TONGUE-TIED BY THE TWO-TONGUES!

 

Is this what Malaya's mystifying two-tongued cryptids looked like? (created by me using Grok X1)

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

A two-tongue with a banquet of bananas awaiting its pleasure! (created by me using Grok X1)

Incidentally, as some of you know, I've been experimenting with various AI image-generators, testing their capabilities and limitations so as to be better equipped to recognise AI-generated fake cryptozoologically-themed images with which the Net seems to be increasingly awash of late. So, as no image of the Malayan two-tongues has ever been created to my knowledge, I decided to put to the test two different AI image-generators that I've been exploring, Grok X1 and Magic Studio, and see how they performed when prompted to produce pictures of these bizarre beasts.

And, as I'm sure that those out there who are not AI fans will be delighted to learn, both programs were aptly rendered tongue-tied (or whatever the AI equivalent state is!) by the tortuous challenge posed by the two-tongues. Not only did they fail utterly to depict them as the very sizeable animals that anything weighing 200 lb must surely be (instead presenting what look far more like diminutive cubs!), but also, out of all the numerous images that they generated, only one, produced by Grok X1, actually featured creatures possessing two tongues apiece – and here it is:

 

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

Overall, Grok X1 was the superior creator with regard to this particular pictorial task, as it also created a number of images featuring creatures with a single but bilobed tongue that my own digital addition of a hand-drawn line separating the lobes into two separate tongues was sufficient to engender some satisfactory twin-tongued entities that I've included in this article. Even so, they still did not overly resemble the original 1977 verbal description of these creatures, quoted by me above.

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

 

All three images created by me using Magic Studio

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

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

 

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

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

 

And it's toodle-pip from the two-tongues too! (created by me using Grok X1)

 

 

KICKING UP ANOTHER STINK - BRINGING JAVA'S GIANT TREE-CLIMBING 'SKUNKS' DOWN TO EARTH

19^th-Century engraving of the Malayan or Javanese stink badger, native to Java, Sumatra, and throughout Borneo (public domain)

If you have ever wondered what was the very first cryptozoological investigation that I ever undertook, wonder no longer – because here it is.

In my previous ShukerNature blog article (click here), I documented the little-known but fascinating crypto-case of a still-unidentified Argentinian mammal captured alive and even nurtured for a while by renowned British dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse that she vehemently claimed to have been a pouched skunk – a creature not presently known to the zoological world. However, that was not my first encounter with a mephitic mystery beast, as will now be revealed.

During the mid-1980s, in what turned out to be my debut within the fascinating field of cryptozoological investigation, I was able to assist in revealing the true identity of another skunk-dubbed zoological enigma. Namely, the alsatian-sized, tree-climbing Javan 'skunks' reported by the Antara News Agency on 14 May 1977.

A common hog-nosed skunk Conepatus leuconotus, at up to 3 ft long one of the largest skunk species, from North and Central America, as illustrated by Louis Agassiz in 1918 (public domain)

The baffling report in question was quoted in full within the book Living Wonders: Mysteries and Curiosities of the Animal World (1982), authored by John Michell and Bob Rickard, which is where I encountered it, and it reads as follows:

Giant skunks, probably survivors from prehistoric times, have been discovered in the jungles of north central Java. The skunks are as big as German shepherd dogs [aka Alsatians] and can climb trees. B.O. Naing-golan of the Central Java Animal Lovers' Association said one of the giant skunks was captured and killed by shepherds recently on the slopes of the Ungaran mountain in Central Java. He deplored the fact that the giant skunks are not included on the list of protected species.

Skunks, of course, are not the size of alsatians, they do not inhabit Indonesia or anywhere else in the Old World per se (but see the end of this blog article for a pertinent taxonomic tail-note), and they are not typically arboreal. Consequently, in an attempt to find out more regarding these Javan anomalies, I penned a letter of enquiry to the ISC Newsletter – the now-defunct International Society of Cryptozoology's quarterly newsletter – which was duly published in its winter 1985 issue. And here it is:

My letter as published in the ISC Newsletter (winter 1985) – please click image to enlarge it for reading purposes

After reading it, Gerald L. Wood, author of all three editions of The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats (1972, 1976, 1982), kindly wrote to me on 26 June 1986 and revealed that he too had been greatly perplexed by the above-quoted news agency report after having first encountered it. Consequently, he had fully investigated its strange claim of zoological impossibilities – as a result of which he had successfully uncovered a startling error of etymology as the explanation.

All three editions of Gerald's wonderful book The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats (© Gerald L. Wood/Guinness Publishing)

Gerald had discovered (but had not publicly revealed) that these 'skunks' were in fact skinks – i.e. a type of lizard. Moreover, they were of very much more modest proportions than would befit an alsatian dog!

The Solomon Islands giant (prehensile-tailed) skink Corucia zebrata – at up to 32 in long from nose-tip to tail-tip, it is the world's largest extant species of skink but hardly compares with an alsatian dog! (public domain)

Here is a photocopy of Gerald's letter containing these revelatory details that he kindly sent to me:

Gerald's letter to me re Java's giant 'skunks', written on 26 June 1986 – please click image to enlarge it for reading purposes

To provide an official, published response to my enquiry, a copy of his above letter was later published by the ISC Newsletter in its autumn 1986 issue, thus bringing to an official close another longstanding cryptozoological conundrum.

Gerald's letter as published in the ISC Newsletter (autumn 1986) – please click image to enlarge it for reading purposes

Incidentally, I've never actually identified with confidence the precise species of skink, giant or otherwise, to which the confused Antara News Agency report was referring. So if there are any herpetological specialists out there reading this blog article of mine who could offer any suggestions, please do post them here, as I'd very greatly welcome them – many thanks indeed!

Solomon Islands giant skink at rest – note its very long tail (public domain)

As for the tail-note that I promised earlier: in recent years, taxonomic revisions based upon comparative DNA analyses have led to all of the New World's ten or so species of skunk being split off from the mustelids (family Mustelidae) and rehoused in their very own distinct taxonomic family, Mephitidae. Moreover, they are no longer of exclusively New World distribution either, because those same DNA-based analyses revealed that the two species of Asian stink badger (the afore-mentioned Malaysian or Javanese and the Palawan ) are more closely related to the skunks than they are to badgers or to any other mustelids. Hence these too are now housed within Mephitidae. (Also, since my ISC Newsletter enquiry was published, the two stink badger species have been reassigned to a single genus, Mydaus, by some taxonomists.)

This in turn means that if we use 'skunk' as a general, informal collective term for all mephitids (rather than just the true, New World contingent), there really are skunks in Java after all – but nothing like the giant tree-climbers erroneously created by the Antara News Agency report!

An engraving from 1887 of the Palawan stink badger, native to the western Philippines (public domain)

My sincere thanks to the late Gerald L. Wood, whose encouragement readily given to me during my fledgling years as an investigative cryptozoologist were – and always will be – very greatly appreciated by me.

Gerald L. Wood, one of my earliest cryptozoological/animal superlative correspondents and friends (© Gerald L. Wood), and my much-treasured signed copy of his Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats, 3^rd edition (© Gerald L. Wood/Guinness Publishing/Dr Karl Shuker)

This ShukerNature blog article is expanded and updated from the original section contained within my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings: From the Pages of Fate Magazine.

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