PUBLISHED TODAY! – SHUKERNATURE BOOK 1: ANTLERED ELEPHANTS, LOCUST DRAGONS, AND OTHER CRYPTIC BLOG BEASTS

Hot off the press – with magnificent front-cover artwork by Anthony Wallis, here is my very first ShukerNature book! (© Dr Karl Shuker/Coachwhip Publications)

If I wish to read a blog which is *only* about the narrow, limited topics of my own interests, I'll write it myself. If I wish to read a well written, extremely well researched blog on a wide variety of suspected, imagined, claimed, portrayed creatures from the mundane to the monstrous, from the Byzantine and the bizarre to the modern and the miraculous - I'll read ShukerNature.

Richard S. White, retired museum professional and vertebrate palaeontologist 

 – Facebook, 12 August 2017

It's been a long time coming – over eight years, in fact, since I first mooted the idea of preserving my ShukerNature blog posts in permanent, hard-copy book format – but it's finally here. In what is planned to be a regular series, today, 8 April 2019, sees the official publication of ShukerNature Book 1: Antlered Elephants, Locust Dragons, and Other Cryptic Blog Beasts.

Although I first became yoked to the internet via an email account back in 1997, followed by my own official website a year later (created by the late, much-mourned American cryptozoologist Scott T. Norman), I steadfastly remained immune to the world of online blogging until as relatively recently as 2009 – 20 January 2009, to be precise, when I finally gave in to temptation.

For after the Centre of Fortean Zoology (CFZ) kindly established it for me in tandem with their own 'umbrella' of CFZ-affiliated blogs called the CFZ Bloggo, that was the fateful date upon which a short item entitled 'Wolves of the Weird' (click here to read it) became the first of what currently stands at over 600 illustrated articles of varying lengths and exceedingly varied subjects that have been researched, written, and uploaded by me onto my very own, unique blog. As its many loyal readers will confirm, ShukerNature is devoted to cryptozoology, zoomythology, anomalous animals, animal anomalies, and unnatural history of every kind, as well as some investigations and reviews of certain ostensibly zooform entities that may be of paranormal, supernatural identity rather than corporeal creatures of zoology. It has also enabled me to preview various in-progress and forthcoming books of mine from 2009 onwards, and, via its Comments section at the end of each of my articles, allows readers to post their own thoughts, opinions, and information, thereby becoming a valuable source of original ideas, news, and data.

Knowing that my blog's contents would cover such a vast diversity of subjects, and that they would all be written in my own particular style (unencumbered by the necessities to conform to any one specific style convention as is so often the case when writing for specific publishers or publications), posed an especial problem for me with regard to what my blog's name would be. How could I possibly come up with a title that would encompass all of those subjects in a succinct yet definitive manner, and also emphasise that these were my writings, penned in my style? In fact, as it turned out, I didn't come up with such a title – someone else did.

That person was fellow cryptozoologist and CFZ colleague Oll Lewis. After hearing that I was having trouble coining a suitable title for my blog, he achieved what to me seemed the impossible – suggesting a title that fulfilled every requirement, covered every subject, incorporated a direct reference to me in it, and much more besides, yet, incredibly, did all of this by way of just a single word! And that word, which did indeed become my blog's title? ShukerNature. Oll has never disclosed his inspirations for what was indeed a truly inspired suggestion; but because he and I are of similar generations, I think it likely that a certain book and also quite possibly a certain song that both achieved considerable fame during our youth may have played their part, consciously or otherwise.

The book was the bestseller Supernature, written by the late anthropologist/ethologist Dr Lyall Watson, and first published in 1973. Its self-explanatory subtitle A Natural History of the Supernatural also set the scene for many of his equally-acclaimed future books; as did its very memorable front-cover illustration by renowned American artist Jerry Pinkney, depicting a flowering plant growing out of an egg. Indeed, this eyecatching artwork became something of an icon in its own right (and may be a homage to 'Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man' - a famous painting from 1943 by the celebrated Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali, which contains a reminiscent image). And speaking of homages:

A ShukerNature homage to Dr Lyall Watson's inspirational book Supernature and to Jerry Pinkney's iconic front-cover illustration for it (© Mark North / © Jerry Pinkney - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The song, entitled 'SuperNature' and released in 1977, was a disco classic by Cerrone (aka the Italio-French disco drummer/composer/record producer Marc Cerrone). In its original format, more than 10 minutes long, this song was the title (and opening) track of Cerrone's third album; but in a shorter format, just under 4 minutes long, it hit the singles charts all around the world in 1978. Its verses' lyrics (written by an uncredited Lene Lovich) took as their unusual theme for a dance song the dangers of tampering with the environment, turning ordinary creatures into dangerous monsters, with its infuriatingly-catchy chorus simply the repeatedly-sung word 'SuperNature'.

Thus was my blog, ShukerNature, born. (Amusingly, some time afterwards, a reader wrote to me saying how he had always been puzzled by my blog's title, wondering how and where it had originated – until one day, that is, when, while he had been thinking about this mystery yet again, Cerrone's song had suddenly begun to play inside his head, and the proverbial penny duly dropped with a loud clang!)

Within just a couple of years from my blog's creation, I was already receiving enquiries from readers as to whether I would be producing a ShukerNature companion book, or books, at some stage, containing selections of its most popular and intriguing blog articles. And when I enquired both on the blog itself and also via my various cryptozoology-linked Facebook pages and groups (including one devoted specifically to ShukerNature) whether there was indeed an interest out there for such a project, I swiftly received a very emphatic affirmative.

An additional reason for doing so was that by converting selections of my ShukerNature articles into a hard-copy published format, they would be rendered permanently accessible in a manner that online data, so often ephemeral in status, can rarely emulate. For whereas a book, once in print, has a guaranteed existence, a website can exist online one moment and vanish the next, thereby expunging a fund of unique, irreplaceable information.

And so I began planning what at that stage I was referring to as ShukerNature: The Book, alongside various additional writings. However, as sometimes happens, life – and death – had other plans for the direction in which my future would take. Or, as my wise little Mom used to remind me gently if I railed against my dreams and ambitions faltering or falling into disarray: "Man proposes, but God disposes" (which is a translation of the Latin phrase 'Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit', from Book I, chapter 19, of The Imitation of Christ by the German cleric Thomas à Kempis).

Thus it came to pass that my blog book was set to one side, and other projects that for one reason or another needed to take precedence were duly completed and published in its stead. Notable among these were my second, long-planned, and extremely comprehensive dragons book – Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture; a wide-ranging compilation of my most notable Loch Ness monster writings – Here's Nessie!; and of course my fully-updated, massively-enlarged, biggest-ever cryptozoology volume – Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors.

My three above-mentioned books (© Dr Karl Shuker)

These are all now published, and in the meantime the very many additional blog articles that I have continued to research, write, and post each year have provided me with an immensely expanded list of possible examples to include in my eventual ShukerNature compendium.

Formulating how such a book could be prepared, however, was not an easy task, and took a long time to accomplish to my own satisfaction. Indeed, the eventual volume that resulted proved to be so sizeable that the decision was finally taken to divide it into two separate ones, of equal length, to be published sequentially. Consequently, and after much deliberation in the choosing of its specific subjects, I now have great pleasure in publicising herewith on its official date of publication, 8 April 2019, the first of those two volumes, in what I hope will be an ongoing series of ShukerNature books.

Its contents – now saved forever from the vicissitudes of the internet, available for you to read and re-read whenever and wherever you choose to do, updated and expanded when new information has come my way since the original articles were uploaded online, and unequivocally unlike any other collection of writings, whether in print or out of it - document some of the most remarkable, spellbinding entities from my blog's furthest frontiers and most shadowy hinterlands.

After all, where else, within the covers of a single 418-page book (and sumptuously illustrated throughout via spectacular full-colour and rare vintage b/w pictures), are you likely to find such exotic zoological esoterica as locust dragons, antlered elephants, North America's alligator men and Egypt's crocodile children, reptilian seals and seal dragons, king hares and giant rabbits, fan-tailed mermen and scaly bishops, flying cats and even flying elephants, green tigers and blue lions, giant oil-drinking spiders and bemusing sea-monkeys, demonic dragonflies and fury worms, marginalia snail-cats and elephant rats, pukwudgies and Pigasus, ape-man Oliver, lightbulb lizards, mini-mummies, my very own mystery animal, and how ShukerNature famously hit the cryptozoological headlines globally with a series of astonishing world-exclusives exposing the long-awaited truth about Trunko?

To find out more about all of these, and numerous other no less fascinating, equally eclectic fauna too, loiter no longer – it's time to pay a visit to the weirdly wonderful (and wonderfully weird!) world of ShukerNature. So, please come in, I've been expecting you...

And if you're wondering how can I possibly follow all of that, the answer is simple – ShukerNature Book 2: Living Gorgons, Bottled Homunculi, and Other Monstrous Blog Beasts – due out later this year. And don't forget - you read about it here first!

You lookin' at me?? (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Last – but certainly not least – of all: I wish to offer a massive, sincere vote of thanks to all of you for reading and supporting my ShukerNature blog since its launch in 2009 – without your enthusiasm and interest, it could not have survived – and I look forward to sharing with you many more exotic, entertaining, esoteric, educational, and always thoroughly extraordinary wildlife secrets, controversies, mysteries, surprises, and curiosities, as well celebrating many more ShukerNature anniversaries, both online and in book form, through the years to come!

Copies of ShukerNature Book 1 can be ordered through all good bookstores, and can be purchased online at such outlets as Amazon UK (click here), Amazon USA (click here), and Barnes & Noble (click here). For further details concerning it and also my three previous books published by Coachwhip Publications, please click here.

Full cover wrap, including back-cover blurb (click picture to expand for reading purposes), from ShukerNatureBook 1 (© Dr Karl Shuker/Coachwhip Publications)

TOPKAPI'S MUMMIFIED CROCODILE BOY AND AMERICA'S MONKEYFIED ALLIGATOR MEN - A CURIOUS QUARTET OF GENUINE FAKES!

Postcard depicting Jake the Alligator Man (© Marsh's Free Museum)

On 1 March 1992, Turkish archaeologists publicly announced the discovery of an extraordinary Egyptian mummy in the vaults of Istanbul's famous Topkapi Palace Museum during some recent restoration work there. It was concealed inside a wooden sarcophagus (whose form confirmed it as having originated in ancient Egypt), and when carefully unwrapped it was found to consist of the upper parts of a young boy fused to the lower half of a crocodile!

The explanation for this bizarre specimen is still unknown. Some researchers have speculated that the boy may have been killed and partially eaten by the crocodile while bathing (or after accidentally falling) in Egypt's Nile River – and that in order for him to possess a complete body with which to pass into the afterlife, his parents arranged for his reptilian murderer to be killed and for the section of its body corresponding to the devoured portion of their son's to be attached to the boy's remains. However, this theory seems no less grotesque than the mummy itself!

Photocopy of a photograph - click to enlarge - depicting Topkapi's mummified crocodile boy being examined by the museum's Assistant Director of Restoration and Conservation, Behçet Erdal – from a report dated 1 March 1992 in the Turkish newspaper Meydan (© Meydan – photocopy courtesy of Paul Sieveking/Fortean Times via Izzet Goksu)

A more plausible possibility is that the pseudo-conjoined mummy was deliberately created as a sacred artefact or offering by worshippers of Sebek (aka Sobek), ancient Egypt's crocodile-headed god of rivers and lakes. It may even have been produced as a clever fraud for exhibition purposes – in modern times, such specimens are popularly referred to as gaffs; if so, this would make it one of the earliest gaffs ever recorded.

Line drawing from 1885 of Sebek, ancient Egypt's crocodile-headed deity (public domain)

As yet, I have not succeeded in discovering whether this unique specimen is on public display at Topkapi. So if anyone reading this ShukerNature blog article can provide me with some relevant details, I'd be very grateful.

Similar monstrosities were once very popular in carnivals and sideshows, especially in America, and at least one such creation still is today. Known as Jake the Alligator Man and constituting the upper half of a monkey skeleton skilfully attached to the lower half of a small alligator, this famous specimen has been on display for many years at Marsh's Free Museum [http://www.marshsfreemuseum.com/] – a thoroughly fascinating, highly-recommended exhibition of wonders and curiosities in Long Beach, Washington (not California, as often erroneously claimed) – and is said to be more than 75 years old.

Jake the Alligator Man (© imhavingfun42/Wikipedia)

Indeed, every year for almost a decade now there has been an official Annual Jake the Alligator Man 75^th Birthday Party held in Long Beach. A short YouTube video of Jake on display at Marsh's Free Museum can be viewed here.

Incidentally, a much more common variant on this particular gaff theme is of course the so-called 'Feejee mermaid' (named after the famous specimen exhibited by American circus showman Phineas T. Barnum in 1842), which consists of the upper half of a monkey sewn to the lower half of a large fish.

19^th-Century engraving of Barnum's Feejee mermaid (public domain)

Jake was purchased by the founders of Marsh's Free Museum in 1967 from an antique store in California, for the princely sum of $750, and was allegedly created by a New York-based firm known as Nelson Supply House. Jake subsequently featured in a series of highly entertaining albeit fictitious reports published by the American tabloid Weekly World News and beginning on 9 November 1993, which claimed that it had been found alive in a Florida swamp!

The headline from the first in the series of Jake the Alligator Man reports from Weekly World News (© Weekly World News)

More recently, a man named Josh brought a similar gaff into the curiosities shop Obscura featured in the Science Channel TV show Oddities, and sold it to the shop's proprietors for $450. A YouTube video of this interesting episode, uploaded by Science Channel on 1 June 2011 and showing the gaff in close-up detail, can be viewed here.

The Oddities alligator man (© Science Channel)

I also know of a third American alligator man specimen, but, sadly, its present whereabouts are apparently unknown (or at least to me). I have on file a copy of a report from 1996 written by Chris L. Murphy from the organisation Progressive Research, based in British Columbia, Canada. In his report, Chris documented his recollections of what appears to have been an outstanding alligator man, which he encountered while visiting the little town of Seaside, in Oregon, during the summer of 1976. Going into a large general store in the centre of the town, he discovered that it contained a free museum, and exhibited in that museum, housed inside a glass case, was a remarkable specimen labelled as an Alligator Boy. In his report, Chris described it as follows:

"The creature in the case was human looking to about its navel, and the rest of its body was that of an alligator. The human part was "upright," fairly erect as I recall. I studied the creature for a long time and reasoned that it was the body of a child, say about two years old, that had been fused onto the body of a small alligator. The child's body was "mummy-like" in appearance but still had considerable detail. I recall especially its hair, which was very fine and white, very much like the hair one would find on a child of this age, except for the color.

"The process used to fuse the bodies was certainly very exacting. The smooth skin of the child melded in with the scaly alligator skin very gradually, making the creature appear very realistic. I carefully studied the head, hands (which were very small), arms and other parts of the body and reasoned that it would be very difficult to fake something of that nature. In other words, I believe the human portion of the creature was the body of a real child. Unfortunately, there was no literature on the exhibit, and I did not take a photograph of it."

Chris revisited Seaside in or around 1993, intending to photograph the alligator boy, but when he arrived in town he discovered that the general store and its in-house museum were gone, replaced by a clothing store. When Chris spoke to a couple concerning the store and its alligator boy, the man informed him that he'd lived in Seaside most of his life and remembered this specimen well, but stated that some time before the store had closed down, it had been robbed and the alligator boy stolen from it.

A second postcard depicting Jake the Alligator Man (© Marsh's Free Museum)

Another Seaside resident, the proprietor of a jewellery store there, informed Chris that there was an alligator man on display at a free museum in Long Beach, Washington (Jake the Alligator Man at Marsh's Free Museum, obviously) and wondered whether this could be the same specimen as the one that had vanished from Seaside's erstwhile store-museum. Anxious to pursue this potential lead, on his way back home to British Columbia Chris stopped by in Long Beach and visited its alligator man. However, he could see straight away that this was a totally different specimen, its body held at an angle, not erect, and, at least in Chris's opinion, of inferior workmanship to the Seaside specimen that he had seen back in 1976. Moreover, he was able to chat with the museum's owner in Long Beach, who confirmed that he had purchased Jake in California (and a decade before Chris had seen the Seaside specimen anyway), and was unaware of any comparable gaffs anywhere else.

Having not seen the Seaside specimen personally, I am reluctant to discount Chris's opinion that it incorporated the head and upper body portion of a real human child, but it does seem more likely that these constituents of this gaff were actually derived from a monkey. Having said that, however, gaffs can be inordinately sturdy (especially if well-constructed), and hence are sometimes extremely old – dating back to times when, whereas albeit entirely abhorrent today, the prospect of such a macabre exhibit having been purposefully created would have been neither unthinkable nor impossible, as exemplified by Topkapi's mummified crocodile boy.

Meanwhile: whatever happened to the Seaside alligator boy? (Not only is it not Jake the Alligator Man, it is not the specimen sold on Oddities either, because the latter's body was not erect in posture but instead was held at an angle, just like Jake's.) Does it still exist today, and, if so, where is it? And are there still other alligator man gaffs also out there? If you know of any, or have any information concerning the presently lost Seaside specimen, please post details here on ShukerNature – thanks again!

Two Turkish newspaper reports from 1 March 1992 - click to enlarge - concerning the Topkapi mummified crocodile boy, one from Meydan, the other from Hürriyet Daily News (© Meydan/(© Hürriyet Daily News - photocopies courtesy of Paul Sieveking/Fortean Times via Izzet Goksu)

UPDATE: 24 May 2015 - CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER...

After reading my above blog article and perusing the two photographs of Topkapi's mummified crocodile boy, longstanding crypto-correspondent Hodari Nundu was intrigued by the presence of a crocodile's head and apparent upper body portion within the sarcophagus but at the opposite end to the mummy's human head, and he wondered if in reality the mummy was actually composed of the head and upper body portion of a boy fused at the posterior edge of the boy's upper body portion to the posterior edge of the upper body portion of a crocodile, with its neck and head still present too. In other words, is it a veritable amphisbaena in mummified form, i.e. consisting of a single body with a head at each end (the boy's head at one end of the body, the crocodile's at the other)? If so, this would make the mummy even more bizarre than it already appeared to be. 

Yet according to both of the Turkish newspaper reports, as well as a subsequent report in the UK's prestigious Sunday Times newspaper for 8 March 1992, it was definitely the lower body portion of a crocodile that was fused to the boy's upper body portion (the Sunday Times report even referred specifically to the mummy incorporating the crocodile's tail). Also worth recalling is the mention in the Turkish reports of the theory that perhaps the boy's parents had arranged for the portion of the boy eaten by the crocodile (which was obviously his lower body portion, because his upper portion and head are incorporated into the mummy) to be replaced by the corresponding body portion of the crocodile (hence the crocodile's lower body portion) in order for their son to possess a whole body with which to pass into the afterlife.

Consequently, two different explanations for this ostensible contradiction come to mind. Either the crocodile head and upper body portion are not actually attached to the mummy but are merely lying on top of its crocodilian lower body portion and tail, thereby obscuring them from view in the photographs (the crocodile head and upper body portion presumably therefore having also been placed inside the sarcophagus, rather than merely being discarded, after the composite mummy had been produced and laid in there); or the Turkish newspaper reports (and thence that of the Sunday Times, which most likely obtained its information from Turkish media sources) were in error, and that in reality the mummy is indeed a crocodile-human amphisbaena in terms of its composition and construction.

Also today, on my 'Animal Discoveries and Curiosities' Facebook group's page, Hodari posted the following data:

"I did find some stuff online, including a Turkish news report from 2007 according to which the mummy would soon be put in display at the Topkapi Palace Museum. The story states that the mummy’s age has not been determined even though it was submitted to the carbon 14 test; the age of the boy when he died was between seven and eight. According to the director of the Topkapi museum, the legend says that the boy was the son of an Egyptian dignitary who fell into the Nile and was eaten by a crocodile. The reptile was then killed with the boy still inside, and mummified. However, at least two sources state that more than one half child half crocodile mummies have been found throughout Egypt, and that the Topkapi “specimen” is only one of several. Which I find strange since one would expect such rarities would be better known. One of the sources does include a possible explanation; Harpocrates (the child-like aspect of the god Horus) is often represented as stepping or standing on top of a crocodile, which represents the chaotic and malignant forces of the universe, so according to them, the child emerging from the crocodile would have a similar meaning."

Thanks, Hodari! Occurring in late Greek mythology as developed in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Egypt, and adapted from the ancient Egyptian child-god Horus, Harpocrates was a child-deity, the god of silence and secrecy. He was variously portrayed in art forms standing in human form upon the back of a crocodile, or emerging from the jaws of a crocodile, or possessing either the entire lower body portion and tail of a crocodile or the tail alone of a crocodile.

Following up these leads, I have just discovered online a photograph of a drachm coin originating in Alexandria and dating from the time of the Roman emperor Trajan (reigned 98-117 AD) that depicts Harpocrates with the tail of a crocodile:

Crocodile-tailed Harpocrates on Trajan-dated drachm coin from Alexandria, Egypt (© Aeqvitas.com)

And here is a depiction of a crocodile-bodied Harpocrates on a silver ring in the collections of the University of Michigan's Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at Ann Arbor (click here for full details):

Close-up of silver ring depicting Harpocrates with a crocodile's body (© Christopher A. Faraone, Ann Arbor, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology)

Could it be, therefore, that Topkapi's mummified crocodile boy was intentionally created as a physical representation of Harpocrates? 

With all of these new developments and findings to hand, I am now even more eager than before to obtain further information concerning this unique specimen, so that its true nature can be confirmed. So if you have any details, please post them here - thanks very much!


2ND UPDATE: 17 July 2018 - THE TOPKAPI CROCODILE GIRL!

My above-proposed 'amphisbaena' identity for the Topkapi crocodile boy has been proved correct. On 7 July 2018, Turkey's Hürriyet Daily News published an exclusive, revelatory article concerning Topkapi Palace's enigmatic crocodile boy mummy, and included the first detailed, close-up photograph of it to be released publicly, which was snapped on 6 July. (Versions of this report later appeared in various British newspapers - click here to read London's The Sun report of 9 July, as it contains an excellent presentation of the photograph.) The article revealed that the mummy's human portion was indeed attached to the upper body portion and head of a crocodile (not its lower portion and tail), so was, as I suggested earlier here, a veritable amphisbaena. Moreover, it was not from a boy after all, but had instead been derived from a girl, and no ordinary girl either – nothing less, in fact, than a princess, albeit a currently unidentified one, hailing from ancient Egypt. The mummy had been brought from Egypt to Turkey during the reign (1861-1876) of Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz. It was kept at Yildiz Palace in Istanbul (which was the sultan's official residence at that time), until, after one of the palace servants used it to play a joke upon another worker there, Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II (r.1876-1909) duly 'exiled' the mummy to the older palace of Topkapi, where it has remained ever since. My thanks to Hodari Nundu for bringing to my attention today the Hürriyet Daily News article.
 

This ShukerNature blog article is a greatly-expanded, fully-updated version of a short account of mine that originally appeared in my book The Unexplained: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Natural and Paranormal Mysteries (1996).