A CENTURY OF OWSTON'S BANDED CIVET

Owston's banded civet (Chris Brack)


To promote my soon-to-be-published Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals - the fully-revised, thoroughly-updated, and greatly-expanded third incarnation of what began as The Lost Ark in 1993, and then became The New Zoo in 2002 - during the next few weeks I shall be excerpting from this latest book of mine as a series of ShukerNature exclusives some of the remarkable animals whose discoveries or rediscoveries are celebrating notable anniversaries in 2011. Here's one of them.


OWSTON'S BANDED CIVET

Owston's banded civet Chrotogale owstoni is an obscure Asian species, measuring up to 3.5 ft in total length. Named after Alan Owston, whose native collector procured its type specimen on 16 September 1911 at Yen-bay, on Tonkin's Song-koi River in southern China, it was officially described in 1912 by Oldfield Thomas, who designated it as the sole member of a new genus. The visually arresting pattern created by contrasting light and dark, transverse bands on its body and the basal portion of its tail closely resembles that of the banded palm civet Hemigalus derbianus, but the latter species lacks the dark spots visible on the neck, shoulders, flanks, and thighs of Chrotogale.

Owston's banded civet depicted upon a Vietnamese postage stamp from 1966

Furthermore, anatomical comparisons uncovered distinct differences in cranial structure and dentition between the two species, differences sufficiently marked to warrant these civets' respective residence in separate genera. Most remarkable of these contrasts were the very slender muzzle of Chrotogale, and its incongruous incisors - these latter teeth are surprisingly broad and close-set, and arranged almost in a semi-circle, a condition more comparable to that of certain insectivorous marsupials than to any species of viverrid.

Owston's banded civet depicted upon a set of Vietnamese postage stamps from 2005

Whether Chrotogale too is predominantly insectivorous, however, remains uncertain, as even today it is still a very mysterious animal, known from less than two dozen preserved specimens originating variously from northern Vietnam, Laos, and from Tonkin and Yunnan in China. A live individual was captured in Vietnam in 1991, followed by others more recently. These latter include (in 1999) three males and seven females at Hanoi Zoo, six males and four females at Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) Zoo, four of each sex at Pittsboro Zoo in North Carolina, and one female at Frankfurt Zoo. More recently, an international conservation and breeding programme for them was established in co-operation with Vietnam’s Cuc Phuong National Park working with various zoos including Newquay Zoo.

My scraperboard illustration of Owston's banded civet (Dr Karl Shuker)

AN UNCOMMONNESS OF UNICORNS

My unicorn wall rug, based upon 'Unicorn' - a painting by Johfra Bosschart (Dr Karl Shuker)

Not all unicorns are of the equine or cervine varieties beloved by poets, painters, storytellers, and other purveyors of literature and art. Following on from the unicorn rabbit of County Durham that I recently documented in a previous ShukerNature post (click here to view it), I now have pleasure in presenting a singularly eclectic selection of extraordinary unicorns from the past, the present, reality, fantasy, and somewhere in between.


THE YALE AND THE EALE
Originally native to southern India, the yale or yali was somewhat of a contradiction in terms – a unicorn with two horns. Moreover, unlike the fixed horn of the true unicorn, the paired horns of the yale could be rotated in different directions, enabling it to aim them at any attacker approaching from any direction. Quite apart from its mobile horns, the yale was nothing if not memorable morphologically. The size of a horse, it sported the tusks of a boar, the tail of an elephant, and the body spotting of a leopard. Not surprisingly, this startling beast was reputedly kept inside Indian temples to ward off evil spirits, and, perhaps rather more surprisingly, it ultimately entered British heraldry as one of the four heraldic beasts of the monarch.

The yale, in Jonathan Hunt's Bestiary

An earlier version of the yale was the eale, which shared the yale’s Indian provenance, boar-like tusks, elephant tail, and moveable horns (though the eale’s were far longer than the yale’s). However, it was black or tawny all over, was much bigger than the yale, attaining the size of a hippopotamus, and was amphibious, able to live in the water as well as on land.


Medieval engraving depicting the eale (bottom right)

THE WEB-FOOTED CAMPHOR
Even more amphibious than the eale, however, was the camphor or champhur. For this was a single-horned Ethiopian unicorn whose hind feet were webbed like a duck’s, not hoofed.

Engraving of the camphor

THE WOOLLY-COATED, TWIN-HORNED PIRASSOIPI
Less familiar than the yale and eale is yet another double-horned unicorn, the pirassoipi. Illustrated in a number of bestiaries down through the ages, and native to the Arabian lands bordering the Red Sea, it was normally depicted with two seemingly-fixed, forward-pointing horns, and, most distinctive of all, an extremely woolly, curly coat – giving this creature the appearance of a large ibex-like goat, upon which it may well have been based.

Engraving of the pirassoipi

THE BAISTE-NA-SCOGHAIGH - A WERE-UNICORN FROM SKYE
One of the most bizarre yet least-known unicorns, due to its very limited distribution, was the baiste-na-scoghaigh, confined entirely to the Isle of Skye in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides. This one-horned creature was more like the monoceros than the unicorn, as it has been variously likened to a huge lumbering ram, shire horse, or even a rhinoceros. According to a communication penned by Donald Finlay (Daily Mail, 16 June 2010), however, every baiste-na-scoghaigh was male, so in order to perpetuate their race each one would shape-shift into a man and copulate with women, who gave birth only to sons. Moreover, a baiste-na-scoghaigh would not hesitate to dispatch with its great horn any man that it considered to be weak and take his place, in order to sire a stronger, worthier son.


THE ICELANDIC BJARNDÝRAKÓNGUR
By far the most unusual mammalian unicorn of all, however, must surely be the bjarndýrakóngur of Iceland, because this extraordinary beast is said to be a polar bear of gigantic size that bears a long glowing horn projecting forward from the centre of its brow. As revealed by Glen Vaudrey in a CFZ blog post of 2 August 2009, the bjarndýrakóngur supposedly results from a mating between a polar bear and either a walrus or a bull, and in addition to its size and horn is also distinguished from normal polar bears by virtue of its red cheeks.

The most recent report of a bjarndýrakóngur that Glen was able to uncover during his researches dated from the 1700s and took place as follows on the island of Grímsey:

"Just before a Whitsun church service a group of a dozen bears were seen to be approaching the island led by a bjarndýrakóngur with its glowing horn. Unused to such a sight, the congregation stood outside watching the bears walk past towards the south of the island. As the creatures drew level with the crowd the clergyman bowed to the bjarndýrakóngur and in turn had the bow return; clever things these unicorn bears.

"The bears then headed off into the distance but before they disappeared from view, the last polar bear in the line ate a passing sheep. It appears that the bjarndýrakóngur did not approve of such uncivilised action and promptly, fatally ran the bear through with his glowing horn, so putting an end to such murderous action. After that the bears headed off into the sea and once again were hidden from view."

As nothing more seems to have been heard of the bjarndýrakóngur, we can only assume that this truly unique unicorn, or at least the tradition of it, has died out. After all, if anything as memorable as a gargantuan polar bear with ruddy cheeks and a long glowing brow-horn were still being reported, I’m sure that it would be hitting the headlines, even if only in Iceland!

The extraordinary Icelandic bjarndýrakóngur or unicorn bear (Pat Burroughs)

KUBANOCHOERUS – PREHISTORY’S UNICORN PIG
Real-life unicorns but known only from the distant past were the several very large, long-legged species of prehistoric pig belonging to the genus Kubanochoerus. Known from fossils found throughout Eurasia (ranging from Greece to China), and living during the Miocene epoch (23-5.3 million years ago), what made these pigs so distinctive was not just the small pair of horns protruding up from their eyebrows but also the much larger, single horn projecting forward and upwards from the centre of the brow in male individuals, and probably used in competitive jousting with one another.

Reconstruction of Kubanochoerus gigas (Apokryltaros-Wikipedia)

SCREAMING OUT FOR SOUTH AMERICA’S UNICORN BIRD
Not all unicorns are mammalian in identity. One of the world's weirdest birds bears more than a passing resemblance to a feathered unicorn! Native to marshy grasslands of South America and the size of a turkey, the horned screamer Anhima cornuta has an extraordinary horn, long and curved, that grows out of its skull between its eyes. Present in both sexes, composed of cartilage (gristle), and originating as an unbranched feather shaft, it can measure up to 15 cm long, but is so thin, curved, and delicate that the screamer certainly couldn't use it as a weapon, for defending itself or for attacking other creatures. So what is the purpose of this unique structure? No-one knows - the best suggestion is that it is simply for decoration, but if so, why should this particular bird be the only one out of the many thousands of bird species alive today to grow such an outlandish ornament?

The horned screamer's unicorned head

However, this is not the only bizarre feature of the horned screamer. Between its unusually thick skin and its muscles are lots of tiny airsacs that are extensions of its lungs, and whenever it opens its wings to take flight these airsacs make a very strange crackling noise, as if someone is squeezing a large bag of crisps! It also has an incredibly loud cry, giving voice over and over again to ear-splitting screams that can be heard up to 3 km away!

Most amazing of all, however, is the fact that this weird bird is most closely related to waterfowl - ducks, geese, and swans. For anything less like a waterfowl in external appearance and behaviour than a screamer - which doesn't even swim unless it really has to - would be difficult to imagine!

Painting from 1864 of a pair of horned screamers

In general form, the horned screamer looks more like a turkey than any waterfowl. Also, it has a pointed chicken-like beak rather than the familiar duck bill of waterfowl, it has very long stork-like legs instead of shorter waterfowl-like ones, broad wings that each bears a pair of sharp peculiar spurs at its edge, and feet that have only the smallest amount of webbing between their toes. Yet anatomical and biochemical studies indicate that unlikely as it may seem, the horned screamer really is a cousin of the waterfowl - proving once again that you should never judge anything by its outward appearance!

19th-Century engraving of a horned screamer

UNICORN SNAKES AND UNICORN SNAILS
Finally: two further, very different (but equally remarkable) categories of non-mammalian unicorn, yet rarely if ever documented nowadays, are unicorn snakes and unicorn snails.

Unicorn snakes can themselves be split into two very distinct, dissimilar categories. The first consists of a bona fide unicorn snake from southeast Asia – Rhynchophis boulengeri, known variously as the green unicorn snake or rhinoceros rat snake on account of the prominent scaled protrusion on the front of this bright green species’ snout.

Rhynchophis boulengeri (Vladimír Motyčka)

The second category consists of fake unicorn snakes - created from normal snakes into whose brow a spine has been skilfully inserted in order to create the illusion of a unicorn snake. The ‘horn’ borne by these deceptive serpents was usually either a cut-down porcupine spine or a spine extracted from the fin of a ray or some other spiny-finned fish, and these fraudulent unicorn snakes were sold by canny Eastern vendors to gullible Western tourists or travellers (click here for more details).

As I documented in my book Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999), unicorn snails are freak, teratological individuals in which the normal pair of laterally-sited stalks with an eye at the tip of each stalk is replaced by a single centrally located stalk bearing two eyes side by side at its tip. Two such specimens, both of which were Roman (edible) snails Helix pomatia discovered in France, were documented in 1959 within the Journal de Conchyliogie by E. Fischer-Piette.


'The Woman With the Unicorn' (1505) - Raphael

For many more remarkable types of unicorn, see my book Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008).

A UNICORN RABBIT FROM COUNTY DURHAM

Unicorn, the aptly-named unicorn rabbit of County Durham

Last week, it was all about Frank and Louie - the record-breaking, 12-year-old Janus cat, a cat with two faces. This week, I have pleasure in introducing another furry wonder - a bona fide unicorn rabbit!

As someone passionately interested in unicorns, I have documented many different types over the years, ranging from the familiar equine version to rather more exotic counterparts - including a lethal carnivorous desert-dweller with a musical flute-like horn, an ostensibly semi-aquatic form with webbed feet, an extremely bellicose bovine or even rhinocerine equivalent from Persia that could be soothed only by the calming cooing of a turtle dove, and a small hare-like but extremely malign entity from an unnamed tropical island. However, there is one particular example, which I investigated a fair few years ago but have never previously documented, that I find especially intriguing - for the simple reason that whereas most unicorns of whatever type they may be are fictitious, this one was real.

On 29 September 1982, writer Paul Screeton at the Hartlepool Mail published a report (subsequently picked up by other media sources, and also reproduced in his own magazine, The Shaman – see photo) documenting a most extraordinary pet rabbit that its owner, 9-year-old Kathy Lister of Trimdon Grange in County Durham, England, had very aptly named Unicorn. Due to a genetic fluke, Unicorn had been born with just a single ear. Yet whereas there are numerous reports on file of individual mammals of many different species in which one or other ear is missing, Unicorn’s condition was rather more special. For unlike typical one-eared individuals, her single ear was not laterally positioned, but arose instead from the centre of her head, standing upright like a long furry horn!

Holding my copy of Paul Screeton's article re Unicorn in The Shaman

Intrigued by this highly unusual condition (even today, I have never encountered any additional ‘median-ear’ instances), I decided to pursue the case personally. So after first discussing it with Paul Screeton, in July 1988 I contacted Kathy (then aged 15) and her father James, requesting further details, and am most grateful for the following information that they very kindly sent to me.

Born in spring 1981, Unicorn was a Flemish Giant doe bred on James’s farm, and she subsequently became the much-loved pet of his daughter Kathy. In more than 35 years of rabbit breeding, this was the only one-eared rabbit that James had ever observed. In autumn 1984, Unicorn escaped from her pen, but three days later she was found, recaptured, and placed in a new hutch. Over the next month, she grew steadily fatter, and 31 days after her original escape Unicorn gave birth to a litter of five offspring. As she had never been introduced to any of the farm rabbits, it is clear, therefore, that during her brief period of freedom Unicorn had encountered and mated with a wild rabbit.

Of her five offspring, four were normal, but the fifth displayed its mother’s remarkable median-ear condition. Regrettably, however, all five offspring died shortly afterwards during a very severe thunderstorm, so no details of their sex are known. Happily, Unicorn survived, and lived for a further two years, but she did not give birth to any further litters, so the unidentified mutant gene presumably responsible for her median ear and that of one of her offspring was lost forever when she died in November 1986.

Kathy Lister and Unicorn

Judging from the 4:1 normal:mutant ratio of offspring, it is likely that the median-ear condition was induced by a recessive allele (gene form), and that Unicorn was homozygous for it (i.e. possessing two copies), thereby enabling the condition to be expressed by her. If so, then it must also be assumed that her wild mate was at least heterozygous (possessing one copy) for this same mutant allele, in order to explain the birth of the single median-eared offspring in her litter. Yet if this mutant allele is indeed present in the wild population, one might have expected it to have been expressed far more frequently (especially in animals that are famous for breeding...well, like rabbits!). Could it, therefore, be associated with some debilitating trait too, so that individuals expressing it are more vulnerable in some way to predation?

The most obvious affliction to be expected that may prove detrimental to survival in the wild is some form of hearing impairment – an occurrence that normally accompanies most ear-related mutations. Yet Kathy had observed that when Unicorn was called, she would turn towards the direction of the voice, thus suggesting that her hearing was not severely impeded (although by having only one ear, it meant – inevitably - that Unicorn’s hearing could only be monoaural, not stereo).

Tragically, however, in the absence of further litters from Unicorn upon which to base breeding observations, little more can be said of her apparently unique mutation. So it is likely that its identity will remain undiscovered, unless this remarkable ‘unicorn ear’ condition reappears one day in some other rabbit farm.

Thanks very much to Paul Screeton for kindly making available to me the photos included here.

UPDATE - 19 October 2011

Today, while browsing through the newly-published 2012 edition of Ripley's Believe It Or Not, I discovered a second unicorn rabbit. Owned by rabbit breeder Franz-Xaver Noemmer, from Egglham, Germany, it was born in February 2010, and has snow-white fur.

This post is extracted from The Anomalarium of Doctor Shuker, one of my current books-in-progress.

A NEWLY-PUBLISHED REVIEW OF MY ALIEN ZOO BOOK

Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 609-610, 2011.

Karl Shuker’s Alien Zoo by Karl P. N. Shuker. CFZ (Centre for Fortean Zoology) Press, 2010. 392 pp. $26.99, softcover. ISBN 9781905723621.

This book is an excellent introduction to cryptozoology as well as a feast for people already interested in the subject. There are interleaved chapters dealing on the one hand with specific topics in some depth, on the other hand with snippets of relevant news items from the years 1995 to 2010, arranged chronologically. The items are from columns Shuker wrote for Fortean Times, and several have been updated with more recent information.

The wide scope of cryptozoology is illustrated, and the approaches to specific subjects illuminate the inevitably interdisciplinary character of cryptozoological research: an inescapably needed background of zoological knowledge, plus sophisticated understanding of how to weigh different kinds of evidence, which ranges from actual specimens through photographs and paintings of (claimed) specimens through written reports from the most varied sources to, not least, eyewitness accounts.

That complexity calls for expert guidance, and Shuker is fully equipped to provide it, with a Ph.D. in zoology, membership in learned societies, and long fascination with and work in cryptozoology. Those credentials do not necessarily entail good judgment, of course, and in this vital respect Shuker is very trustworthy indeed. He is determinedly skeptical and his assessments are based squarely on empirical evidence. In cryptozoology as in anomalistics more broadly, the rarest and most desirable resources are compendia that can be relied upon to be factually accurate and judicious in making judgments. In those respects, I rate Shuker’s works as highly as I (and others, of course) rate the works of Jerome Clark. As to specifically cryptozoology, Shuker’s work inevitably reminds one of that of Bernard Heuvelmans, often described as the founder of cryptozoology and also a zoologist by orthodox training. Heuvelmans broke barriers and displayed the bravado needed by those who bring into existence some new institution or subject; Shuker displays the qualities needed by the successors who bring more order and judiciousness to the field.

Alien Zoo offers the pleasure of browsing in the knowledge that one will be able to enjoy it over a long time: Each of the “topic” chapters is an independent essay, and the collections of news snippets in each year or set of years can be taken in one or in several gulps.

The introductory essay, debunking a story published by a quite well-known writer on oddities of Nature, sets the stage appropriately by illustrating Shuker’s diligent perseverance in tracking down evidence and then determinedly hewing to that evidence.

Over the years I’ve read quite widely in cryptozoology, yet I found new specifics here as well as welcome interpretations of more familiar subjects, for instance on the “mystery cats” reported from all sorts of places around the world. New to me were such things as angel feathers, bacteria reproducing in clouds, or the possible relationship between fruit bats and primates—the latter highly instructive about the complex task of tracing evolutionary lineages even in the era of DNA analysis.

I recommend Alien Zoo highly and without reservation. Readers should not neglect what looks at first like many pages of advertisements at the back of the book: On pp. 381–382 there is a list of other works by Shuker that those who appreciate Alien Zoo will then want to read, too. One of my own favorites is the 1995 In Search of Prehistoric Survivors.

HENRY H. BAUER
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Science Studies
Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sciences
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
hhbauer@vt.edu
www.henryhbauer.homestead.com

HORSE-COWS, SHEEP-PIGS, AND THE REAL BABE!

Babe the Sheep-Pig, created by Dick King-Smith

Countless fully-authenticated cases testify that closely-related animal species sometimes mate successfully with one another, yielding hybrid progeny. Also on file, however, are reports of certain highly controversial hybrids - supposedly resulting from crossbreeding between pairs of animal species generally considered to be too distantly related to yield viable offspring.


UNMASKING THE JUMAR

Take, for instance, the jumar - purportedly the product of an illicit liaison between a horse (or donkey) and a cow (or the reverse cross). The birth of such a creature would require a successful mating between species from two entirely discrete taxonomic orders of hoofed mammal - Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates, which include horses and donkeys) and Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates, which include cattle) - whose respective members are far too dissimilar genetically to yield viable offspring.

Horse x cow interbreeding - not a viable prospect, surely...?

Yet there are many cases of supposed jumars on record, dating back at least as far as 1546, when documented by the learned physician/mathematician Jerome Cardan. It seemed to gain its name from the famous bestiary compiler Conrad Gesner; in the first volume of his great work Historia Animalium (1551), he wrote about a creature resulting "...from a she-ass and a bull, which as I hear is met with at Gratianopolis, and is called the jumar in French".

Referring to the jumar in Magiae Naturalis (1558), Neapolitan physicist Giovanni Battista della Porta stated: "I myself saw at Ferraria, certain beasts in the shape of a Mule, but they had a Bull's head, and two great knobs instead of horns: they also had a Bull's eyes, and were exceedingly stomackful, and their colour was black...I have heard, that in France, they be common: but I could see none there, though I have passed through the whole country".

Photoshop's answer to the jumar

Throughout the 17th Century, scholars readily accepted the jumar's reality, but during the 18th Century scepticism grew, voiced in particular by the eminent French zoologist George de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle. Buffon oversaw the dissection of two supposed jumars, one from the Pyrenees, the other from Dauphiné, but found no trace of bovine characters in either specimen.

The same outcome was obtained from the dissection of two jumars at the instigation of Cardinal Delle Lanze. They were nothing more than small, stunted mules, just like other jumars subsequently examined. Experiments striving to induce matings between stallions and cows, and between bulls and mares, were wholly unsuccessful too. And so, by the end of the 1700s this impossible hybrid had finally been exposed and expunged.

Exit the jumar.


CUINO - IN SEARCH OF THE REAL BABE

Whereas novelist Dick King-Smith's world-famous if entirely fictitious sheep-pig Babe was merely a piglet trained to herd sheep, there are many reports on file of what were supposedly the real thing.

Accepted by some writers until much more recently than the jumar, yet scarcely less improbable, was the cuino - claimed to be a hybrid of sheep and pig, and widely met with in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. At the turn of the 19th Century, a highly-esteemed American journal called the Breeder's Gazette published a detailed article concerning the cuino, in which it stated that this remarkable crossbreed results from matings between sows and polled (de-horned) rams of the typical long-legged, light-bodied Mexican sheep.

In a somewhat contradictory account, the article claimed that the cuino has: "...the form and all the characteristics of the pigs, but he is entirely different from his dam; he is round-ribbed and blocky, his short legs cannot take him far away from his sty, and his snout is too short to root. His head is not unlike that of the Berkshire. His body is covered with long thick curly hair, not soft enough to be called wool, but which, nevertheless, he takes from his sire. His colour is black, white, black and white or brown and white".

No, these are NOT photoshopped - these are real! (click photo for enlargement)
See below* for details concerning their zoological identity (photo/website credits as given in photos).

In 1900, this and various similar accounts, including one concerning Brazilian cuinos, came to the attention of W.B. Tegetmeier of London's Zoological Society, who duly denounced the cuino's crossbred identity in a series of communications within The Field. The matter was finally resolved in 1902, when he received a cuino skull from a Mexican correspondent.

Quoting Tegetmeier's response:

"I was very glad to receive the skull, but, as I anticipated, it has no hybrid character about it whatever. It is purely and simply the skull of a pig. Without stopping to enter into such details as the character of the orbit, or the articulation of the lower jaw, which are utterly distinct in the sheep and in the pig, I need only call attention to the teeth in the fore part of the upper jaw. These are present as in the pig, and perfectly developed, whereas in the sheep, as every anatomist knows, the fore part of the jaw is utterly destitute of teeth, there being only a horny pad against which the lower incisors act. No zoologist could for a moment regard the skull as showing the slightest trace of ovine structure. In order to obtain corroboration of these facts I exhibited the skull at the last meeting of the Zoological Society, and its true character was recognised by every anatomist and zoologist present who noticed it."

Farewell the cuino.

However, there are no less than three surviving, genuine breeds of pig that are often dubbed sheep-pigs on account of their very distinctive and decidedly unporcine woolly coats. These curly-haired curiosities are collectively known as mangalitzas (aka mangalitsas), and although originally bred in Hungary and the Balkans, mangalitzas are now reared elsewhere in the world too. Indeed, it is more than likely that some reports of cuinos were actually based upon sightings of mangalitza-like pigs, i.e. freak hairy specimens of Mexican pig breeds, or possibly even early imported specimens of genuine mangalitzas.

Swallow-bellied mangalitza hog at the Franciscan Monastery gardens in Kadaň, Czech Republic (click photo for enlargement)

Traditionally maintained as lard pigs, they subsequently fell out of favour when the popularity of lard diminished. As a result, some breeds of mangalitza eventually died out, such as the black, the wolf, and the baris, although there are plans to reconstruct them in Hungary via selective backbreeding using a mixture of other breeds.

Prior to its extinction, the black mangalitza had been bred with the blonde mangalitza (two specimens of which arrived in April 2010 at Tropical Wings Zoo in Essex, England, as part of an education and breeding program, and are featured in the two photos* included earlier in this blog post), yielding the swallow-bellied mangalitza (which, like the bird that it is named after, has a dark upper body but paler underparts). And by breeding the swallow-bellied mangalitza with the szalonta (a hardy, unfleeced Hungarian breed), a further form known as the red mangalitza has been created, sporting a ginger fleece. The red, blonde, and swallow-bellied trio still exist today, but remain scarce enough to be categorised as rare breeds. There was once an additional, totally separate breed of woolly pig - the Lincolnshire curly-coat - but just like the black, wolf, and baris mangalitzas, it too, sadly, is now extinct

Hair today, gone tomorrow - 'twas ever thus.

WELCOME TO MY ECLECTARIUM!

It's taken a while, but I've finally got around to establishing a blog devoted to my varied interests outside cryptozoology, animal mythology, and poetry.

Entitled 'The Eclectarium of Doctor Shuker', it will encompass everything from fantasy art and novels, James Dean, masks, Forteana, motorbikes, clowns, science fiction, ancient civilisations, science anomalies, stamp collecting, Sherlock Holmes, animation, the supernatural, rock 'n' roll music, quiz trivia, and much more.

If it's unusual, intriguing, and obscure, there's a good chance it will appear here, sooner or later! So please check it out, at:

http://eclectariumshuker.blogspot.com/

SURF HIPPOS, HERE THEY COME!

Surfing hippopotamus (picture source unknown)

Hippopotamuses surfing in the sea may seem as improbable as polar bears gambolling across the desert, but as the remarkable photograph above readily demonstrates, in the world of nature few things are even impossible, let alone merely improbable. For although the common hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibius is traditionally associated with freshwater habitats, such as rivers and lakes, it does also frequent saltwater in certain localities. These include the southern Orango group of islands, part of the Bijagos Archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean off the western coast of Guinea Bissau (formerly Portugese Guinea) in western Africa, which are now a national park. Saltwater hippos occur off the Kenyan island of Manada Toto too, and - the location of the stunning photo here - in the Petit-Loango Reserve in southwestern Gabon. Here, the hippos spend much of the day taking their ease in swamps and lagoons close by, but emerge at dusk to graze upon grass along the beach and indulge in boisterous surfing safaris out to sea.

Photos of surfing hippos in South Africa (sources unknown) 

What makes such scenes even more extraordinary than their mere setting is the fact that despite being intimately associated with water, hippos are far from being the animal world's most competent swimmers.

Only when seen in its entirety on land, can the hippo's immense size be fully comprehended (Dr Karl Shuker) 

Indeed, even though their massive bulk (they are beaten in the heavyweight stakes among terrestrial mammals only by the elephants and some rhinoceroses) is effectively buoyed by their aqueous surroundings, these gargantuan cousins of pigs and peccaries (but actually most closely allied to whales, dolphins, and other cetaceans) often do not venture into expanses of lake or river deeper than their own bodies.

Common hippopotamus (Dr Karl Shuker)

Even hippos seen with just their heads above water are, in reality, usually standing on the riverbed or lake bottom, stretching their necks to keep their heads above water, ably assisted by the evolutionary relocation of their eyes, ears, and nostrils close to the top of their heads. If, moreover, a hippo does decide to dive or swim underwater, a reflex action closes its ears and nostrils entirely, and it will commonly stay wholly submerged for 3-5 minutes - but may, if required, continue to do so for up to 30 minutes! And as the surfing hippos ably prove, if necessary it can indeed swim unaided by terra firma beneath its feet.

Note the hippo's upward-opening nostrils (Dr Karl Shuker) 
 
Equally interesting is that despite their far-from-streamlined form, hippos are able to attain some nifty turns of running speed - even underwater. One hippo was timed charging along the bed of a river at a highly respectable 5 miles per hour, in spite of the appreciable drag effect of its watery surroundings acting upon it. And on land, hippos can readily outpace human runners, having been timed at up to 30 miles per hour - so beware!

Hippopotamus figurine carved out of blue sodalite

Certainly, hippos, in spite of being predominantly peaceful creatures, have acquired a formidable reputation as arguably the most dangerous animal to humans in Africa - adult females are notoriously ferocious if challenged or disturbed when they have calves. Their weapons are of course their colossal mouths, armed with huge curving tusks. Including their gum-embedded roots, the lower canine teeth of a hippo can sometimes grow up to 3 ft long - the length of an average human arm! And when a male hippo opens its stupendous jaws to yawn - not an indication of boredom, incidentally, but a sign of aggression toward another male seeking to invade its territory, or of courtship intent toward a female - the resulting gape can be up to 150°. Only whales among mammals can outgape a yawning hippo!

Hippo gape (Aqwis/Wikipedia)

Indeed, it has been claimed that a hippo can open its jaws wide enough to accommodate a 4-ft-tall child inside! And this beast's mighty maws are so powerful that an adult specimen can bite a 12-ft-long crocodile in half! But even when not chomping a croc, male hippos fighting for territory can inflict terrible wounds upon each other, and even kill one another, with their huge curved tusks.

Skull of common hippopotamus
 

So tough, in fact, are these awesome teeth that little more than a century ago hippo ivory was popular among dentists for use in manufacturing human artificial teeth - once they had succeeded in dissolving with acid the yellow enamel covering the ivory, because this enamel is as hard as glass and accounts for a third of each tusk's total weight! Much further back in time, the ancient Egyptians carved amulets for babies out of hippo ivory, believing that this substance had the power to ward away demons. Furthermore, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth, Taueret, was popularly portrayed as a bipedal hippopotamus. 

Statuette of Taueret carved out of faience (Jon Bodsworth) 
 

Undoubtedly, the hippo attracted great interest from early humans, and not just on account of its huge size and formidable jaws, but also due to the longstanding belief that it could sweat blood. The explanation for this curious but totally inaccurate notion is that in order to ensure that its thick, almost-hairless skin remains supple and moist when out of the water, and also to avoid it becoming sunburnt, the hippo secretes a sticky, oily, pink-hued substance from glands beneath the surface of its skin, which on first glance can appear a little like seeping blood but is in reality an efficient, ready-made sun-block! It may also act as an antibiotic, helping to promote germ-free healing of wounds inflicted upon each other by bellicose male hippos. 

 
Having said that, a rare bona fide pink hippopotamus was photographed in Kenya's Masai Mara Game park during late September 2010 by British tourist brothers Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas (and others have previously been reported in Uganda). Apparently a leucistic individual, exhibiting reduced body pigmentation, photos and a full news report of this extraordinary creature can be found here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315917/Rare-pink-hippo-images-captured-Masai-Mara-Kenya.html 

Another of the hippo's secrets, conversely, has only been revealed quite recently. Not surprisingly, for a creature that spends so much of its time partly or fully submerged, the hippo is able to vocalise not merely on land but underwater too - thanks to a stentorian voice and powers of vocal projection that would put even the most skilled of human opera singers to shame. Hippos can communicate with one another directly through the medium of water via ear-splitting bellows of such potent force that they can be both heard and physically felt by anything positioned up to 50 ft away! But that is not all - scientists have lately discovered a hitherto unsuspected infrasonic component to this bellow, an amazing rumble beneath the threshold of human hearing but which can be detected underwater by other hippos as far away as 18.7 miles!

Hippo swimming (Dr Karl Shuker)
 
No less amazing than its voice, however, are the eyes of the hippo - due to the bizarre shape of their pupils, each resembling an inverted, smooth-cornered capital 'T'! Yet again, this is an evolutionary adaptation to assist the hippo in its amphibious lifestyle, for it uniquely (among mammals) enables the hippo to see above and below the water surface with the same intensity of light, thus yielding a complete view, unimpeded by the water. 
 
Pygmy hippopotamuses 

Less familiar, smaller, and much daintier than the well known, common hippopotamus is the much more terrestrial, forest-dwelling pygmy hippo Choeropsis (=Hexaprotodon) liberiensis, which looks more like an over-sized shiny-black pig than a hippo. For many years, the very existence of this reclusive animal was discounted by science, in spite of longstanding native testimony and reports brought back to Europe by western travellers. Some even attempted to dismiss it as nothing more than a freak, stunted version of the common, larger species. As noted in my book The New Zoo: New and Rediscovered Animals of the Twentieth Century (2002; new, greatly-expanded edition due out later this year!!!), not until five living specimens were brought back alive by German explorer Hans Schomburgk in 1913 was the pygmy hippo scientifically accepted as a second, valid species of hippopotamus in its own right. 
 
Pygmy hippos

Most remarkable of all, however, is that there could even be a third, supposedly long-extinct species of hippo still awaiting scientific detection - on the island of Madagascar. Several millennia ago, at least three different species of undersized, dwarf hippo existed here, but these are officially deemed to have died out long ago. However, even today locals in southwestern Madagascar occasionally claim to encounter a shy, unidentified mystery beast that they refer to as the kilopilopitsofy or tsomgomby, which, when described by them, sounds irresistibly similar in both appearance and habits to a small form of hippo. Even the alleged vocalisations of the kilopilopitsofy seem remarkably reminiscent of the bellows of a hippo. 

Is the kilopilopitsofy a surviving species of Madagascan dwarf hippo? (Dr Karl Shuker)
 
Clearly, the fascinating realm of the river horse - the literal translation of 'hippopotamus' - may still have some hefty surprises in store! 

My late grandmother Gertrude Timmins's blue hippopotamus ornament - a fond memory from my childhood (Dr Karl Shuker) 
 
NB - Unless stated otherwise, all images included in this post are, to the best of my knowledge, in the public domain.