Robert 'Oscar' von Beringe actually shot two of these hairy 'ogres', and sent them to Europe, where they were found to constitute a totally new form of gorilla - quite different from lowland versions, with a broader chest, longer, darker fur, and longer jaws with larger teeth. The mountain gorilla had finally been discovered, and is referred to scientifically as Gorilla beringei beringei.

Happily, we now know that far from being a man-eating ogre, it is actually one of the shyest and most gentle of creatures - as revealed via the studies of Dr George Schaller, and those of the late Dian Fossey (whose life was the subject of the film Gorillas in the Mist).

THE COELACANTH

Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator of the small East London Museum in South Africa, often visited the nearby docks in search of unusual fishes to preserve as specimens for exhibition in the museum, but during a visit in December 1938 she spotted a fish unlike anything that she had ever seen before. Approximately 1.5 m long and steely-blue in colour, what made it so distinctive were its fins, as both the pectoral and the pelvic fins looked just like stubby legs, and, uniquely among all living fishes, its tail fin possessed three lobes instead of just two. Totally baffled by her strange unidentified find, Courtenay-Latimer arranged for it to be transported to the museum and preserved.

She also wrote a letter (containing a sketch of the fish) to a colleague who had assisted her in identifying fishes in the past – world-acclaimed South African ichthyologist Prof. J.L.B. Smith. When he opened it, he was astonished to see that her sketch closely resembled a coelacanth, belonging to an ancient lineage of fishes hitherto believed to have died out over 64 million years ago alongside the dinosaurs! He lost no time in visiting the East London Museum to see this amazing fish himself, and was able to confirm straight away that it was indeed a genuine, modern-day species of coelacanth.

When Prof. Smith formally documented this sensational zoological find, he named its species Latimeria chalumnae, in honour of its discoverer. After a gap of almost 14 years, more coelacanth specimens belonging to this same 'living fossil' species were found, in the waters around the Comoro Islands. And in 1997, a separate, second species of modern-day coelacanth was discovered in the seas around the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It was christened Latimeria menadoensis, and possessed brown scales instead of blue ones.

THE SAOLA

The most spectacular new species of large mammal to have been discovered in recent times is undoubtedly the saola or Vu Quang ox. While conducting field research in an unexplored forest-covered mountainous region of northern Vietnam called Vu Quang during 1992, American conservationist Dr John MacKinnon observed that various native hunters exhibited as trophies in their homes some very long, pointed horns that were unlike those of any species native to anywhere in Asia. Indeed, the only horns that they resembled were those of certain African and Arabian antelopes known as oryxes. When he asked the hunters what animal these mystifying horns came from, he was told that it was a very shy, rarely-seen ox-like creature referred to by them as the saola.

Further enquiries resulted in the procurement of a near-complete dead specimen, revealing the saola to be a dramatically new species that combined a bovine body with the long horns and slender legs of an antelope. It was formally named Pseudoryx nghetinhensis, emphasising its horns' deceptive similarity to an oryx's, but in reality the saola has no close relatives among other species. The size of a buffalo – the saola is the largest new mammal to have been discovered since the kouprey or Cambodian wild ox Bos sauveli in 1937.

This makes the saola's very belated scientific discovery even more remarkable. A few living specimens have subsequently been observed in the wild, and a few even captured and studied alive for short periods, but it remains little-known and very scarce.

THE KOMODO DRAGON

Komodo is a small island in Indonesia's Lesser Sundas chain, southeast of Java, and was once used as a convict island for prisoners. Pearl fishermen visiting Komodo were told by the prisoners that this island harboured a huge, ferocious species of land crocodile. Scientists, however, dismissed such claims as fantasy, until, in 1910, Major P.A. Ouwens, director of Java’s Botanical Gardens at Buitenzorg, near Batavia (now Jakarta), became sufficiently intrigued by them to send a local amateur naturalist to Komodo in search of the truth. When he returned, he confirmed that such creatures really did exist, but they were not crocodiles. Instead, they constituted a giant species of monitor lizard, and as proof he had brought back the skin of one.

In 1912, this spectacular new species was formally described by Ouwens, who named it Varanus komodoensis, the Komodo dragon. It can grow up to 3 m long and weigh up to 70 kg, making it the world's largest lizard. Komodo dragons will kill and devour anything that they can catch – including other Komodo dragons, and humans!

THE CHACOAN PECCARY

Until the mid-1970s, only two species of pig-like peccary were known to science, but during a visit in 1974 to the semi-arid Gran Chaco region of South America, overlapping Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia, American zoologist Dr Ralph Wetzel obtained skulls and other physical evidence testifying to the existence of a third, somewhat bigger species. What made this discovery even more significant, however, is that when these remains were studied, zoologists realised that their species was already known to science – but only as a fossil form hitherto assumed to have died out at the end of the Ice Ages 10,000 years ago. In reality, however, Wetzel's discovery showed that it had not died out at all, but its modern-day survival had not previously been realised by scientists, even though it was a familiar creature to the Chaco inhabitants. This resurrected species is nowadays known as the Chacoan peccary Catagonus wagneri.

In 2003, an even bigger peccary – the world's largest species – was discovered in Brazil; and in 2007, it was formally recognised and named Pecari maximus, the giant peccary. And back in 1904, the world's largest wild species of true pig, the aptly-named giant forest hog Hylochoerus meinertzhageni, was unveiled in Kenya.

THE MEGAMOUTH SHARK

On 15 November 1976, the crew of an American research vessel situated in the waters off the Hawaiian island of Oahu hauled up one of its anchors at the end of the day – and were astonished to discover that it had been partly swallowed by a huge and wholly-unfamiliar shark, which was hauled up with it as the anchor was wedged inside its exceptionally large mouth. The shark had choked to death, so its bulky 4.25-m-long body was taken to Hawaii's Kaneohe Laboratory for preservation. Following a very extensive study, in 1981 it was proclaimed as an entirely new species of shark, radically dissimilar from any previously recorded.

Formally named the megamouth shark Megachasma pelagios, it was so dramatically different, in fact, that it required the creation of a wholly new zoological family in order to accommodate it within the shark classification system. Since then, a sizeable number of additional specimens have been recorded in seas all around the world, making the late scientific discovery of such a large and distinctive species of fish all the more extraordinary, and confirming that the vast oceans undoubtedly hold many more zoological surprises in store.

THE TAKAHE

New Zealand is home to many species of unusual bird found nowhere else in the world, but one of the most beautiful, and elusive, is a multicoloured, flightless relative of coots and moorhens known as the takahe Porphyrio mantelli. Almost as big as a turkey and surviving only on the South Island, it was originally discovered in 1849, but was only rarely seen, and many years would often pass between successive sightings. After a sighting in 1898, however, no further confirmed reports of the takahe emerged for several decades, and zoologists eventually deemed that this time it must surely be extinct.

In November 1948, however, after learning from local Maoris of a mysterious lake not known to Europeans but around whose shores they claimed takahes could still be found, New Zealand physician Dr Geoffrey Orbell organised an expedition to this lake. On 20 November, while the team was searching there, and without any prior warning, just ahead of them a takahe unexpectedly stepped into view - and into history - as the first living specimen recorded for 50 years! Its species' rediscovery is one of the most significant in modern times, and the takahe is now fully protected.

THE DINGISO

In 1994, while visiting the hitherto scarcely-explored Sudirman mountains of Irian Jaya, the western, Indonesian half of New Guinea, Australian zoologist Dr Tim Flannery encountered a completely unfamiliar yet extremely distinctive species of tree kangaroo, whose eyecatching black and white fur made it look more like a panda! Moreover, in spite of its zoological status, this particular tree kangaroo preferred to spend much of its time on the ground, and was relatively tame, whistling loudly at anyone approaching it. It transpired that the native Moni tribe sharing its forest habitat revere this species as their own ancestor, and thus refrain from hunting it, explaining why it was unafraid of humans.

Known to them as the dingiso, it was totally new to science, and when officially documented and described, it was christened Dendrolagus mbaiso. This delightful panda-lookalike is the most dramatic new species of mammal to have been discovered in Australasia for many years.

And speaking of pandas: the giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca was itself only rediscovered in 1928 after having been written off as extinct for several decades after its original discovery by western science in 1868.

 Just over a century ago, zoologists were confidently predicting that all of the world's major animal forms had been found and catalogued. How wrong they were. Even today, very notable new species of animal are still being discovered, and species long believed extinct are still being rediscovered, as documented in my recent book The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals (Coachwhip Books: Landisville, 2012). This is why the conservation of existing wildlife habitats worldwide remains so imperative, in order to preserve biodiversity and avoid the horrifying prospect of remarkable animal species becoming extinct without their existence ever having been discovered. What a terrible tragedy that would be.

My sincere thanks to Pib Burns for kindly permitting me to include in my article a selection of postage stamp illustrations from his excellent cryptozoological philately site (together with illustrations of stamps from my own collection) - please click here to visit Pib's site and see more postage stamps depicting new, rediscovered, and still-undiscovered animals.

And for lots more information on every major new and rediscovered animal from 1900 to the present day, check out my recent book, The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals - the definitive book on all such creatures.

SETTING THE SEAL ON THE COELACANTH GOBLET - YOUR ASSISTANCE IS REQUESTED!

Coelacanth (William M. Rebsamen)

I've made this request for info before, but to no avail. However, I don't give up easily, so here we go again!

In 1996, French crypto-correspondent Michel Raynal sent me details of a remarkable Spanish goblet described to him (and also sketched) by one of his own contacts. The goblet in question is supposed to date from the 17th Century and depicts a strange fish that greatly resembles the modern-day coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae, which remained undiscovered by science until December 1938, and has never been caught off European waters - only off South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, and (mostly) the Comoro Islands. (A second, closely-related species was captured off Sulawesi, Indonesia, during the late 1990s.)

Does the goblet provide evidence, therefore, for an unknown Latimeria population existing in the seas around Spain, or even Mexico - if the goblet was of Mexican origin but was brought back to Spain at a later date?

Michel's correspondent stated that the mystifying goblet was on display in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History at Pittsburgh, and that, emphasising the similarity of its portrayed fish to Latimeria, a specimen of Latimeria preserved in formaldehyde was exhibited alongside the goblet, with a caption asking whether there could indeed be coelacanths in the Atlantic still undiscovered by science. Greatly intrigued by this, on 30 April I wrote to the museum to request further details concerning the goblet - its origin, previous ownership, opinions from the museum's zoologists, whether any photos of it could be made available to me - and on 9 May I received a kind but very unexpected reply from Elizabeth A. Hill, Collection Manager of the museum's Section of Vertebrate Paleontology.

According to Ms Hill, the goblet was not on display there, and she could find no information that the museum had ever possessed such an item! Moreover, its Recent (i.e. modern-day) fish collection was disposed of many years ago to another museum, which meant that it does not exhibit any fish in formaldehyde. As a further check, Hill contacted the museum's Anthropology Division, which holds a collection of glassware, just in case the goblet was here instead, but it was not - nor did its records have any listing of anything fitting its description that had arrived there on long-term loan from another museum.

Indeed, the only remotely similar item on display in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History proved to be a small blue and white Wedgwood plate with Latimeria itself in the centre - according to its label, this plate was presented to the museum by the Buten Museum of Wedgwood in Merion, Pennsylvania.

I can only assume that if the story of the goblet is genuine, Michel's correspondent was mistaken as to which museum was displaying it - which is where you, gentle readers, come in! If anyone out there has seen this goblet while visiting a museum in the U.S.A. (or anywhere else, for that matter), I would greatly welcome details. Who knows - we may even have another 'quest for the thunderbird photo' in the makings here!