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)

SEALING THE IDENTITY OF AN ALLEGED STELLER'S SEA-COW SKIN

Steller's sea-cows with Kotick the white seal – an 1895 engraving for 'The White Seal', from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (public domain)

"By the Great Combers of Magellan!" he said, beneath his moustache. "Who in the Deep Sea are these people?"

They were like no walrus, sea-lion, seal, bear, whale, shark, fish, squid, or scallop that Kotick [the white seal] had ever seen before. They were between twenty and thirty feet long, and they had no hind flippers, but a shovel-like tail that looked as if it had been whittled out of wet leather. Their heads were the most foolish-looking things you ever saw, and they balanced on the ends of their tails in deep water when they weren't grazing, bowing solemnly to each other and waving their front flippers as a fat man waves his arm.

"Ahem!" said Kotick. "Good sport, gentlemen?" The big things answered by bowing and waving their flippers like the Frog-Footman [from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland]. When they began feeding again Kotick saw that their upper lip was split into two pieces that they could twitch apart about a foot and bring together again with a whole bushel of seaweed between the splits. They tucked the stuff into their mouths and chumped solemnly…

"Well!" said Kotick. "You're the only people I've ever met uglier than Sea Vitch – and with worse manners."

Then he remembered in a flash what the Burgomaster gull had screamed to him when he was a little yearling at Walrus Islet, and he tumbled backward in the water, for he knew that he had found Sea Cow at last.

   Rudyard Kipling – 'The White Seal', from The Jungle Book

Back in the 1800s, naturalists were much more open to zoological anomalies, mysteries, and curiosities, including those of the cryptozoological kind, than they are today. Never was this openness more readily visible, however, than in the pages of a fascinating British monthly periodical entitled The Zoologist (published 1843-1916), which was packed throughout with contributions from amateur wildlife enthusiasts and eminent biologists alike on every conceivable (and inconceivable!) aspect of natural and, especially, unnatural history.

Today, conversely, such oddities that cannot be readily pigeon-holed into 'acceptable', mainstream zoological categories rarely receive widespread hard-copy coverage outside of newspapers and Fortean publications – which is why Flying Snake, a periodical founded, published, edited, and lovingly compiled every 4-6 months by the indefatigable, inestimable cryptozoological and animal anomalies researcher Richard Muirhead is such an absolute delight, a veritable diamond among so much modern-day dross, especially online.

Steller's sea-cow, depicted on a local postage stamp issued for Russia's Commander (=Komandorski) Islands, a 17-strong group situated in the Bering Sea (east of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East), and around which this huge sea mammal once lived (public domain)

A natural, very worthy successor to The Zoologist, this wonderful little journal contains so much extraordinary, non-conventional Nature, the kind that cannot be readily found in any other present-day publication, that whenever I receive the latest issue I know full well that once I have opened it I shall find it impossible to put down until I have read it from cover to cover.

In the April 2014 issue (vol. 3, #7), however, Richard surpassed even his superlative ability to surprise me with his researches, by virtue of this issue's front cover-highlighted lead article. It consisted of an investigation conducted by Richard that quite simply took my breath away – by featuring the history and two vintage photographs (one of which appeared on the front cover) of what has seemingly long been claimed to be a bona fide torso skin (i.e. lacking the head, flippers, and tail) of Hydrodamalis [=Rhytina] gigas, the long-extinct Steller's sea-cow!

The front cover of Flying Snake, April 2014, showcasing one of the two vintage photographs uncovered by Richard that allegedly depict a preserved Steller's sea-cow skin (© Richard Muirhead/Flying Snake – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

As I have documented in greater detail within an earlier ShukerNature article (click here to read it), at up to 30 ft long Steller's sea-cow was by far the largest modern-day species of sirenian ever to have existed, very significantly bigger than the dugong and any of the manatees that still survive today. It was discovered in shallow waters around the Commander (aka Komandorski) Islands in what was later dubbed the Bering Sea, separating Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula from Alaska, by Arctic explorer Dr Georg W. Steller in 1741, during Danish explorer Vitus Bering's Russian expeditions there. Tragically, however, the inoffensive, unafraid behaviour of this huge herbivorous marine mammal, coupled with the abundance and very tasty nature of its meat, swiftly proved to be its undoing, dooming it to a rapid extinction despite its great numbers. For it was mercilessly, relentlessly slaughtered by hungry mariners penetrating its icy, inhospitable domain.

By 1768, Steller's sea-cow was no more, exterminated from the Commander Islands' coastal waters that had been its home since time immemorial. Having said that, there have been infrequent subsequent reports from various remote Arctic outposts of extremely large, mystifying sea beasts that may – just may – be surviving sea-cows, but none has ever been confirmed.

Reconstruction of Dr Georg W. Steller measuring a Steller's sea cow on Bering Island, 12 July 1742 (public domain)

As for preserved physical remains of this veritable behemoth: a number of museums around the world have skeletons (complete, partial, or composite), skulls (ditto), or isolated bones (limb bones, vertebrae, ribs, etc) from Steller's sea-cows (click here to access an extensive listing of such specimens).

In addition, there are a few scraps of preserved skin on record that have been claimed to be from this lost species, but there are also counterclaims averring that they are actually from seals or cetaceans. According to the above listing of specimens, one such scrap is present in the Überseemuseum at Bremen, Germany (a photograph of it snapped on 29 January 2011 by Flickriver user MareCrisium can be viewed here). A second is (or was) held by Germany's Hamburg Zoological Museum (it may have been destroyed by bombing during World War II, and the above listing presumes that it is/was a misinterpreted whale skin anyway). And a third is held by the Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, Russia (queried in the listing as a probable whale skin fragment again, and originally discovered in the Institute's collections by an A. Brandt). However, no museum or scientific institution anywhere in the world lays claim of any kind to possessing an entire torso skin from such a creature – which is why Richard's report and accompanying photographs were of such profound interest to me.

Skeleton of a Steller's sea-cow at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France (© FunkMonk/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

I strongly recommend everyone interested in this case to read Richard's original article, but in the meantime here is a summary of what he uncovered.

It all began with a local newspaper article. On 6 April 1956, the Kansas City Star in the U.S.A. published the photograph that appears on the above-reproduced front cover of Flying Snake for April 2014, together with the following details. The person holding the torso skin, and pictured with it in her East Tenth Street, Intercity District, Kansas home's living room, was Mrs Faye Keyton, who had inherited it jointly with her brother, W.L. Shafer, from their aunt, Miss Myrtle Shafer, who had died in May 1955. It was normally kept rolled up inside a long cardboard tube, was quite stiff, and according to Mrs Keyton it was an Alaskan Indian burial robe that had been made from the skin of a Steller's sea-cow. But how did she know this?

Vintage photograph from the late 1800s/very early 1900s depicting Prof. Willoughby with the burial robe (public domain)

Keyton revealed that her aunt had herself inherited it, from Jim Willoughby, a distant relative, who in turn had received it from his father, a certain Prof. Richard ('Dick') D. Willoughby (1832-1902), who had lived in Alaska for half a century, where he had been made an Indian chief and spoke their language. The robe was one of his possessions that he had acquired there during that period, and when he died in 1902 it was placed over him during his funeral as part of a native Alaskan Indian burial ceremony.

Reading this intriguing little history, I was immediately struck by the curious fact that there was no explanation as to why or how this robe was ever deemed to be the skin of a Steller's sea-cow. All that I can assume is that it had been labelled as such by Prof. Willoughby himself, with that identity having subsequently been accepted unquestioningly by, and duly passed on down through, the generations of the robe's inheritors. Unfortunately, however, this in turn leads to a major problem in accepting such an identification. For as revealed by Richard Muirhead in his Flying Snake article, Willoughby was a notorious practical joker and had a longstanding reputation as a teller of exceedingly tall tales. He was also known for attaching highly imaginative and often decidedly lurid back-stories to the many curios contained in his house that he had gathered from different parts of the Alaskan coast, many of which were of native Alaskan Indian origin. Taking all of this into account, it is by no means certain, therefore, that the robe really was a Steller's sea-cow skin – this could just as easily have been yet another fanciful yarn spun by Willoughby.

Steller's sea-cow model at London's Natural History Museum (© Emöke Dénes/Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

But that is not all. Based upon direct eyewitness descriptions and sketches of Steller's sea-cow by Steller himself and other maritime travellers during the all-too-brief period of time spanning this species' discovery and destruction, the robe doesn't look at all like the skin of this officially extinct species. For whereas the latter's skin was said to be rough and spotted, this robe is smooth and bears two very distinctive, highly conspicuous white rings upon it as well as an upper and a lower white band. True, the robe's leather may have been tanned, making it smooth, but those very large white rings and bands are unlike anything ever recorded for Steller's sea-cow. In addition, judging from the photographs and allowing for forced perspective (in both photos, the skin was closer to the camera than the person was, thereby making the former appear bigger than it actually was), the skin was far smaller than any but the youngest of juvenile sea-cows would have been.

One of Richard's correspondents, regular Flying Snake contributor Richard George, opined that he was certain that these distinctive markings had been painted on the skin. Bearing in mind that it was used as a ceremonial burial robe, adding such decorations to it as some form of symbolic representation would not be at all beyond the realms of possibility. If only the robe could be examined directly, however – this would soon determine whether they were a natural component of it or had been artificially added. Moreover, with today's advances in DNA analyses, a sample of tissue taken from it would readily reveal the true taxonomic nature of the species from which the skin had been obtained. But therein lies a fundamental problem – its current whereabouts are presently unknown.

Exquisite engraving from 1898 depicting mature and juvenile Steller's sea-cows (public domain)

After reading Richard's article, I did consider attempting to trace the robe, by pursuing the current whereabouts of Mrs Keyton, her brother, or any children that either of them may have had. However, as so often happens, other matters diverted my attention, and eventually I forgot about this mysterious object – until this week, that is.

After having read with my usual enthusiasm the latest, newly-published issue (#14, January 2019) of Flying Snake a few days ago, I was about to place it with the other 13 issues on their allotted shelf in my study's cryptozoological section when, while idly flicking through them, I noticed the front cover of the April 2014 issue once more, the first time that I'd looked at it in a very long while – but this time something suddenly clicked inside my mind. I know that ringed patterning on the robe! I've seen it somewhere before, somewhere else.

Steller's sea-cow (right) with a Steller's sea lion and a northern fur seal, from a map of the Commander Islands drawn by Sven Waxell in 1891 (public domain)

Sitting there in thought, I recalled the above-linked listing of Steller's sea-cow material held by various museums around the world, and in particular I remembered those controversial fragments of skin that a few of the museums possessed, claimed by some to be genuine Steller's sea-cow relics but by others to be derived from whales or seals.

And then, without warning, an image flashed into my mind – an image of an extremely distinctive species of sea mammal, one that, uniquely, possessed exactly the same ringed pelage as was so visibly present on the Alaskan burial robe, but a species that unlike Steller's sea-cow was still very much alive today. Suddenly, I knew exactly what the Alaskan burial robe had been obtained from – and it most definitely was not a Steller's sea-cow!

The ribbon or banded seal – an absolutely unmistakeable species (public domain)

Instead, it was from an exceptionally beautiful, exquisitely marked species of phocid (earless) seal – namely, Histriophoca fasciata, the ribbon or banded seal. Up to 5 ft long, it is native to the Arctic and subarctic regions of the northern Pacific Ocean, but especially the Bering Sea…separating Russia from Alaska! Moreover, it is immediately distinguished from all other seal species (and all other species of any kind of mammal, for that matter) by virtue of the two very large white circles on its body (one on each side) and also the two wide white bands encircling its neck and tail respectively that collectively decorate very strikingly its otherwise uniformly dark-brown or black pelage.

All that I needed to do now in order to be absolutely certain was to uncover if I could a photograph of a torso skin of a ribbon seal to compare it directly with the Alaskan burial robe, and once I was on the trail it didn't take me long to find an excellent example. Comparing the two side by side, they were virtually identical, as shown below. Consequently, there could be absolutely no doubt whatsoever – just like so many other examples of his yarns on record, Willoughby's Steller's sea-cow skin was nothing but a tall tale. It was in reality the skin of a ribbon seal. Case closed.

Comparing Willoughby's Alaskan burial skin (left) with the skin of a ribbon seal (right) (© Kansas  City Star, reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only / public domain)

I am delighted that Richard Muirhead brought this fascinating but hitherto little-publicised case to cryptozoological attention with his customary investigative zeal via his Flying Snake article, and that I in turn have been able to provide the solution to the longstanding riddle that its subject posed.

For anyone seeking more information concerning Flying Snake, a publication that I thoroughly recommend to everyone interested in the more unusual, unexpected facets of natural history, please click here.

Finally: although the following flying snake illustration has nothing to do whatsoever either with Richard's periodical or with Steller's sea-cow, its fictional subject is nonetheless cryptozoological in nature and is such an extraordinary image in its own right that it deserves to be included here, especially as at least to my knowledge it has never before been featured in any cryptozoological article. So here it is, from the front cover of an issue of an American men's magazine entitled Man's Conquest:

Front cover of the March 1967 issue of Man's Conquest, depicting an attack of flying snakes, the subject of a fiction short story contained inside (© Man's Conquest – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

LATE SURVIVAL OF THE LOST AUK? GAREFOWL, GREAT AUKS, AND A PARADOX OF PENGUINS

Tom the water-baby meeting the last of the great auks or garefowl – an exquisite painting by Warwick Goble for an illustrated 1909 edition of Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, which is one of my all-time favourite children's novels (public domain)

And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the Allalonestone, all alone. And a very grand old lady she was, full three feet high, and bolt upright, like some old Highland chieftainess. She had on a black velvet gown, and a white pinner and apron, and a very high bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark of high breeding), and a large pair of white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd: but it was the ancient fashion of her house.

   Charles Kingsley – The Water-Babies: A Fairy-Tale For a Land-Baby

As fondly commemorated above in Charles Kingsley's classic children's novel The Water-Babies: A Fairy-Tale For a Land-Baby (1863), one of the most famous extinct species of modern-day bird is the great auk Pinguinus impennis, also known as the garefowl, gairfowl, or geirfugl. Almost 3 ft tall (the only taller auk was the prehistoric Howard's Lucas auk Miomancalla howardi), this sturdy flightless black-and-white seabird from the northern hemisphere was superficially reminiscent of the southern hemisphere’s familiar penguins, but its link with them does not end there – because the great auk was the original penguin, the latter name having been initially bestowed upon this puffin-allied species. Only later was it applied by those European sailors first penetrating Antarctic waters to the wholly-unrelated birds that they encountered there and which retain it today, long after the original northern penguin’s extermination.

The great auk once existed in tens of millions, nesting on the rocky coastal areas of islands on both sides of the North Atlantic, but it was in America that it first met its end. Its feathers were prized for use in eider-downs and feather beds, its flesh was tasty and therefore much sought-after by sailing vessels, and collectors coveted its eggs, and so this imposing but helpless bird was massacred in countless numbers. On Funk Island off Newfoundland, for example, its precious nesting grounds were frequently raided and mercilessly desecrated. Thousands of auks were captured alive and cooped together in great enclosures like domestic fowl until it was their time to be slaughtered en masse by being clubbed to death and then thrown into furnaces, enabling their feathers to be more readily removed from their bodies. By the second decade of the 19th Century, the great auk was merely a memory in North America.

In Europe, its major stronghold was the Icelandic coast, but great auks even existed around the more northerly islands of Scotland, most notably St Kilda but also visiting the Orkneys, with one particularly famous Orcadian pair being nicknamed the King and Queen. Sadly, however, they were no safer from hunting here than they had been in the New World. Moreover, it was especially ironic that as this species became rarer, it became ever more persecuted by museum collectors - anxious to add specimens and eggs to their collections before it died out! The last known pair of great auks constituted a couple that were clubbed to death (and their egg smashed) on the Icelandic island of Eldey on 3 June 1844, since when the species has long been deemed extinct (but see below). A particularly moving novel reconstructing this terrible, shameful event, entitled The Last Great Auk and first published in 1964, was written by Allan Eckert, and was reviewed by me here in an earlier ShukerNature post.

The Last Great Auk by Allan Eckert – Collins hardback 1^st edition, 1964 (© Allan Eckert/HarperCollins, reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

For some decades thereafter, however, various quite convincing reports of lone living specimens emerged from various remote far-northern European localities, and it is with these little-mentioned, 'post-extinction' reports of great auks that this present ShukerNature article is concerned.

Perhaps the most (in)famous of these is also the most recent one. On 19 April 1986, London’s Daily Telegraph carried the remarkable news that an expedition was to set sail for Papa Westray, a tiny islet in Scotland’s Orkney group, in response to reputed sightings of a living great auk there. Unhappily for cryptozoology as well as for mainstream zoology, however, it proved to be more of a canard than an auk! For as documented in the International Society of Cryptozoology's ISC Newsletter for spring 1987, it turned out to be nothing more than an imaginative advertising promotion for a certain brand of whisky, using a robotic auk!

This is not the first false alarm for this long-lost species. Reports of great auks in the Lofoten Islands, an archipelago off Norway's northwestern coast, emerged every so often during the late 1930s. When finally investigated, however, the birds proved to be genuine penguins – namely, nine king penguins Aptenodytes patagonicus, which had been brought from sub-Antarctica as pets by whalers and had been released on the Lofotens in August 1936 when no longer wanted. The last two died there in 1944.

King penguins in a delightful illustration from 1910 (public domain)

Nevertheless there are a number of more promising reports of post-1844 survival too. Indeed, a sighting of a single living specimen on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in December 1852, made by eminent field naturalist and ornithologist Colonel Henry Maurice Drummond-Hay with the aid of binoculars, and at a distance of only 30 yards or so away while he was traveling aboard a steamer, has lately been formally accepted by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources). It was first brought to mainstream attention in 1979 by T.R. Halliday in a paper on the great auk published by the periodical Oceans. Moreover, in 1853 a dead great auk was supposedly found on the shore of Trinity Bay on Newfoundland's eastern side, and three years later another one was reputedly caught on its western shore, but neither specimen was submitted to scientists for confirmation (or otherwise).

Most of the others report, conversely, are buried in Norwegian journals and newspapers of the 1800s, but a good example from a 19^th-Century English publication was contained in Dr Isaac J. Hayes’s The Land of Desolation (1871), which describes his adventures in Greenland during summer 1869. The auk-related account concerns a conversation that Hayes had with a naturalist called Hansen:

The great auk, long since supposed to be entirely extinct, he told me had been recently seen on one of the Whale-fish Islands. Two years before [in 1867] one had been actually captured by a native, who, being very hungry, and wholly ignorant of the great value of the prize he had secured, proceeded at once to eat it, much to the disgust of Mr. Hansen, who did not learn of it until too late to come to the rescue. How little the poor savage thought of the great fortune he had just missed by hastily indulging his appetite!

The great auk – when did it really die out? (public domain)

On 10 November 2004, Dr Alan Gauld of Nottingham, England, kindly brought to my attention the following account. Published in the autumn 1929 issue of Bird Notes and News, it was reported by H.A.A. Dombrain, a manager for an English concern in Norway’s Lofoten Islands. Dombrain noted that one of his boatmen, a Finn called Jodas, who was an experienced hunter and amateur naturalist, had told him that earlier that day (presumably the same day that Gauld wrote his account to Bird Notes and News) he and Dombrain’s shipwright, a man called Evenson, had seen a bird under the wharf that, in spite of their experience, they were wholly unable to identify.

Intrigued, Dombrain showed them separately a series of bird illustrations, including all of the likely (and unlikely) species that it could be. To his great surprise, both of them, independently of each other, selected an image of the great auk as the species that matched their mystery bird.

Prior to its extinction almost a century earlier, the great auk had indeed inhabited the wild, sparsely-inhabited coasts of these islands. Moreover, the earlier-noted release there of sub-Antarctic king penguins was several years after the sighting of Evenson, so these birds could not explain it. Consequently, is it possible that he had truly seen a lone, elusive great auk from some small colony that had somehow persisted beyond their species’ official extinction date in this remote locality?

A great northern diver, from Cassell's Book of Birds, 1875 (public domain)

Equally enigmatic is the taxonomic identity of the mysterious Arran auk – the name given by the elderly pilot of a boat carrying the Reverend G.C. Green around Scotland's western coast to a strange seabird as large as a goose or turkey and with a large sharp beak, but with such short wings that it never flew, only paddled, and was black in colour dorsally, white ventrally. As the Rev. Green noted in an article by him that was published on 27 March 1880 in The Field magazine, when he showed the pilot an illustrated book of birds the latter readily identified the picture of a great auk as portraying the Arran auk. He also stated that it only appeared on the coast of western Scotland's Isle of Arran in March each year, that he had shot three specimens, and that he would obtain one for Green the following March.

Tragically, however, the pilot, who was an old man, passed away not long after taking Green in the boat, but his sons vowed that they would obtain a specimen of this bird in his stead. Sure enough, they did subsequently present Green with what they claimed to be an Arran auk, but it proved to be merely a great northern diver Gavia immer (aka the common loon in North America). However, Green pointed out that their father the pilot had readily distinguished between divers and the Arran auk when talking with him during their boat journey, so Green suspected that if he had been alive the pilot would not have sent him a diver.

A few additional cases of putative post-1844 survival for the great auk can be found within a short chapter entitled ‘Late Records, Anomalous Sightings and Cryptozoology’ in Errol Fuller’s definitive book The Great Auk (1999).

Errol Fuller's authoritative tome The Great Auk (© Errol Fuller – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

For example, he notes that in 1971 the famous English nature-writer and broadcaster J. Wentworth Day recalled how back in 1927 he was informed by an acquaintance from his youth named Edward Valpy, whom he deemed to be a first-rate naturalist and explorer of unimpeachable truth, that while spending some time on one of the Lofotens he had spied a great auk slipping off a rock near the local boat-builder's yard and quay. Day also stated that when Valpy had informed the boat-builder of what he had seen, the builder confirmed that it had been around for some time, that his sons had often seen it, and that once it had even dived beneath the boat on which he had been sailing. Note again that this was several years before the king penguins had been released here, so they cannot explain this report of multiple sightings.

Also of interest is the much-disputed claim by a Norwegian named Brodtkorb that he had shot a great auk, one of four supposedly encountered by him one day in April 1848 while he was rowing with some companions in a little strait constituting an arm of the sea separating Vardö from the islets of Hornö and Renö in Norway. The four birds were paddling in the water, and continued to do so, not flying away, even after he had shot one of them. As far as he could remember, its back, head, and neck were all completely black, except for a white spot at the eye on the side of the neck. Its wings were extremely small, and in shape it resembled those familiar auks the razorbills and guillemots.

Sadly, Brodtkorb threw the dead bird's carcase on the beach when he landed, then later regretted doing so, but when he returned to the beach the following day to retrieve it, it had gone, carried away by the tide. Brodtkorb's mystery bird has since been discounted by various sceptical naturalists as having merely been a diver or some familiar auk species, but those who knew him personally vouched for his knowledge of wildlife, stating that if this is really all that it had been, as an experienced sportsman he would have readily recognised it as such.

John Gould's exquisite 19^th-Century great auk painting (public domain)

Problematically, as Errol pointed out in his book, Vardö is much further north than any currently-known locality for great auk occurrence in historical times, but its remains in prehistoric middens from this region confirm that in earlier ages it did indeed occur there. Errol's book also contains other post-1844 claimed sightings of this species in Norwegian and Greenland localities further north than would be expected, based at least upon its confirmed historical distribution and irrespective of the sightings' dates.

Might it just be possible, however, that in such far-north localities, out of the ready reach of hunters, some few great auks did indeed survive beyond, possibly even well beyond, their species' official extinction dates (1844/1852) – and might some even be lingering there today?

It would be a very bold person indeed to state with any degree of confidence that the great auk is not a lost auk after all. Then again, it would be a very bold person indeed to attempt spending the extensive period of time that would be required to seek with any degree of proficiency this iconic bird in such inhospitable, inaccessible Arctic terrain. So who can truly say for certain?

Two famous taxiderm specimens of the great auk: (left) the Leipzig Museum great auk; and (right) the great auk and replica egg at Kelvingrove, Glasgow (© Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence / © Mike Pennington/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)

Finally: Here is my two-page review of Errol's superb great auk book that was published in the autumn 2000 issue (#21) of the late Mark Chorvinsky's Strange Magazine (please click its pages to enlarge for reading purposes):

And here is a scraperboard illustration – the very first scraperboard picture that I ever attempted – of a great auk that I prepared more than 30 years ago, its black and white plumage making it an ideal subject to depict via this very striking medium:

My scraperboard illustration of a great auk (© Dr Karl Shuker)