PUTTING THE QUEENSLAND TIGER AND THE CONGOLESE WATER ELEPHANT IN THE PICTURE!

 

My illustration of the Queensland tiger aka the yarri, which I prepared as a teenager back in the mid-/late1970s (© Dr Karl Shuker

Serendipity has played a big part in my life, usually involving my looking for one thing and, while doing so, finding something entirely different but equally worthwhile. And so it proved again today.

As a teenager during the mid-/late 1970s, I'd written a letter to Prof. Christopher Evans, a very notable Welsh scientist and psychologist who at that time was also acting as scientific advisor for ITV's hit British teenage-oriented sci fi TV show The Tomorrow People. My letter concerned a biological subject touched upon not only within one of this show's series but also, and this time in much more detail, within an episode of the original, classic Star Trek TV show. I didn't really expect to receive a reply, as I assumed that he must receive countless letters from fans of the show, so I was both surprised and delighted when I did indeed receive one, in the form of a charming, insightful letter from the man himself, which I greatly treasured – and especially so when Prof. Evans tragically died not long afterwards, of cancer, in 1979, aged only 48.

It occurred to me recently that I sought to scan this precious letter from Prof. Evans and post it here on ShukerNature with the background details leading up to it, thereby preserving it publicly for posterity. So today I sought out the folder in which I always believed it to have been placed by me long ago for safekeeping – only to realize to my horror when searching for it that I no longer had any idea where said folder was! After several hours, however, I finally uncovered it – only to discover once again to my horror that it did not contain said letter! So now I have to start searching all over again for it.

However, in that very same folder I did find two other items that caught my attention, both of which I'd hitherto entirely forgotten – a pair of colour illustrations of two mystery mammals that I'd prepared at much the same time that I'd written my letter to Prof. Evans, meaning that they are almost 50 years old and have never been seen outside that folder – until now. For although I freely confess that my artistic attempts fall far short of those wonderful artworks created by my various bona fide artist friends on social media and elsewhere, as they nonetheless constitute one of my earliest forays into creating cryptozoological output I felt that followers of my Shukernature blog might like to see them, and also it means that they are now at least for the present preserved online. So here they are.

 

My copy of the hardback First Edition of On the Track of Unknown Animals, by Dr Bernard Heuvelmans, featuring several line illustrations by Monique Watteau on its dustjacket, including her rendition of the Queensland tiger (© Dr Bernard Heuvelmans/Monique Watteau/Rupert Hart-Davis – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The first one, opening this particular blog post, is my colour illustration of Australia's elusive Queensland tiger or yarri (documented by me here on ShukerNature), which was inspired by a b/w line drawing prepared by French artist Monique Watteau that appeared in veteran cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans's seminal tome On the Track of Unknown Animals (1958). In addition, when I prepared my above illustration, I had never encountered a full-colour image of the Queensland tiger anywhere, so mine may actually have been the very first one prepared (but don't quote me on this, just in case!).

The second one, posted below, is of Africa's enigmatic Congolese water elephant (documented by me here on ShukerNature), which I recall being inspired by another original line drawing in a publication, but I haven't been able to trace which one. I thought that it was another Watteau line illustration from Heuvelmans's afore-mentioned book, but I cannot find any such image in it.

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy viewing them here. Meanwhile, my search for the lost letter from Prof. Evans continues…

 

My illustration of the Congolese water elephant, which I prepared as a teenager back in the 1970s (© Dr Karl Shuker

 

REVIEWING 'CARNIFEX' - A CRYPTOZOOLOGY-THEMED CREATURE FEATURE FROM DOWN UNDER

 

 

Publicity poster for Carnifex, showing the characters gazing up in awe at some formidable claw marks left upon a  tree trunk by a large unknown animal of seemingly arboreal ability (© Sean Lahiff/Dancing Road Productions/Arclight Films/Universal Pictures Content Group – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Thanks to longstanding Australian FB friend and crypto-enthusiast Tim Morris kindly making it available to me - thanks Tim! – my movie watch on 26 October 2023 was the fairly recent Australian cryptozoology-themed creature feature Carnifex.

Directed by Sean Lahiff, and released just a year ago in December 2022 by Universal Pictures, Carnifex takes its name in a general sense from the Latin word for 'butcher' or even (during the Roman era) 'executioner'. However, wildlife enthusiasts, especially cryptozoologists, will also be aware of its more specific, zoological meaning.

Consequently, if you're of the latter persuasion, you will have no doubt guessed straight away from this movie's title that while conservationists Ben (Harry Greenwood) and Grace (Sisi Stringer) accompanied by documentary camerawoman Bailey (Alexandra Park) are uncovering and recording deep within the Australian outback the vast wildlife devastation caused there by some recent, unprecedented bushfires, they also make the startling, totally unexpected, and truly terrifying discovery of a living marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex. For once they do, they also discover – very swiftly – just how hyper-aggressive and rapacious the creature is, forcing them into a desperate bid for survival against this mega-belligerent blast from the past, their thoughts echoing only too emphatically the film's tagline: "Some species should remain extinct".

This ferocious species was – or is? –  a predatory pouched mammal of feline form, leopard or lioness stature (opinions vary), and possibly arboreal capabilities, but officially deemed extinct for many millennia. However, some cryptozoologists feel that its putative reclusive survival into the present day may explain occasional reports of an Aussie mystery beast known as the yarri or Queensland tiger. It may even have inspired the spoof killer koala called the drop bear (koalas and marsupial lions were actually quite closely related). Most of this pertinent background information, however, is never alluded to in the movie, sadly.

 

Yarri or Queensland tiger, based upon eyewitness descriptions (© Dami Editore srl – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Speaking of which: its build-up to this very dramatic discovery, although very lengthy (see later), is engrossing, and features a trio of lead likeable characters that interact well together, interspersed with plenty of breathtaking shots of genuine Aussie Outback Nevertheless, Carnifex suffers from two very significant, crucial problems.

Firstly, once the story truly gets going, it consists almost entirely of night-time scenes, resulting in actual sightings of the creature (with totally black pelage, thereby rendering it even more difficult to see against the darkness)  being as shadowy and brief as they are seldom and inconclusive, i.e. plenty of growling and flesh-tearing sounds, but visually all but non-existent.

Secondly, when in this 90-odd-minute movie's last 10 minutes we finally - finally! - get to see two blink-and-you'll-miss-them close-up full-face shots of the (very) anatagonistic animal in question (so fleeting in fact that after seeing them I then had to rewind and laboriously seek them out via freeze-frame in order to be sure of what they actually revealed – something, incidentally, that cinema audiences for this movie would not have had the luxury of being able to do), guess what?

The film makers had only gone and got their Thylacoleo carnifex fundamentally wrong – and after having kept their increasingly impatient viewers waiting so long to see it properly too!

 

A selection of photo-stills from Carnifex depicting the latter beast's brief appearances and, especially, its dentition – click picture montage to enlarge for viewing purposes (© Sean Lahiff/Dancing Road Productions/Arclight Films/Universal Pictures Content Group – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

All placental carnivores have fangs consisting of enlarged upper canine teeth (and so too, for that matter, does, or did, the thylacine or Tasmanian marsupial wolf Thylacinus cynocephalus, officially deemed extinct in 1936 but which may still linger on in this island's more remote regions). In stark contrast, conversely, the tusk-like fang counterparts of Thylacoleo were actually greatly-enlarged upper incisors (it also sported a pair of extremely enlarged lower incisors, but its upper canines were only very small and stubby). Yet in this movie, its Thylacoleo has been given enlarged upper canines, not incisors, thereby rendering their Carnifex dentally deranged!

Moreover, the two close-up shots of its front paws also revealed a telling absence of the huge thumb claw constituting another morphologcal characteristic of this unique predator.

Judging from these major morphological discrepancies, I can only assume that someone apparently hadn't done their zoological homework when researching T. carnifex for this Carnifex-entitled movie. Needless to say, this is a great shame, especially as otherwise it is a most enjoyable film, with engaging characters amid the savage beauty of the Australian bush, and it would have been a wonderful showcase for a truly original animal antagonist never previously represented in a cinematic role.

Then again, it is fair to say that many viewers are unlikely to have in-depth knowledge of thylacoleonid dentition anyway. So they will simply not notice or recognize the inaccuracy of the latter's depiction in this movie (particularly as it has no effect upon the plot itself), thereby enabling them to enjoy the movie as an otherwise very watchable, well-presented conservation-minded creature feature, especially one produced by a small independent film company as opposed to a mega-bucks Hollywood studio. Also on the positive side, it does mean that a morphologically-accurate 'living Thylacoleo'-themed monster movie is still waiting to be made.

 

Thylacoleo carnifex model produced by Jeff Johnson and owned by Rebecca Lang, two longstanding Facebook friends of mine (© Jeff Johnson/Rebecca Lang – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Incidentally, a novel written by Australian horror author Matthew J. Hellscream (I'm guessing that this may be a pseudonym…) that was published in 2016, i.e. 6 years before the present movie under review here was released, was also entitled Carnifex, and also featured some visitors to a remote area of the Australian bush encountering living but scientifically-undiscovered marsupial lions. According to various Adelaide Advertiser articles, Hellstream took legal advice when the movie came out because of perceived title and plot similarities, but that is not what I am concerned with here. What I am concerned with is that the very striking illustration of one such beast present on the front cover of Hellstream's novel depicts it with totally accurate dentition – click here to view it, and take note of the greatly enlarged incisors, and all but absent canines, plus the shearing blade-like carnassials further back.

I don't own a copy of this novel (yet), but I've heard tell that the cover artwork was prepared by acclaimed horror artist Frank Walls, who created the front cover for Hellscream's previous novel, Metro 7, but I can't confirm this. Whoever did design it, however, clearly made the effort to portray accurately the unique dentition of this truly unique mammalian predator.

Anyway, if you'd like to peer through the darkness of the Outback at night in search of the toothy terror lurking in this movie, be sure to click here to watch an official Carnifex trailer on YouTube.

Finally: this review originally appeared in ShukerNature's fellow blog, Shuker In MovieLand. To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

My book Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors (2016), which contains a very comprehensive coverage of the yarri or Queensland tiger, and featuring prominently in the bottom-left portion of its front cover an artistic representation by cryptozoology artist William M. Rebsamen of what this elusive, mysterious creature may look like if it is indeed a surviving representative of the marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex, complete with accurate dental depiction for the latter species (© Dr Karl Shuker/William M. Rebsamen/Coachwhip Publications)

 

ON THE TRAIL OF NEW GUINEA'S STRIPED FELINE MYSTERY BEASTS

 

Spectacular figurine portraying the possible appearance in life of the Queensland tiger or yarri if real and constituting an extant species of thylacoleonid; owned by Australian cryptozoologist Rebecca Lang, it was created by Sean Cooper and constructed/painted by Jeff Johnson (© Rebecca Lang/Sean Cooper/Jeff Johnson)

There are no native marsupial or eutherian felids living in New Guinea – or are there?

The Queensland tiger or yarri is a large, striped, cat-headed mystery beast long claimed (but still not confirmed) to exist in this region of Australia, and some cryptozoological researchers have speculated that if it does indeed exist, this exceedingly elusive creature may conceivably be a living species of thylacoleonid or marsupial lion, officially believed to have become extinct many millennia ago (see my three mystery cat books for more details). Referring to this feline cryptid in their book The Wild Animals of Australasia (1926), Albert S. le Souef and Henry Burrell included the following tantalisingly brief snippet:

We have had a striped carnivorous animal described from Northwest Australia, and Lord Rothschild states, from native reports, that a similar animal exists also in New Guinea.

 

Lord Walter Rothschild (public domain)

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, eminent British zoologist Lord Walter Rothschild FRS (1868-1937) amassed a truly immense personal museum of natural history specimens (the largest ever owned by a private individual), and he sponsored many naturalists and collectors to scour the world (including New Guinea's vast little-explored jungle realms) in search of more. These searches in turn led to the scientific discovery, and subsequent formal description by Rothschild, of many important new animal species. His museum subsequently formed the basis of what is now the Natural History Museum of Tring in Hertfordshire, England which is the repository of much of the vast collection of bird specimens owned by London's Natural History Museum.

Over the years, I've read a fair few of Rothschild's papers and books, but so far I have yet to uncover in any of his publications the source of the above-quoted information attributed to him by le Souef and Burrell. So if any reader happens to know this source, I'd be very grateful indeed to receive details.

Moreover, Rothschild's rumoured riddle is not the only feline cryptid (indeed, not even the only striped feline cryptid) reported from New Guinea. I know of at least two others, very different from one another morphologically, but equally memorable – albeit once again for very different reasons.

 

Are there striped (possibly even marsupial) feline cryptids awaiting formal discovery in New Guinea? (© Connor Lachmanec aka TheMorlock)

I documented the first of these latter two in my book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012). On 11 November 2011, Australian cryptozoological researcher Malcolm Smith's internet blog, Malcolm's Musings, contained a fascinating post in which he reported that one of his neighbours, Esther Ingram, who had been born to missionary parents in New Guinea, once observed an apparent mystery cat at close range there when revisiting this great island mini-continent as an adult. Her sighting occurred one evening during December 1999/January 2000 at a distance of only 20 yards away when the creature emerged from some jungle and crossed the road ahead while she and her father were being driven by her foster-brother in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea (PNG). According to Esther's description as recorded by Smith, the creature was:

…very solidly built, and the head-body length was about five feet. Both Esther and her father were amazed at how huge it was...Esther, in particular, made an attempt to study as many details as possible. (Remember, it was very close.) The basic colour was white, with ginger "trimmings" on the tail and ears. Pale gingery, vertical stripes, not terribly well delineated, appeared on the sides, but they did not extend to the back, or dorsal surface, which was completely pale. She specifically noted that the forepaws were cat‐like, rather than (say) hoofed like a goat's. She didn't get a glance at the rear paws. The tail was ginger and very long, hanging to the ground. I enquired about bushiness etc, to establish a comparison with a dog's. She said it was a bit coarser or fluffier than the body, but not much. On the body itself, the fur was smooth. The head was broad, short, flattish, and definitely cat-like. It did not protrude like a dog's. The ears were ginger, mottled with white, and hung down. They were not as long as a spaniel's, but they were definitely long and rounded, and gave every indication of being naturally floppy. It was this feature which amazed both of them (and me as well, as it doesn't sound anything like a cat's). Esther also thought she saw whiskers.

Very intrigued by Esther's account, Smith contacted Australian mammalogist Dr Tim Flannery, an expert on New Guinea fauna, and asked his opinion as to what she may have seen. Dr Flannery deemed it likely that her mystery beast had been a tree kangaroo, but Esther, born and raised in New Guinea and regularly returning there for visits as an adult, was very familiar with the appearance of such animals, and did not agree with this identification of the creature that she had seen. Could it have been the New Guinea version of the Queensland tiger as claimed by Rothschild?

 

Issued jointly in 1996 by Indonesia and Australia, a philatelic First Day Cover featuring on its left-hand side an illustration of the dingiso – a very distinctive species of black-and-white tree kangaroo native to New Guinea's Indonesian western half, yet which remained undiscovered and undescribed by science until as recently as the 1990s (© Indonesian Postal Service/© Australian Postal Service – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

With no known large-sized mammalian predators other than imported canine forms, such as the nowadays exceedingly rare New Guinea singing dog, ecologically speaking it would not be inconceivable for an elusive feline cryptid to thrive here, plentifully supplied with wallabies, tree kangaroos, possums, rodents, bird life, and other potential prey species. How ironic it would be if the Queensland tiger, or something very like it, was ultimately discovered not in Australia but instead in its more mysterious northern neighbour, New Guinea.

The third of this latter island's reported feline cryptids is more famous, but for all the wrong reasons. Supposedly referred to locally as the moolah, it is just one of several very remarkable beasts that were said to exist here by Captain J.A. Lawson in his notorious book Wanderings in the Interior of New Guinea (1875). According to Lawson, he had landed here in 1871, and among his truly extraordinary alleged discoveries were the world's highest mountain (dubbed by him Mount Hercules, and far taller than Everest, yet which could be climbed in just a day!), very large monkey-like ape-men, enormous herds of deer and buffalo numbering in their thousands, the world's tallest tree, flightless birds resembling ostriches or emus, and, his pièce de resistance, the moolah, a specimen of which he supposedly shot and which was ostensibly one and the same as India's Bengal tiger! Here is Lawson's description of his freshly-killed moolah:

This animal was formed exactly like the Indian tiger, nor was it inferior in size; but it was a much handsomer creature. It was marked with black and chestnut stripes, on a white, or nearly white, ground. Its length from the nose to the root of the tail was seven feet three inches.

 

The opening headlines and accompanying sketch from an extensive article (click here to access it) recalling the Munchhausenesque history of Captain J.A. Lawson that appeared in Sydney's Sunday Herald newspaper on 23 August 1953 (© Sunday Herald, Sydney – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial fair use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On fundamental zoogeographical grounds alone, however, Lawson's claims regarding the existence in New Guinea of the moolah and the other creatures listed above were arrant nonsense. Yet, incredibly, for some years afterwards they were widely accepted as gospel, until continued explorations of New Guinea finally confirmed the entire content of Lawson's book to be fictional – indeed, a veritable Munchausenesque satire on the whole concept of Victorian exploration – rather than anything remotely factual.

As for the true identity of the mysterious Captain himself, this has never been conclusively established. However, the most popular suggestion is that Lawson was actually Robert H. Armit (1844-?), a lieutenant in the Royal Navy with experience as an assistant surveyor in Australian waters, and later Honorary Secretary of the New Guinea Colonising Association.

In any event, for those of you who may have heard about Lawson's New Guinea tiger but not known of its history, you can at least rest assured now that there is no longer any need to mull over the moolah!

 

Indian tigers frequenting the forests of New Guinea?? I don't think so!! (public domain)

IS THE OZENKADNOOK TIGER A CARDBOARD CRYPTID?

The (in)famous Ozenkadnook tiger photograph (copyright owner's identity presently ambiguous, it would seem - see below - although traditionally attributed to Rilla Martin)

One of cryptozoology's most iconic images is the so-called Ozenkadnook Tiger Photograph, reproduced above. It depicts a large, seemingly dark-bodied, white-striped Australian mystery beast supposedly snapped in b/w during 1964 by Melbourne-based Rilla Martin while holidaying in Victoria. She had apparently been driving along a dirt track near Ozenkadnook when she saw the creature at the edge of some woods, and after stopping the car she managed to snap a single photo of it before it ran off.

In typical cryptozoological tradition, the photo's depiction of the beast is far from clear; but as its burly head looks vaguely dog-like, it has inspired various Aussie cryptid enthusiasts to speculate that the striped creature may be a living mainland thylacine Thylacinus cynocephalus. Yet this externally wolf-like marsupial officially died out here over 3,000 years ago, i.e. long before its official extinction on Tasmania in 1936.

A pre-1936 public domain photograph of a living Tasmanian thylacine in captivity, colourised by person(s) unknown to me; found online (public domain/colourising © unknown to me)

Moreover, the bizarre reverse-striping pattern exhibited by the photographed creature bears no resemblance to the thylacine's striping, and has led others to suggest that these markings are not genuine features of it at all, but merely constitute reflected sunlight.

Having said that, such a situation would not in itself automatically exclude the thylacine from consideration as an identity for this mystery beast, as succinctly demonstrated by the following very pertinent photograph:

Pre-1936 photograph of a captive thylacine dappled by sunlight and somewhat resembling the photographed Ozenkadnook tiger (public domain)

Less likely than a thylacine explanation, but suggested by some mystery beast fans, is that the Ozenkadnook tiger was a living marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex, which according to the currently-documented fossil record became extinct around 50,000 years ago (although there are a couple of intriguing aboriginal petroglyphs in existence that depict a mysterious beast very reminiscent of Thylacoleo but which are only around 6,500 years old, thereby indicating if identified correctly that this singular species did persist into relatively recent times).

Yet even if has survived right up to the present day undiscovered by science (and popularly proposed by cryptozoologists as the identity of an elusive feline cryptid known as the yarri or Queensland marsupial tiger), its morphology as deduced from fossil finds differs markedly from that of the creature in the photograph.

Specially prepared colour drawing of the yarri or Queensland tiger to which the reverse striping coat pattern ostensibly exhibited by the Ozenkadnook tiger has been deliberately applied, in order to show how the former cryptid might look if it were one and the same species as the latter cryptid, depicted below it (© Markus Bühler / copyright owner's identity presently ambiguous, it would seem - see below - although traditionally attributed to Rilla Martin)

Less contentious options on offer include a dingo or a domestic dog, whereas more sceptical views have leaned toward an unspecified hoax of some kind. With no consensus of opinion surfacing, the controversy as to what Martin's photo really depicts has rumbled on for over 50 years, but in a recent newspaper article (click here) a remarkable new allegation was made.

Namely, that the beast was nothing more than a large cardboard cut-out, created, painted with stripes, and then photographed in the bush by the father of one Bill Leak - a recently-deceased newspaper cartoonist – with a friend. Bill's father was apparently well known for his love of practical jokes, and the allegation was made in The Australian on 24 March 2017 by 'Jack the Insider', aka columnist Peter Hoysted, who had known Bill and had included this claim as part of a memorial article regarding him.

A taxiderm Tasmanian thylacine and a thylacine skeleton at Tring Natural History Museum, two views  (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Supposedly, the hoax was only staged and the photo snapped as a joke to show some friends, but allegedly the photo somehow reached the media and soon attracted appreciable global attention, at which point Leak Snr became nervous that the truth would be exposed, so he destroyed the cut-out and told his son never to speak to anyone about it. Yet clearly he did, at least after his father's death, hence Hoysted's report following Bill's own death.

Various subsequent coverages have seized upon this 'confession by proxy' as proof that the Ozenkadnook Tiger photo is truly a hoax and should therefore be dismissed as being of any potential cryptozoological significance. However, in my opinion such an attitude overlooks two glaring and decidedly worrying shortcomings concerning Hoysted's recent revelation.

Alongside a thylacine picture in my study (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Firstly, the revelation is entirely anecdotal (and not even first-hand), as there seems to be no physical, tangible evidence substantiating it. True, in an update of 20 August 2010 to an article of his own concerning this perplexing picture that he had originally posted on his Tetrapod Zoology blog two days earlier (click here to read it),  British palaeontologist and cryptozoology chronicler Dr Darren Naish did point out an unidentified object in it that he interpreted as possibly being an artificial supporting structure, which if so would be consistent with the creature being merely a cardboard cut-out. But obviously this interpretation is merely a personal opinion, not a verified fact.

Sadly, however, opinions are all that can be offered regarding what may or may not be present in this photo because, very regrettably, the original negative was lost back in the mid-1960s when it was loaned to a newspaper. Consequently, there is no opportunity to subject it to the high-tech type of photographic analysis available nowadays.

Outstanding thylacine model sculpted and painted by Facebook friend Jeff Johnson (© Jeff Johnson)

Secondly, Hoysted's revelation signally yet inexplicably fails to include any mention of Rilla Martin, the person who for the past five decades has been the name directly associated with the snapping of this photo, and who has even been interviewed by the media concerning it. Indeed, as noted by Darren in his 2010 article, although the photo is popularly known as the Ozenkadnook tiger photo it is even better known, at least by some, as the Rilla Martin photo, thus emphasising just how closely associated she is with it.

In a new Tetrapod Zoology article concerning the Ozenkadnook tiger photo, documenting Hoysted's newspaper article and posted online on 29 March 2017 (click here), Darren mentioned that he had personally asked Hoysted how Martin had become involved if it was actually Bill Leak's father who had snapped the photo, not her. In response, Hoysted had "surmised that Martin somehow agreed to take credit for the photo, but other details are as yet unclear". In short, this is just Hoysted's personal opinion, uncorroborated by any tangible evidence.

Thylacine (aka Tasmanian tiger) illustration in eminent 19th-Century Australian zoologist Gerard Krefft's opus The Mammals of Australia, 1871 (public domain)

Consequently, until – if ever – these two fundamental flaws can be resolved, in my opinion this latest allegation regarding the enigmatic Ozenkadnook Tiger Photograph is unproven, and I for one shall continue to consider it as such. In situations of this kind, I always ask myself one simple question: if unsubstantiated claims like these were being put forward in support of a cryptid's status as a reality, rather than in support of a cryptid's status as a hoax, would they be so readily accepted by sceptics? And I think that we all know the answer to that question.

For more information regarding this Australian cryptid as well as related musings concerning putative surviving mainland thylacines and marsupial lions, be sure to check out my books Mystery Cats of the World, Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery, and Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors.

STILL IN SEARCH OF PREHISTORIC SURVIVORS - AFTER 21 YEARS, THE WAIT IS FINALLY OVER!

It has been 21 years since the original publication back in 1995 of In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, considered by many to be my finest cryptozoological volume. Not surprisingly, then, in subsequent years there has been a growing, persistent clamour among its numerous fans worldwide for me to prepare a new, updated edition. Now, at last, fulfilling a longstanding promise, I have done so - and what an update it is!

At over 600 pages long, with a word count of almost 260,000, more than 300 colour and b/w illustrations (including many stunning renditions plus spectacular cover artwork by acclaimed crypto-artist William M. Rebsamen), and a brand-new foreword penned by fellow crypto-chronicler Michael Newton, this is both a massively-expanded new edition of the original volume and a valid stand-alone book in its own right, because it contains many entirely new cryptids as well as updates for all of those previously included here. The result is the most comprehensive documentation and analysis ever published of those diverse mystery beasts that at one time or another have been postulated to be bona fide prehistoric survivors.

Where it all began, 21 years ago - the original edition, In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors, published in 1995 (© Dr Karl Shuker)

But if these elusive beasts do indeed exist, could they really be creatures that time forgot? From sea serpents and lake monsters to living non-avian dinosaurs and surviving pterodactyls, from bunyips and behemoths to Nandi bears, devil-pigs, thunderbirds, thylacoleonids, and many many more, read the meticulous, objective, and always scrupulously scientific assessments of each and every cryptozoological case presented in this fascinating book, and judge for yourself.

An ideal Christmas present for every cryptozoological enthusiast, Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors can now be ordered on Amazon and elsewhere online – click here to visit its dedicated page on my website, which contains direct clickable links to its purchasing pages on Amazon USA and Amazon UK respectively. And if you order it here on Amazon USA between now and November 28 (up to 02:59 am EST) 2016, using the promo code HOLIDAYBOOK at checkout under the "Gift cards & promotional codes" section, you will save a sizeable $10 off its selling price!!

MARSUPIAL SABRE-TOOTHS, QUEENSLAND TIGERS, BLUE MOUNTAINS LIONS, AND A MOST ELUSIVE CRYPTO-CUTTING

Screen-shot of the elusive and highly bemusing Australian newspaper cutting containing a Thylacosmilus-like sketch (source and copyright owner unknown to me)

A great many cryptozoological mysteries have crossed my path down through the years, and I've managed to provide answers to quite a number of them, but some still perplex me to this day – and this is one of them.

In 1980, a very popular television series screened in the UK was Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, produced by Yorkshire TV, in which the renowned, eponymous science-fiction writer presented a wide range of unexplained phenomena. Four episodes in this series were devoted to cryptozoological subjects. One of these dealt with sea monsters, one with lake monsters, one with man-beasts, and one (entitled 'Dragons, Dinosaurs and Giant Snakes' and viewable online here) with a wide assortment of other mystery creatures – including giant snakes, the king cheetah, the New Guinea dragon, the mokele-mbembe, and the thylacine or Tasmanian wolf Thylacinus cycnocephalus.

Vintage illustration from 1919 of the very canine thylacine (public domain)

The very short thylacine section included the briefest of shots (viewable at 6.43 to 6.44 in the online version linked to above) revealing an assortment of newspaper cuttings, one of which caught my eye due to the extremely intriguing sketch that it contained – bearing a remarkable resemblance to the long-extinct South American 'marsupial sabre-tooth' known as Thylacosmilus. Yet because this cutting was shown immediately before a clip of film depicting the last living thylacine (with all of the other cuttings in that shot dealing specifically with the thylacine), the creature that the sketch represented had evidently been reported from Australia, not South America. Indeed, during that same brief shot the narrator actually stated: "Who would believe the current stories of a sabre-toothed killer loose even now in the Australian bush…?" before moving on to introduce the thylacine clip.

Consequently, I could only assume that the cutting concerned the Queensland tiger (aka the yarri), because this is the only notable big-toothed feline cryptid reported Down Under (Australia's so-called mystery pumas and black panthers appear little if any different from their official namesakes), and that the sketch was therefore meant to represent (accurately or otherwise) an eyewitness description of one such animal.

Artistic impression of the very feline yarri or Queensland tiger, but given enlarged canines, not enlarged thylacoleonid incisors (© Dami Editore s.r.l.)

I have long been fascinated by this particular cryptid and have amassed a very sizeable file of sighting reports (many of which have been documented by me in various of my books, particularly Mystery Cats of the World, In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, and Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery), but I am only aware of a single yarri eyewitness who has ever compared what they saw to a sabre-tooth, and even then, as the eyewitness specified, the comparison merely concerned the shape of its teeth, not their size.

Australian cryptozoologist/author Rebecca Lang's spectacular Thylacoleo carnifex figurine, created by Sean Cooper, and constructed/painted by Jeff Johnson (© Rebecca Lang/Sean Cooper/Jeff Johnson)

Equally, the most popular identity for the yarri that has been proffered by cryptozoologists is a living thylacoleonid – characterised in its most famous, biggest, and most recently-surviving species, the marsupial or pouched lion Thylacoleo carnifex, by greatly-enlarged, tusk-like incisors (whereas in true, placental sabre-tooths it was the upper canines that were greatly enlarged).

Reconstruction of the yarri with thylacoleonid enlarged incisors (© William Rebsamen)

Moreover, even true, placental sabre-tooths did not possess the extremely pronounced, paired, scabbard-like lower-jaw flanges sported by the creature portrayed in the cutting's sketch. Only South America's marsupial sabre-tooth Thylacosmilus exhibited these very distinctive attributes, composed of bone, which served to sheath and protect its huge curved upper canines.

Thylacosmilus skull at London's Natural History Museum (© Alexei Kouprianov/Wikipedia)

Formally described and named in 1933, known to exist in Argentina from the early Miocene to the late Pliocene epoch, and believed to have been as large as a modern-day leopard or jaguar, the single but highly impressive species Thylacosmilus atrox is popularly referred to as the marsupial or pouched sabre-tooth (the translation of its generic name), due to its deceptively similar outward appearance to the true, placental (eutherian) sabre-tooths or machairodontids but much closer taxonomic affinity to the marsupials as a fellow metatherian. Indeed, it was long classed, along with the morphologically more canine South American borhyaenids, within the same taxonomic order, Marsupialia, as the New World's opossums and caenolestids (rat opossums) and all of Australia's marsupials too. Nowadays, however, Marsupialia is split up into several separate orders, and Thylacosmilus plus the borhyaenids are now housed within the wholly-extinct taxonomic order Sparassodonta.

Restoration of Thylacosmilus atrox in life (with glyptodont in background) – interestingly, it has been portrayed here with very thylacine-like stripes (public domain)

Contrary to former belief, Thylacosmilus became extinct at least one million years before South America was invaded by the eutherian sabre-tooth genus Smilodon (during the mid-Pleistocene), following the latter continent's connection to North America via the appearance of the interconnecting isthmus of Panama. Consequently, the two forms never encountered one another, thereby dismissing prior claims that, as has often happened in instances when metatherian and eutherian counterparts have been brought together, Thylacosmilus was out-competed and thus annihilated by Smilodon.

What if…? – Thylacosmilus vs Smilodon, an imaginary confrontational scenario, as these two mighty feline forms never met in reality (© Hodari Nundu)

All very interesting, undoubtedly, but unfortunately it doesn't shed any light upon the mystery of why this highly-specialised and exclusively South American feline carnivore had inspired a sketch ostensibly depicting a Queensland tiger in an Australian newspaper cutting.

Shortly after the Arthur C. Clarke-presented TV series was screened in Britain, I wrote to its producers Simon Welfare and John Fairley requesting a copy of this particular cutting (it had not been included in the bestselling book of the series), but I learnt from them that they hadn't retained any of the cuttings in that shot, and had no idea what had happened to them. The series' principal researcher, Adam Hart-Davis (now famous as an author, TV presenter, and producer in his own right), very kindly sent me for my own personal research use a videocassette containing all four of its cryptozoological episodes, and by pausing the video at the exact shot showing the cuttings I could just about read the cutting's heading (though as was often the case when freeze-framing video tapes, the picture shook quite considerably).

It's that missing cutting again! (Copyright owner and source unknown to me)

With the advent of the internet, these episodes are now available to view online on YouTube, so I have been able to obtain a slightly better screen-shot of the cutting, as included at the beginning of this present ShukerNature blog article, but it is still not clear enough for much of its its text to be read, and the cutting was not included in its entirety within the shot anyway. However, I can pick out the words 'New South Wales' in the second line of main text beneath the heading, which makes things only more confusing still, because the yarri is apparently confined to Queensland, whereas NSW's feline cryptids are supposedly of the more prosaic puma and black panther varieties – but with one very notable yet little-known exception, documented by me as follows in my book In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995):

"Speaking of out-of-place felids, one or more African lions on the loose is the conservative explanation generally offered by naturalists when faced with the enigma of the Blue Mountains' maned mystery beasts. West of Sydney, New South Wales, the Blue Mountains have long been associated with rumours and reports of huge cat-like beasts of ferocious temperament. Interestingly, they are not confined to modern reports but were well known to the aboriginals who once inhabited this range. They called them warrigals ('rock dogs') - a name sometimes applied nowadays to the dingo, but it is clear from their descriptions that their warrigals were something very different from a dingo.

"Rex Gilroy has made a detailed study of the Blue Mountain lions, and according to his published account (Nexus, June-July 1992) the aboriginals described these animals as 6-7 ft long, around 3 ft high, with a large cat-like head, big shearing teeth that protruded from their jaws, brown fur (sometimes light, sometimes dark - sexual, or age, differences?), and a long shaggy mane. Testifying to these animals' continuing presence here, this is also an accurate portrait of the terrifying leonine beast that approached three young shooters in the Mulgoa district south of Penrith, close to the Blue Mountains' eastern escarpment, one day in 1977 - fleeing into nearby scrub only when the alarmed trio fired at it. A similar creature had been reported from this same region in 1972, where it had allegedly been killing sheep.

"Back in April 1945, a bushwalking party clambering down Mount Solitary's Korrowal Buttress made good use of their binoculars to watch four warrigals moving across Cedar Valley. And as recently as 1988, some campers near Hampton, west of Katoomba, saw one for themselves - this area had been experiencing some severe cases of cattle mutilation, a feature that crops up time and again when charting sightings of warrigals.

"Based upon the longstanding history of these animals, I find it difficult to believe that they could be escapee lions or suchlike. An undiscovered native species is the only tenable explanation - echoed by Gilroy, who proposes that the warrigal is a surviving species of pouched lion. As it differs markedly in appearance from the yarri, however, we can only assume that if Gilroy's hypothesis is correct there are two separate species of pouched lion currently prowling various portions of Australia's wildernesses - a remarkable concept, but nonetheless the only one that offers a satisfactory conclusion to this extraordinary saga."

So could the elusive cutting be referring these very mysterious protruding-toothed warrigals and be suggesting that they may be marsupial sabre-tooths, or at least comparing them to such creatures? This could then explain the presence within it of the otherwise-anomalous Thylacosmilus-reminiscent sketch.

Portrayal of Thylacosmilus revealing its characteristic lower jaw flanges (public domain)

Needless to say, I have spent quite some time seeking this very bemusing, tantalising cutting online, but as I have neither a source nor a publication date for it (other than the knowledge that it must have been published sometime prior to the TV series' original screening in 1980), it is not proving an easy task. Not even lengthy periods browsing through the archives of Trove, the invaluable website granting access to countless newspaper reports from Australian newspapers, has unfurled it so far (although during the process of searching for it on Trove, I did uncover a number of yarri articles previously unknown to me!).

And so, gentle reader, here is where you come in. If by any chance you have a copy of this highly elusive cutting, or any information concerning it, especially its date and/or source of publication, I would very greatly welcome any details that you could post here, and a scan of the cutting itself if you do happen to have the original to hand. Thanks very much!

UPDATE: 6 June 2015

Not long after posting this ShukerNature blog article online, I learnt independently from two of my longstanding Australian crypto-colleagues - Dr David Waldron and Paul Cropper - that the Thylacosmilus-like sketch featured in the mystery newspaper cutting had actually been prepared by none other than Australian cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy, who had brought to popular attention the previously-obscure Blue Mountains lions or warrigals. They also both revealed that this same sketch had featured in an article by Rex Gilroy on Australian cryptids that had originally appeared in the December 1976 issue of Psychic Australian, and which can be read online here. Here is the sketch as featured there, and which, as revealed in the article, is his impression of the possible morphology of the Blue Mountains lion based upon eyewitness accounts from the New England area of northern New South Wales:

Rex Gilroy's sketch of the Blue Mountains lion or warrigal from his Psychic Australian article (© Rex Gilroy/Psychic Australian)

Presumably, therefore, eyewitness claims that this cryptid possesses protruding teeth coupled with the fact that with the lone exception of the dingo, all of Australia's large confirmed mammalian species are marsupials, suggested to Rex that the Blue Mountains lion may resemble a marsupial sabre-tooth (and thence Thylacosmilus?), thereby influencing his resulting sketch of its putative appearance.

Out of the Dreamtime: The Search For Australasia's Unknown Animals (© Rex and Heather Gilroy/Uru Publications)

  

His very extensive (43-chapter) self-published book Out of the Dreamtime: The Search For Australasia's Unknown Animals (2006?), co-authored with his wife Heather, contains an entire chapter on the Blue Mountain lions, but all attempts by me to locate a copy to purchase have so far failed (his website, click here, from which copies of all of his books could formerly be purchased, hasn't been updated for some years, and there does not seem to be any functioning facility on it now for book purchasing). So if anyone can suggest a source for his book, I'd greatly welcome details.

Reconstruction of the yarri (top), inspired by the controversial Ozenkadnook tiger photograph (bottom) snapped in 1964 by Rilla Martin near Goroke in Western Australia (© Markus Bühler/© Rilla Martin)