IN TUNE WITH THE NEW GUINEA SINGING DOG

An 11-month-old female New Guinea singing dog (Oldsingerman20/Wikipedia)

In addition to the many feral (run-wild) domestic dogs of relatively recent origin and varied appearance present throughout New Guinea, there may still exist in the more lofty reaches of its eastern highlands a very primitive canine form of much greater antiquity and well-defined morphology – the New Guinea singing dog.

This interesting animal resembles a short, fairly thickset Australian dingo with a broad vulpine face and varying coat colour (most commonly brown), but with a noticeably bushy tail that it sometimes curls to one side over its rump. It also compares closely with the dingo in relation to certain cranial-dental ratios held to be of significance in canid classification. Recent genetic research has revealed that both singing dog and dingo date back at least 4000 years, making them among the oldest of the ancient domestic dog breeds.

New Guinea singing dog, a very early surviving domestic dog breed (Valerie Abbott)

It was originally made known to the western world as long ago as 1606, when Diego de Prado reported finding specimens in southeastern Papua, while voyaging through the Torres Strait separating Papua from Queensland, Australia. The first specimen examined scientifically, however, was one that had been shot and killed by Sir William MacGregor on Mount Scratchley at 7000 ft in 1897, whose alcohol-preserved skin and skeleton were then sent by MacGregor to the Queensland Museum.

In 1957, Dr Ellis Troughton, Mammal Curator at the Australian Museum, classed it as a distinct species, dubbing it Canis hallstromi, in honour of Sir Edward Hallstrom (President of the Taronga Park Trust), and in an attempt to initiate further studies of this hitherto largely-ignored form that would determine its precise taxonomic status. Troughton based his description of this new species upon a pair housed at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. These had been received by Hallstrom in 1956 as a gift from Assistant District Officer J.P. Sinclair and Medical Assistant Albert Speer, who had obtained them while on patrol in the remote Lavani Valley in Papua's Southern Highlands District.



Long-obscure, the New Guinea singing dog has elicited significant taxonomic controversy (Patti McNeal/Wikipedia)



In 1971 Troughton published another paper treating C. hallstromi as a valid species; but two years earlier, following detailed studies of its breeding and offspring, Dr W. Schultz had proposed that it should be incorporated within the domestic dog’s species (Zoologischer Anzeiger, 1969). This was widely accepted, and today the creature is most commonly considered to be a long-established feral breed of domestic dog (as is the dingo), although a few researchers still favour its delineation as a separate species. Taxonomically, it has been classified variously as Canis familiaris dingo, C. lupus dingo, C. f. hallstromi, C. l. hallstromi, and C. hallstromi.



New Guinea singing dog with rare black-and-tan coat colouration



In any event, Troughton’s paper remains a very important contribution. It contains one of the most detailed accounts of this little-known dog currently available, documents early descriptions, details its relationship with the New Guinea natives (who looked upon it as a valued food item), and, most memorable of all, reveals that it does not bark, but gives vent to a curious howling whine instead. "A sort of whistling-yodelling" is the description given to me by Dr Desmond Morris, who was Curator of Mammals at London Zoo during the period when Sir Malcolm Sargent's pair was living there (see later). This last-mentioned characteristic has earned C. hallstromi its most popular English name, the New Guinea singing dog, and has inspired many unusual myths concerning it.

A New Guinea singing dog...singing! (R.G. Daniel/Wikipedia)

According to some, these animals harbour the souls of dead tribesmen, who communicate with their living relatives via the dogs’ yodelling. Moreover, the natives believe that by listening carefully to the specific tones of a given dog, the identity of the dead tribesman speaking with its voice can be instantly recognized. Also, their vocal abilities have inspired an interesting legend in the mythology of Port Moresby’s Motu tribe, claiming that it was these dogs that brought the gift of speech to humanity. And in the vicinity of eastern New Guinea’s Mount Hagen, the native people imitate this creature’s whistling yodels as an effective means of communicating with one another over great distances.

New Guinea singing dog at San Diego Zoo, California (Asim Bharwani/Wikipedia)

In earlier days, singing dogs were rarely seen beyond their New Guinea homeland, but nowadays they are widely exhibited in zoos around the world and are kept as house pets in North America. Conversely, they may not even exist any longer on a wild-living basis in New Guinea – no confirmed sightings have been documented since the 1970s there. Having said that, in 1988 Australian zoologist Dr Tim Flannery observed a number of possible specimens at Dokfuma (sceptics, however, claim that these may have been hybrids with domestic dogs rather than pure-bred singing dogs).



Murray, a pet New Guinea singing dog



On account of their name’s musical association, a pair of singing dogs was presented during the early 1960s as an undeniably original and delightfully appropriate gift to the eminent conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, during one of his Australasian concert tours. Although Sir Malcolm became very fond of them, he had nowhere suitable to keep them, so in 1964 he donated the pair to London Zoo, where he visited them on several occasions thereafter, and where they soon became very popular attractions (raising a litter of cubs, containing some dingo blood). I can still readily recall my own first encounter with the London Zoo singing dogs, as it proved to be quite an unforgettable event.

New Guinea singing dog at London Zoo, 1960s (Zoological Society of London)

As a child of about six or seven at the time, I had read all about them in various books and magazines with unbounded fascination, and implored my parents to take me to see these wonderful dogs that could sing. When I reached their enclosure, one of them was at that very moment entertaining an enraptured audience with a thrilling rendition in falsetto fortissimo, so I eagerly thrust my way through the throng to obtain a closer view — a little too close for comfort, as it turned out.

I can only assume that its impromptu concert had proven too demanding for its voice, because just as I reached the front of the crowd, the singing dog stopped singing, turned around, and coughed violently and with unerring accuracy directly into my face! What a way to end its canine concerto! Still in a state of shock, I was swiftly dragged away by my mother, who was convinced that I would surely develop some hideous tropical disease. Needless to say, I did nothing of the kind but, not surprisingly, the whole incident remains one of my more vivid if unusual memories of childhood!

New Guinea singing dog - a yodelling dingo? (Tomcue2/Wikipedia)

Finally, I am greatly indebted to renowned zoologist Dr Desmond Morris, Curator of Mammals at London Zoo during much of the 1960s, for sharing with me the following priceless anecdote concerning these singing dogs. When Spike Milligan visited the zoo one day, Dr Morris showed them to him, and informed him that they belonged to Sir Malcolm Sargent. Spike’s opinion, given by way of reply, was, as always, purest Milliganesque:

“Their Bach is worse than their Bitehoven!”

Still from video of Exmoor Zoo's New Guinea singing dogs (Gillian Abram/Graham Farr)

The following delightful video of Exmoor Zoo's New Guinea singing dogs (the only ones currently on display in the UK) was filmed by Graham Farr and Gilliam Abram. Thanks very much, Graham and Gillian, for kindly permitting me to include your video here!

For further information concerning this enigmatic canid, I can heartily recommend the official website of the New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Society - click here

This ShukerNature post is an expanded, updated version of the relevant section from my book Extraordinary Animals Revisited: From Singing Dogs To Serpent Kings (CFZ Books: Bideford, 2007).

WAS THE IZCUINTLIPOTZOTLI A CANINE QUASIMODO?



A 19th-Century engraving of the enigmatic but seemingly extinct izcuintlipotzotli



Sometimes, tragically, by the time that a cryptid attracts mainstream scientific attention, it is too late - the creature in question has already become extinct. Certainly, for example, it may be too late to secure a specimen of a still-unidentified creature formerly reported from Mexico - the unpronounceable izcuintlipotzotli - because it has not been reported for more than 150 years.

This bizarre beast first came to attention in 1780, courtesy of a tome entitled Historia Antigua de Mexico ('Mexico's Ancient History'), penned by Jesuit priest Father Francisco Javier Clavijero, a highly respected New World scholar. Inhabiting the Tarascan region of Michoacán in western Mexico, the izcuintlipotzotli was the size of a maltese terrier, with a small, wolf-like head, extremely short neck, lumpy muzzle, and small pendant ears. Strangely, its forelimbs were notably shorter than the hindlimbs, its skin was mottled with black, brown, and white spots, and - most striking of all - a grotesque hump (but possibly fatty rather than bony in composition) extended the entire length of its back, from its shoulders to its haunches. Indeed, part of its name, 'potzotli', translates as 'hunchback'.

So singular was its appearance that some zoologists questioned the accepted belief that the izcuintlipotzotli was a breed of dog (albeit an emphatically homely one), even speculating that it may be some exotic species of rodent! However, the few known engravings of it that exist (such as the example opening this present ShukerNature blog post) suggest that this idiosyncratic entity was even less like a rodent than a dog.

Whatever it was, however, the izcuintlipotzotli is no more. What appears to be the last documented mention of such a creature occurred in 1843, within Frances Calderón de la Barca's book Life in Mexico, noting a dead specimen that she saw hanging from a hook near the door of an inn visited by her in the valley of Guajimalco. I am not aware of any preserved museum specimens either. If anyone reading this does have any additional information, however, concerning the seemingly demised izcuintlipotzotli, I would greatly welcome receiving it.

This post is excerpted from my book Mysteries of Planet Earth: An Encyclopaedia of the Inexplicable (Carlton: London, 1999).



ST GEORGE AND A VERY POLYMORPHIC DRAGON

St George and the Dragon, painted as a wyvern-like creature by Paris Bordon (Dr Karl Shuker)


Today, 23 April, is St George's Day. So here, by way of celebration, is the never-before-seen unedited version of my retelling of the famous legend of St George and the Dragon that appeared in my book Dragons: A Natural History (1995). Interestingly, as seen from the illustrations included here, down through the ages artists have visualised St George's reptilian foe in an unparalleled diversity of shapes, sizes, colours, and forms – everything, in fact, from a serpent dragon and lindorm to a wyvern and both wingless and winged classical dragons. Verily, a polymorphic dragon forsooth!

Here's one I slew earlier! (Dr Karl Shuker)


ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON OF SILENE

It was the dawn of the 3rd Century AD - and now it was also the dawn of the doom-laden day that the king of Silene, in Libya, had long been awaiting with icy dread. For today, his beloved, only daughter would be sacrificed to the marsh-dwelling monster that had been terrorising his land for what seemed like an eternity of hope-enveloping horror.

A 15th-Century plaque from Georgia, depicting St George slaying an unusually attractive dragon adorned with multicoloured tesselate scaling

He could still recall with painful clarity this baleful beast's first appearance - a huge winged dragon with long, spiralling tail and olive-green, crocodilian scales, venturing forth from Silene's vast, unpenetrated swamplands many months ago, and choking the countryside with stifling, stench-laden clouds of poisonous vapour that blighted everything it embraced.

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones portrayed St George's reptilian aggressor as a mail-encased crocodilian form of wingless classical dragon

In an attempt to quell its venomous violation of Silene, the local farmers had fed the monster with two sheep each day - a strategy that succeeded until the day came when there were no more sheep, whereupon the reptilian tyrant recommenced its own strategy, of devastation by asphyxiation. That was when, with heavy heart and mortified soul, the king had finally agreed to the daily sacrifice of a child, in the hope of assuaging the dragon's wrath long enough for some miracle to deliver Silene from this animate abomination.

A rare beast indeed – this early depiction of St George and the dragon by an artist unknown (at least to me!) depicts the dragon as a winged lindorm!

The days, and the weeks, had fled by, and no miracle had appeared - until at last, the morning had come when it was now the turn of the king's own daughter, the fair princess Alcyone, to be tied to a stark wooden stake at the swamp's perimeter and surrendered to the loathsome creature concealed within it. No-one suspected that the miracle for which the king and everyone else in Silene had prayed so earnestly and for so long was about to occur.

Yurigor Bachev's dazzlingly spectacular portrayal of St George battling a wyvernesque dragon

Bound upright to the stake, the princess had been standing there for only a few moments when her face grew ashen with fear, for she had heard the sounds of thunderous footsteps approaching ever nearer - assuredly the herald of her impending doom. Suddenly, however, she realised that the sounds were emanating not from the swamp ahead, but from the plains directly behind her, so she craned her neck back to discover what, or who, was responsible - and saw a tall knight, ensheathed in silver-grey armour with a breast-plate of white, upon which was emblazoned a scarlet cross. He had just dismounted from a cream-coated charger, and was carrying a long lance and a white shield, adorned once again with a cross of scarlet, as he walked briskly towards the tethered maiden.

Leonard Porter's beautiful portrayal of the popular, romanticised image of St George and the dragon, with the latter as a small but archetypal winged classical dragon

It did not require much explanation from the princess to acquaint the knight fully with the situation - and he in turn wasted little time in lengthy accounts concerning himself. His name was George, he had grown up in Cappadocia, eastern Turkey, and had been a soldier in the Roman army before becoming converted to Christianity. Now he served under no-one but God, spreading the Lord's word wherever he journeyed.

This wonderful stained-glass window (artist unknown) overlooking the staircase at my home portrays St George's vanquished antagonist as a serpent dragon, sans limbs and wings

A corporeal manifestation of evil, the dragon embodied everything that George had pledged to confront and conquer - and so, heedless of her pleas to save himself while there was still time, George untied the princess and stood in her stead, valiantly prepared for battle with her monstrous foe. He did not have to wait long. Without warning, the dense reed beds fronting a steaming quagmire close by were thrust apart, as a great reptilian head borne upon a powerful neck forced its way through them, followed by a massive body supported on four muscular limbs, and a lithe tail twisting furiously like a living corkscrew.

Carpaggio's breathtaking masterpiece, portraying the dragon in classical four-limbed winged mode

During his travels through many strange lands, George had seen all manner of vile, misbegotten apparitions, but nothing prepared him for the wave of nauseous revulsion that swept over him as he beheld the dragon of Silene. Dripping with bilious, stinking slime that emphasised the livid hue of its scales, the hideous creature resembled a misshapen, obscene pile of rotting meat - green with putrefaction, oozing with decay, and reeking of death.

Portrayed here by Jost Haller, the dragon is disconcertingly mammalian in form - so much so, in fact, that I find myself feeling a distinct pang or two of unease when viewing its demise

Longing to avert his eyes and nose from such a sickening presence but intent upon vanquishing it from the face of the earth, George raised his right arm, and was just about to plunge his lance into the monster's head when two shapeless lumps flanking its neck's broad base suddenly burst into life - and to his bewilderment, George found himself surrounded by a flurry of blazing eyes. Everywhere he looked, they glowed and dazzled him, hypnotising him with their terrible allure - until he raised his arm again, and hurled the lance with all his might into the very heart of this spellbinding vista of unblinking, dancing orbs.

St George and the Dragon, painted as an ocellate-winged wyvern by Paolo Uccello

A terrible scream rent the air, and the eyes vanished. No longer mesmerised by their movement, the knight looked down - and there lay the dragon, still alive but mortally wounded, his great lance protruding through its upper jaw and into its throat. And over its body, like an ornate shroud, lay its immense wings - whose bright ocellated markings, resembling an array of brilliant eyes, had so effectively bewitched George's vision.

George, by George! - St George and a classical winged dragon, as painted by George Scott

Running to him in delight came the princess Alcyone, and once they had tied the girdle of her dress around the subdued dragon's neck they returned on horseback to her father's castle, leading the monster alongside George's mighty steed. There, in return for the knight's promise to slay the dragon, the overjoyed king and subjects of Silene willingly agreed to be baptized by him and thus be converted to the Christian faith. True to his word, George beheaded their onetime oppressor forthwith, and after bidding farewell to Alcyone her valorous deliverer rode away, into a future that would shortly transform him into a Christian martyr, and, many centuries later, into a certain race of medieval Crusaders' patron saint - thereafter to be known forever as St George of England.

St George and the Dragon, painted by Rogier van der Weyden

Of course, if you're wondering how I could have just stood by and allowed such a cryptozoologically-priceless specimen as a dragon be cruelly slain by St George, the answer is that I didn't - and here's the evidence! Cute little guy, isn't he? ;-)

With a fiery little friend! (Dr Karl Shuker)

FORTEAN TIMES REVIEWS MY TWO MOST RECENT BOOKS

The following reviews of my latest books - Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2010) and The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals (Coachwhip Publications: Landisville, 2012) - appear in the May 2012 issue of Fortean Times (FT #287), together with competitions to win signed copies of each of them. Check out the reviews below:

A SEA SNAIL WITH ANTLERS...AND PAWS!

The Sarmatian Sea's antlered, paw-footed mega-snail, as depicted in Paré's book (colourised version)


Just when you think that the world, particularly the cryptozoological world, couldn't possibly get any stranger...

Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen – I am proud to present before you, all the way from the Sarmatian Sea, the one and only giant monster sea snail with antlers, and paws!

It's amazing what you find when looking for something completely different. Browsing through some early books recently in search of some relevant illustrations appertaining to mystery cats for my forthcoming second book on magical, mythological, and mysterious felids of many forms, I chanced upon the following astonishing beast from a medieval bestiary cum medical encyclopaedia entitled On Monsters and Marvels, written by Ambroise Paré, a 16th-Century French surgeon.

Citing as his source of information the twentieth volume of Cosmography - which had been authored by one of his contemporaries, André de Thévet (1516-1590), a French Franciscan priest who was also a celebrated writer, explorer, and cosmographer - Paré reported that the Sarmatian or Eastern Germanic Sea (both are early names for the Baltic Sea) is home to a truly monstrous species of sea snail.

As thick as a wine cask, this singular and very sizeable creature is instantly distinguished from all other such molluscs by virtue of its pair of deer-like antlers. These decidedly unsnail-like accoutrements are borne upon the upper region of its head, and at the tip of each branch on each antler is a small, round, lustrous bulb resembling a fine pearl. By contrast, this snail's eyes, which in less exotic gastropods can be found at the tips of a pair of optic tentacles, are laterally sited on its head, just like those of many vertebrates, and glow brightly like candles.

Paré's tale of a very strange snail! Has a creature like this ever truly inhabited the Baltic Sea?

Equally unexpected was Paré's claim that this very odd creature sports a roundish nose reminiscent of a cat's, complete with whisker-like hair all around it, plus a wide slit-like mouth beneath which hangs a fleshy projection of hideous appearance.

And as if antlers and a feline nose are not sufficiently bizarre characteristics for a sea snail (or, indeed, any other type of snail) to boast, eschewing the usual monopodial mode of locomotion common to normal gastropods this extraordinary marine mollusc possesses four fully-differentiated limbs, each with its own wide, hooked paw. It also sports a fairly lengthy tail, bearing a varicoloured tigerine pattern. Moreover, the image accompanying this morphological description in Paré's book shows the Sarmatian Sea's antlered mega-snail to bear a very large and sturdy, heavily annulated, whorled shell upon its back.

This remarkable creature apparently spends much of its time out at high sea on account of its timid nature, but is sufficiently amphibious to be able to venture forth onto the seashore during fine weather in order to graze upon any marine plant life present there. An edible species itself, its flesh is said to be very delicate and tasty to eat, and its blood reputedly has medical properties, ameliorating sufferers afflicted with leprosy.

Needless to say, no snail corresponding with the description communicated in turn by Paré from Thévet's work is known to modern-day science. So could the giant antlered snail of the Sarmatian Sea be as mythical as the web-footed camphurch unicorn, the mer-folk, the winged unipodal humanoids, and certain other unquestionably fabulous entities also documented by these authors, or is it merely a somewhat distorted description of some bona fide animal?

A beautiful colour plate from a 1904 tome by Ernst Haeckel depicting a varied selection of spectacular nudibranchs

Reading it through, I was reminded somewhat of the nudibranchs or sea slugs, many of which are extremely flamboyant in appearance, with all manner of ornate, plume-like embellishments known as cerata arising dorsally and laterally from their body, which may conceivably explain the 'limbs' and 'paws' reported for this creature. Nudibranchs also have a pair of long cephalic (head-borne) tentacles, and if a species existed whose tentacles bore projections they may resemble antlers. Moreover, the two eyes of nudibranchs are sited directly on their body, just behind the head, not on optic tentacles like those of snails, so a pair of laterally sited eyes would not be impossible. And nudibranchs are well documented from the Baltic Sea.

However, such an identity is instantly wrecked by the Sarmatian antlered snail's hefty shell, because nudibranchs are shell-less. In addition, all known nudibranchs are carnivorous, not herbivorous. And even the largest known nudibranchs do not exceed 2 ft long – a far cry from any gastropod as thick as a wine cask.

So what is the likeliest identity of this mystery mollusc? Might it possibly have been an unknown species that became extinct before modern-day science was ever able to confirm its reality and add it to the zoological catalogue of formally-recognised life-forms? Or could such an incredible creature as this never have been anything more than a wholly imaginary beast confined to the pages of early travelogues and compendia of monsters? To be, or not to be? That, indeed, is the question.

A splendid, wholly original representation of the Sarmatian Sea's antlered mystery snail by Avancna (click here to visit Avancna's page on DeviantArt's website)

ZEBRA CROSSINGS - THE DAY I MET A ZORSE, A ZONKEY, AND A ZEEDONK!

Mammalian Hybrids, 2nd edition (1971) – its front cover depicts a young zebronkey at Colchester Zoo


Back in the early 1970s, when still a child, I read with great interest that Colchester Zoo in Essex had on display a remarkable creature known as a zonkey or zebronkey – a hybrid of zebra and donkey. Sadly, however, even though my parents took me to numerous zoos all over Britain during my childhood and teenage years, somehow we never did visit Colchester's, and as there were no such hybrids anywhere else in the country at that time, this meant that I never did see one of these fascinating animals.

All of that changed a mere 40-odd years later, however, when, just over a week ago, on Saturday 31 March 2012, to be exact, I had the great pleasure of visiting Donkey Rescue UK, based just outside Bridgnorth in Shropshire. For here, not only did I finally see a zonkey, I was also fortunate enough to see a zeedonk and a zorse.

Zulu, Donkey Rescue UK's beautiful zorse (Dr Karl Shuker)

But what exactly are zorses, zonkeys, and zeedonks, not to mention zebroids, zebryls, zeehorses, zebrulas, zebrasses, zebrets, zonies, hebras, donkras, quorses, and a host of other equally strange-sounding equids on record, and how do they (or do they) all differ from one another? Let me now explain – or try to!

The terminology for zebra Equus spp. x domestic horse E. caballus, zebra Equus spp. x domestic donkey E. asinus, and the respective reciprocal crosses is nothing if not confusing, to say the very least. For instance: in the past, 'zebroid' was usually applied to zebra x horse crossbreeds in either direction, but is nowadays most commonly used as a generic term for all equid hybrids featuring zebras.

'Zorse' is the term most widely applied to any ♂zebra x ♀horse hybrid (other terms in use for this hybrid type are 'zebrula', 'zebrule', 'zebryl', 'zeehorse', 'zebra mule', and 'golden mule'). The rarer reciprocal cross (♂horse x ♀zebra) is known as a hebra, horbra, zebrinny, or zebret. And the offspring of a ♂zebra and a ♀pony is a zony.

The terms 'zonkey' and 'zeedonk' can be found commonly in use as generic terms for all zebra x donkey hybrids. Moreover, 'zonkey' is also applied more specifically as a term for ♂zebra x ♀donkey hybrids. Other terms for these include 'zebronkey' (aka 'zebonkey'), and 'zebrass'. Similarly, 'zeedonk' is also applied more specifically to the much less common reciprocal cross; another term for this latter hybrid is 'donkra'.


ZULU'S A ZORSE, OF COURSE, OF COURSE!

The first of the three zebroids that I encountered at Donkey Rescue UK was a beautiful zorse, called Zulu. Almost five years old, Zulu is currently the only zorse in the UK, and came here from the USA. His father is a Grant's zebra Equus quagga boehmi (a subspecies of the plains zebra) and his mother is a grey Arab horse. As can be seen in my photos, his black stripes overlay his coat's brown background colouration, and although this will fade to grey in years to come, his stripes will remain black. Apparently his senses are more acute than those of a horse.

Zulu the zorse at Donkey Rescue UK (Dr Karl Shuker)

Zorses are by no means a modern-day creation. On the contrary, they were being bred as long ago as the 19th Century. One notable example from that period was a very handsome male specimen called Romulus, as seen here when photographed as a one-year-old in 1899.

Romulus, a zorse from 1899

Moreover, zonies bred by mating Chapman's zebras E. q. chapmani with ponies were utilised by the Boers during the South African Wars (1879-1915) as transport animals, particularly for hauling heavy guns. One of these zonies, captured by British forces, was presented by Lord Kitchener to King Edward VII, which the king in turn placed in the Zoological Society of London's care on 19 July 1902, by which time it was two years old. The following illustration of this zony appeared in the Society's Proceedings for 1903:

The zony given to the Zoological Society of London by Edward VII

Even so, zorses didn't attract widespread public attention until the late 1940s, following the successful breeding of Grevy's zebra E. grevyi x horse hybrids on the farm of African explorer Raymond Hook, situated near to Nanyuki in Kenya. It all began when Hook captured an 18-month-old male Grevy's zebra in 1944, and introduced it to his farm's herd of horses. The young zebra was soon adopted by one of the herd's mares acting as a foster mother, it grew to adulthood, and from the age of six until its retirement 14 years later it regularly mated with various of the mares to yield a continuing supply of Grevy's zorses. In 1955, the first of these (born in 1949) was sold to an exhibition in Florida called 'Africa USA', where it received notable publicity, so afterwards Hook sold many more Grevy's zorses to zoos and parks worldwide.

In general appearance, a Grevy's zorse possesses its mother's background coat colouration. However, its father's characteristic fine striping is readily apparent upon its face and legs, and to varying extents upon its body too, running down from the dark line along its spine almost as far as its pale underparts.

In contrast, a Grevy's hebra - bred from the reciprocal cross ((♂horse x ♀Grevy's zebra) - exhibits a less pronounced degree of striping.

Zorses and hebras bred from other zebra species have comparable appearances to their respective Grevy's-bred counterparts, although their limbs actually possess more stripes than those of their pure-bred zebra parent if they have been sired by a stallion belonging to any of the subspecies of the plains zebra E. quagga [=burchelli].

If a patterned horse, such as a roan, Apaloosa, pinto, piebald, or skewbald, is mated with a zebra, the hybrid offspring possesses stripes, but usually only on the non-white areas. If the horse was chestnut or bay, some exceptionally beautiful hybrids known as golden zorses or golden zebras can result.

A golden zorse – the exquisite progeny of a zebra and a chestnut/bay horse

Perhaps the most celebrated hebra on account of its extremely unusual, eyecatching coat patterning is Eclyse, born during 2007 at a safari park at Schloss Holte Stukenbrock, Germany, to a ♂horse and a ♀zebra. Her father, a tobiano pinto, has sizeable areas of white coat colouration, and as these result from the expression of a dominant depigmentation gene, Eclyse inherited this same gene and bears comparable white areas on her own coat. As a result, the striping that she inherited from her zebra mother is confined to her coat's pigmented (i.e. non-depigmented) areas, thus creating her exceptional degree of non-continuous patterning.

Eclyse, probably the most eyecatching zebra x horse hybrid ever seen

Grevy's zorses and hebras are invariably sterile, for whereas the horse possesses 64 chromosomes (32 pairs), Grevy's zebra only has 46 chromosomes (23 pairs), with the resulting hybrid possessing 55 chromosomes (27 pairs plus a single unpaired chromosome). The differences in chromosome numbers are also marked between the horse and the other two zebra species. Even so, there is some evidence to suggest that fertile female hybrids bred from horses and Chapman's zebras are occasionally fertile.

In addition to selling Grevy's zorses to zoos, Raymond Hook used some in place of mules (♂donkey x ♀horse hybrids) as pack animals on his farm, and he discovered not only that they were blessed with more agreeable temperaments than pure-bred Grevy's zebras but also that they worked as efficiently as mules. Similarly, zorses bred from Chapman's zebras and again used for pack work in their native lands have proven to be strong, active, and intelligent, as well as being more resistant than horses to sleeping sickness spread by tsetse flies.

In view of such commendable attributes, it is quite likely that in the future zorses will eventually become recognised more for their practical usefulness than for their current popularity as engaging zoo and park exhibits. And indeed, they are currently being bred in Africa for use in trekking on Mount Kenya.


ZAMBI THE ZONKEY

In recent times, the zorse type most frequently displayed in zoos is probably the version bred from Grant's zebra, such as Zulu. Yet even this is far less often on show than zonkeys or zebronkeys, i.e. hybrids bred from ♂zebras and ♀donkeys – of which Zambi at Donkey Rescue UK is a delightful example. Others include the zebra x donkey hybrids bred at Colchester Zoo from the early 1970s onwards, the last of which, a female called Shadow, died at the ripe old age of 34 on 3 April 2009.

Zambi the zonkey at Donkey Rescue UK (Dr Karl Shuker)

Arriving here in December 2011, Zambi has a Grevy's zebra as her father and a Giant Mammoth Jackston donkey as her mother. And as the latter donkey breed is known for its great size, it is possible that when fully grown, Zambi will be the largest zebra x donkey hybrid in existence, or at the very least in Europe, because no other hybrids of her particular parentage are known here at present.

Like all zebronkeys, Zambi is a very handsome, striking animal, due to the marked contrast of such hybrids' donkey-like shape and body colouration with the heavy bands of striping present all down their pale legs. Much fainter stripes are sometimes present upon the body too, as with Zambi.

Zambi has a very striking black-and-white mane (Dr Karl Shuker)

After having finally seen a zebronkey in the flesh, it is easy to understand why more than one writer in the past has labelled this equine hybrid "a donkey in pyjamas"!

Certainly the singularly attractive appearance of zebronkeys, especially when young (as evinced by the incorrigibly cute youngster from Colchester Zoo pictured on the front cover of the 1971 second edition of Annie P. Gray's standard work Mammalian Hybrids – see this present ShukerNature post's opening picture), will guarantee their continuing popularity in zoos, parks, and other wildlife centres. Like zorses, zebronkeys are normally sterile, but fertile female specimens have occasionally been reported.

A zonkey (aka zebronkey) at Colchester Zoo in 2004 (Sannse/Wikipedia)

Some Grant's zebronkeys were used in the past as pack animals in Kenya, and proved to be strong workers, but were apparently less intelligent and more difficult to work with than zorses.


A ZEEDONK NAMED ZEE

Described on Donkey Rescue UK's 'Donkey Mixtures' webpage (click here) as "very much a zebra – disguised as a donkey!" on account of her very strong and bossy zebra-like personality, Zee was bred in the Netherlands and came to the UK in 2011.

Zee the zeedonk at Donkey Rescue UK (Dr Karl Shuker)

She is the rarest member of Donkey Rescue UK's trio of zebroids because she is an example of the much less common reciprocal cross between zebras and donkeys – a zeedonk or donkra - having a standard donkey as her father and a Grant's zebra as her mother.


A TRIPLE ZEBROID

Rarest of all zebroids, however, must surely be the triple hybrid once exhibited at London Zoo and documented as follows by none other than Charles Darwin in his book The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868):

"Many years ago I saw in the Zoological Gardens a curious triple hybrid, from a bay mare, by a hybrid from a male ass and female zebra. This animal when old had hardly any stripes; but I was assured by the superintendent, that when young it had shoulder-stripes, and faint stripes on its flanks and legs. I mention this case more especially as an instance of the stripes being much plainer during youth than in old age."

This triple hybrid's father was thus a fertile male donkra, a great rarity in itself.


QUORSES AND HUAGGAS?

If the above-mentioned triple hybrid is the rarest zebroid, then the most controversial zebroids must surely be ones that allegedly featured as one of their parents the now-extinct quagga E. q. quagga.

A captive female quagga at London Zoo in 1870, which was the only living quagga specimen ever photographed.

The only partially-striped zebra, being fully striped upon its face, neck, and shoulders, but entirely lacking stripes upon its legs and hind regions, and only faintly striped upon the mid-portion of its body, this very distinctive subspecies of the plains zebra was once common on the veldt of South Africa. Following persecution at the guns of hunters for its meat and hide, however, it was eventually wiped out entirely in the wild, and the last surviving captive specimen, at Amsterdam Zoo, died in 1883.

Intriguingly, several decades prior to this tragic end, there were several claims of hybrids having been bred between quaggas and horses.

Standing alongside a taxiderm quagga at Tring Natural History Museum (Dr Karl Shuker)

Not everyone accepts these claims, however, believing that the zebras involved were not quaggas but Burchell's zebra E. q. burchelli. Having said that, this is a controversy within a controversy, because researches have recently revealed that this unusual zebra subspecies - also known as the bontequagga, characterised by distinctive pale-brown shadow stripes present between the normal dark ones, and allegedly becoming extinct approximately 40 years after the quagga - was not a valid subspecies at all.

Taxiderm specimen of Burchell's zebra at Tring Natural History Museum (Dr Karl Shuker)

Instead, it had merely been based upon aberrantly-patterned individuals belonging to the neighbouring, still-extant Damara zebra subspecies, E. q. antiquorum, and that some specimens of Damara zebra alive today show precisely the same characteristics as those documented for Burchell's zebra. So even though the latter version never existed as a discrete taxonomic form, it is no longer extinct! In short, Burchell's zebra and the Damara zebra are nowadays classed as one and the same subspecies, but due to the laws of nomenclatural precedence this unified subspecies is known not as E. q. antiquorum but instead as E. q. burchelli, because the latter name had been officially published in the scientific literature earlier than the former one.

Living zebras at Etosha, in Namibia, exhibiting the characteristic appearance of Burchell's zebra

Probably the most famous alleged quagga-derived zebroid is a female hybrid bred in 1815 by Lord Morton (George Douglas, 16th Earl of Morton) from a supposed ♂quagga x ♀chestnut Arab horse mating. What may be a colour depiction of this specimen appeared in an 1841 tome by British army officer and naturalist Charles Hamilton Smith entitled The Natural History of the Horse, and was labelled as the first foal of a brood mare and a quagga. Here it is:

 

Unlike zebra x horse hybrids, and quite possibly because there is no absolute confirmation that any ever existed, quagga x horse hybrids have never received their own specific terms. Consequently, for ease of reference in future, and utilising the same system of nomenclature employed in relation to other zebroid types, I propose that a ♂quagga x ♀horse hybrid (whether confirmed or alleged) be referred to hereafter as a quorse, and a hybrid from the reciprocal cross as a huagga.


Although there will be no quorses and huaggas on show there, I can guarantee that if you visit Donkey Rescue UK, you will have a thoroughly enjoyable experience, with the chance to see not only its three remarkable zebroids but also a number of other very engaging equids, including Mammoth Jackstock donkeys (the world's largest breed of donkey), an adorable young shaggy-haired Livre A Baudet du Poitou Jack donkey from France, and a Mediterranean miniature donkey, as well as some beautiful horses and ponies. So please check out their website here and pay them a visit one weekend – you won't be disappointed!

My photographs of its zebroids are included here by kind permission of Donkey Rescue UK.

At Tring with a taxiderm quagga (Dr Karl Shuker)

THE ASWANGS OF ANTIPOLO - VAMPIRE DEMONS OF THE PHILIPPINES.

Berbalangs resemble humanoid bats (Richard Svensson)

I have long planned to write a novel, especially one infused with elements of fantasy and featuring traditional but little-known mythological entities, but other projects have so far taken up all of my available time. However, I am currently experimenting during whatever spare time I can find by writing short stories in this specific vein, interspersed with factual commentary. Here is one of my stories.

Today, tales of vampires are largely confined to novels, television series, and films, especially in the Western world. In the Philippines, conversely, the fear of what are widely considered there to be real, and very dangerous, supernatural bloodsuckers, lives on – as do, at least allegedly, these entities themselves. Nor is there just one type of Filipino vampire either. On the contrary, a bewildering, somewhat interchangeable array of forms and sexes have been reported, named, and classified. Among the best-known are the berbalangs of Mapun Island, which resemble monstrous humanoid bats but whose astral essence departs their physical bodies at nights to infiltrate those of sleeping humans, whereupon these fiendish horrors feed upon their victims’ entrails. The predominant category of Filipino vampires, however, comprises the aswangs.

These demonic sanguinivores are very skilful shape-shifters, so it is by no means easy to identify one with certainty. A dog, a cat, a bird, a bat, any fairly large, poorly seen ‘thing with wings’, a wild pig, and, most seductive and dangerous of all, a young, beautiful woman – a single aswang can adopt any or all of these guises to approach its intended target and beguile anyone who may be protecting the latter person. Moreover, they are assisted by a number of other beings, acting as familiars, including certain small birds, and a bizarre large-fanged, spotted, furry beast known as the sigbin, which has been likened by some investigators to the West Indian chupacabra!

The aswang’s favourite targets are unborn children and freshly-buried corpses. Not surprisingly, therefore, the months of pregnancy in a region reputedly blighted by these foul creatures are a time of fear and great danger for women, as is the wake after a funeral, when everyone is on full alert to the possibility that it will be infiltrated by a disguised aswang, intent upon devouring the corpse.

Even today, an unexpected miscarriage or stillborn child is often blamed upon some undetected visitation by an aswang, and it is widely believed that if an aswang succeeds in removing and consuming a corpse, it will replace the cadaver with a detailed facsimile adeptly constructed from banana leaves or other vegetable matter.

Nor are such superstitions and folk-beliefs limited to isolated rural areas. With the sole exception of the Ilocos region in the northwest portion of Luzon (the Philippines’ largest island), the entire Philippine archipelago is still heavily infused and infested with legends, lore, and religious dread of aswangs and their hideous practices. The epicentre of such belief, however, is unquestionably the Visayan region (a group of isles south of Luzon), particularly the western provinces of Capiz (on Panay Island), Iloilo, and Antique. Indeed, Capiz is widely claimed to be the most supernatural locality within the entire Filipino nation, and homes here are routinely adorned even today with garlic bulbs, holy water, and other aswang repellents.

But if any one city can be singled out as the vampire capital of the Philippines, it has to be Antipolo, just 25 km or so east of the country’s capital, Manila, and situated in the southern portion of Luzon. Here, aswangs are said to be glimpsed on a frequent basis, but never more so than during the Holy Week (the equivalent there of Easter), and attracting a zenith of reports during the three days between Jesus Christ’s death and His resurrection.

Movie poster for 'Aswang' - a smash-hit film released in the Philippines in 2011 (Regal Entertainment)

Of the varied forms adopted by the aswangs, the most formidable is the human version, sometimes confused with a mere witch or hag, but which is known as the manananggal. Being humanoid, it bears more of a resemblance to western vampires than do the other, animal-assuming aswang types, but in addition to being vulnerable to such well known vampire deterrents as garlic, bright sunlight, and salt, the manananggal can also be warded off using such exotica as spices (particularly ginger), vinegar, the sword-like bill of a swordfish, and the tail of a stingray. Again like western vampires, the manananggal can fly, but it doesn’t change into a bat to accomplish this. On the contrary, its modus operandi for becoming airborne is far more grotesque and terrifying than that, as will now be revealed here.

The following scenario is a reconstruction of a typical manananggal incident according to local lore, in which I’ve attempted to incorporate as many of the strange and unexpected facets of this age-old but tenacious Filipino myth as possible:

Ever since she had arrived with her father in Antipolo several years earlier, Rosa had always been shy and retiring. Pleasant and respectful, certainly, but never outward-going or even overly communicative. Her father blamed himself, as fathers always do, believing that because her mother had died giving birth to her, he as a man had been unable to endow her with those innately-feminine social skills that other young women here seemed to possess in such abundance.

Still, as she had now reached the age when certain other aspects of her personality and appearance had begun to attract the attention of the local youths, soon she may no longer be her father’s responsibility anyway. Also, as she was training to be a midwife, it would not be long before she would be self-sufficient financially too. How time had flown, he mused – it seemed only yesterday that she had still been just a girl, tightly holding his hand when they had disembarked from the train that had taken them far from their previous home in a small rural village where nothing much ever happened to the ceaseless bustle and clamour of the big city - Antipolo.

Yet even here, shadows of the past, and ancient irrational fears, still linger. Tonight, Rosa would be going to the home of Maria, a friend, and staying with her overnight until her brother arrived there from overseas, where he would remain until Maria, now seven months pregnant, gave birth to her child. Prior to then, Maria had been living with her sister, but she had moved out that morning to live thereafter in a different area of the city in order to be nearer her new job, which left Maria alone in the house that they had been sharing. But what was so problematic about Maria living alone in their house now? She was a healthy, perfectly capable woman, and it was only for one night after all. The explanation was a single word – and the word was ‘manananggal’.

Even in the 21st Century, the age of ultra-technology and medical advances beyond the wildest dreams of all previous generations, and even in as modern a city as Antipolo, the age-old terror of night demons, and manananggals in particular, still surfaced at certain times, especially at wakes and during the nine months of pregnancy. So much so, in fact, that families did everything possible to ensure that pregnant women were never left alone at night, not even for a single evening, until the baby had been born. And even afterwards, right up until the baby had become a teenager, its parents would always be watchful, and never more so if they happened to live on the city’s outskirts, as Maria did, where the jungles and unploughed meadowlands threatened ever to encroach upon the swathe of civilisation that had been savagely carved out of their wild, verdant territory by humankind.

And so, before evening had chance to fall, Rosa was setting off on foot, walking swiftly through a series of fields that offered the speediest pathway to her friend’s house, and thus avoiding the hideously congested thoroughfares whose traffic belched smoke and noise unceasingly. In contrast, only a single car drove past as she walked along this lonely rural route.

However, every step that she took was being matched by someone – or, rather, something far less welcome, and infinitely more terrifying. True, it looked like a young woman right now, but not for much longer would it do so. The manananggal – for that is indeed what it was - came to a large group of tall trees whose shadows amalgamated and coalesced like a wide black pool, hidden completely from view. Stepping into this pool of shadows, the manananggal took off its human clothes and hid them in some bushes. Then an incredible transformation took place.

Its human face’s complexion blanched to a ghostly pallor, a pair of long sharp fangs grew downwards until they protruded from its half-closed mouth, which lengthened until it resembled the jaws of some malign reptile, and emerging from their tip, flickering evilly, was a slender red fork-tipped tongue, closely resembling that of some vile serpent. But most terrible of all were its eyes. Gone were its round blue human irises, and in their stead was a pair of vertical golden slits, each one containing an even thinner black slit.

But if, somehow, anyone had been watching all of this, not even that latter dramatic change of form would have prepared them for the horrifying climax to this unholy metamorphosis. Without any prior warning, a dark horizontal ring spontaneously encircled the creature’s still-human waist. Then, a mere instant later, incredibly, the top half of the manananggal’s body - everything from its waist upwards - abruptly separated from its lower half. And as it did so, a pair of splits appeared in the skin concealing its shoulder blades, and out of these splits unfurled a pair of very large, dark, bat-like wings, whose flapping leathery pinions carried it aloft into the air, leaving behind the creature’s lower body half and legs, standing there as lifeless as the bottom portion of a tailor’s dummy in a shop window, but completely hidden from sight amid the shadows of the trees.

Artistic reconstruction of a manananggal (Tim Morris)

It is always imperative for a manananggal to locate a secure hiding place for its lower half, because if anyone finds it while the manananggal is away, they can kill this vampire merely by sprinkling salt or smearing sand, garlic, or ash upon the lower half’s open edge, or by burning it entirely. For when the manananggal returns, if it cannot rejoin its two halves to become whole again it dies.

By now, the sky was growing dark, and the grotesque half-manananggal flew swiftly on to the home of Maria. But would it find her still alone – had it arrived in time? It soon had its answer – in the form of a series of strange cries, sounding just like ‘tik-tik’, which were being given voice to by a small owl-like bird sitting on the roof. At a casual glance, it could have been mistaken for a real owl, but a closer look would have revealed that its fine feathers were actually hairs, not plumes, and its eyes glowed an infernal red. This was the manananggal’s hellish familiar or lookout, the tiktik, named after its cries - which confirmed to the manananggal that the house’s occupant was still alone.

The manananggal’s tongue thrashed like a veritable serpent, and two golden drops of venom drooled from its jaws. Now, just one more transformation was needed. Its human half-body became amorphous as it hovered just outside the house, remoulding itself into a new form, one that included a fairly long, repulsively-wrinkled body, and two slender hind legs with three toes on each foot, together with the large wings that remained unchanged from its previous incarnation. Its elongate head possessed a pair of huge glowing ovoid eyes, a red slit-like mouth, and, most bizarre of all, an extremely lengthy, slender proboscis that emerged from its large black nose, and undulated sinuously in front of its malevolent face.

Artistic representations of the manananggal's proboscis-nosed form (Ben Male)

As expected, the doors and windows were all tightly closed, and a roaring fire in the hearth prevented any possibility of entering down the chimney. But like all vampires, the manananggal was not bereft of ways in which to enter a seemingly impenetrable, unbreachable building. The roof was thatched, and it did not take the manananggal long to burrow through a weak patch of thatching until it had forced its way into the top storey of the house. Silently it flitted downstairs, its acute sense of smell confirming that Maria was there, and not in any of the bedrooms as it had initially anticipated. Sure enough, there she was, sitting in a large chair close to the fire, where, no doubt lulled by its comforting warmth, she had fallen asleep – and so had never seen that the bottle of special protective plant oil standing on a shelf close by was bubbling and frothing, warning of the manananggal’s presence.

The manananggal was now on the floor, and was stealthily walking towards her on its two legs, its large wings folded up and held over its back. Its serpentine proboscis flickered and twitched incessantly. Already it could smell and even taste in the air the scent of its prey – Maria’s unborn baby!

After just a few moments, the manananggal was squatting directly in front of Maria, on the floor at her feet. On account of her size and the very advanced stage of her pregnancy, Maria was wearing only a large maternity dress with no uncomfortable underwear to grip tightly. Slowly, the manananggal’s long proboscis rose upwards, cautiously, ensuring that it did not wake Maria as it gradually moved up between her calves and thighs, steadily approaching her vagina, which would in turn lead directly to her baby inside her womb. And once the proboscis reached the baby, it would apply its suckered tip to the helpless foetus and drain it not only of blood but also of its very life force until it died, murdered within its own mother’s body by a foul creature of nightmare. Had the foetus been smaller, just a few weeks old, the manananggal would have sucked it out entirely and consumed it.

Just a few more centimetres and its proboscis would be there, and then... But before it could even contemplate that, the still of the night was abruptly broken by a series of very loud ‘tik-tik’ cries directly overhead. It was the manananggal’s familiar – something was wrong, somebody must be approaching the house! The manananggal’s proboscis retracted instantly, but at the same moment Maria awoke, the tiktik’s cries having shaken her out of her deep warmth-induced slumber. Her eyes opened, and the first thing that she saw was a hideous rat-like horror on the ground at her feet. But even as she stared at it, it began to shuffle off on its two legs and a large pair of bat-like wings opened up above its back.

Involuntarily, Maria snapped open her mouth and screamed at the top of her voice, over and over again, shrieking and howling with uncontrollable hysterical terror and horror at what she had seen - what she knew to be a manananggal! Then she saw the table nearby, and the large box on it, which had been left there by her sister that very morning. They had both joked about it at the time, especially about some of its bizarre contents, never believing that these would ever be needed – but they were sorely needed now. For what the box contained was a wide selection of items guaranteed, at least according to traditional Filipino lore, to dispel manananggals. But surely this was all just superstition – wasn’t it? Yet the manananggal was only too real, so perhaps these assorted objects’ power would be too.

Quickly, Maria opened the box and tipped its contents out on the table. They were certainly an extraordinarily diverse, eclectic assemblage. A red pouch full of ginger and coins. The dried penis of a horse. A faded photograph of her grandmother. A bag of salt. A whip fabricated from the somewhat desiccated tail of a stingray. A long silver dagger. Scrabbling among them, she grabbed the bag of salt and hurled its contents over the retreating manananggal, which let forth an ear-splitting screech as its skin began to burn and sizzle where the salt had landed upon it.

Raising its head, its eyes glowing in fury, the manananggal turned around, and then stepped forward towards her, its red mouth open wide in hissing rage. Swiftly, Maria snatched up the horse penis in one hand and her grandmother’s photo in the other, and brandished them towards the approaching vampire. Instantly, it stopped in its tracks, its golden eyes now flashing in panic, because phallic objects and images of elderly women are items that, for reasons long since lost in the mists of bygone ages, induce outright terror in the minds of all manananggals. It opened its wings fully, in an attempt to fly up and away from the frightening objects, but as it did so, Maria began thrashing at it with the stingray-tail whip, hoping that its sharp barbs would pierce the manananggal’s skin - already blistered and raw from the effects of the salt.

Just as she did so, however, a loud beating was heard upon the main door. Rosa! She’d arrived at last! Why had it taken her so long? Maria shouted out, just to make sure that it was indeed Rosa – but it wasn’t. It was her brother, Juan! Maria raced to the door, unbolted it, hauled it open, and dragged a startled Juan inside. Without saying a word, she pointed at the manananggal, flapping overhead, and handed him the silver dagger, because if he could stab this loathsome entity with a weapon fashioned from silver, it would die. But even as Juan grasped the dagger, the manananggal had spotted an escape route. In the rush to get Juan inside, Maria hadn’t closed the door!

In the space of a second, the manananggal had flown through the still-ajar door and out – onwards and away into the night sky, accompanied by the tiktik, and free to attempt further attacks elsewhere. But at least the nightmare for Maria and her unborn child was over (although her brother swiftly placed a circle of protective coins from the red pouch on the floor all around her as she sat back on the chair, just in case). Juan had managed to catch an earlier train, which was why he was here tonight, and not the following morning as expected - but as Rosa had never appeared, that was just as well.

The manananggal flew back to the group of trees where it had concealed its lower half. When it reached them, it transformed back into its human upper half, which then settled upon its lower, and united with it at once, becoming a whole woman again. Afterwards, it swiftly dressed itself in the human clothes that it had originally been wearing but which it had concealed with its lower half earlier that evening. Then back towards the city walked Rosa – for the manananggal and Rosa were, of course, one and the same entity.

But they hadn’t always been. When the original Rosa, the real daughter of her father, was four years old, one hot febrile night a manananggal had surreptitiously found its way into her bedroom while she was asleep, and had silently drained her of her life force until she was dead. Then, once again without making even the faintest of sounds, it had stripped Rosa’s clothes from her small cold body, which it had then devoured entirely, before shape-shifting itself into an exact likeness of her when alive, then dressing itself in her clothes. And no-one, not even Rosa’s own father, had ever suspected that anything was amiss. Or at least, not until, down through the years, an inordinate number of pregnant women in their village and others nearby had suffered miscarriages, given birth to stillborn babies, and in some cases had even experienced what had appeared to be an unexplained total reabsorbing of the foetus while still only a few weeks old.

Eventually, suspicious fingers had begun to point towards the withdrawn, uncommunicative, secretive Rosa. And even though her father had angrily denounced all such accusations, pointing out that they had lived together ever since Rosa’s birth – it was not as if Rosa had been adopted by him and was therefore of unknown origin, or had even been separated from him for any length of time – finally he had decided that they should move far away, which is what had brought them to Antipolo.

But once again, miscarriages and stillborn babies had lately been occurring with increasing frequency in areas of the city close to theirs, and sometimes near to their own home. However, the city was far bigger than their village, and Rosa knew that the number of cases overall was too small to attract unwelcome attention. So she would be safe, and would remain undetected here for a long time, assuaging her bloodlust without fear of discovery.

Back home, Rosa sat in her room, getting ready for dinner with her father downstairs. Her father – she smiled as those words entered her mind. Even at the heights of her bloodlusts, her father was the one human figure that had always remained inviolate, never at risk of being attacked by her, because as a child and even as a teenager she had depended entirely upon him to protect her physically from those who had grown suspicious, and also to dispel rumours that might otherwise have led to formal investigations. Of course, now that she was no longer a teenager, now that she was a grown woman soon to qualify as a midwife – and trembling with something akin to erotic ecstasy at the thought of the unchallenged access that this job would give her to pregnant women! – from now on she would be able to stand up for herself. Her father would no longer be invaluable, or even valuable. On the contrary, he was now entirely disposable.

And as she reflected upon this, her face glimmered with a pale, unearthly glow, as for just the briefest of instants her eyes became golden vertical slits, and a pair of long venom-dripping fangs momentarily materialised. Then, the voice of her father called up to her, to tell her that dinner was now ready. Instantaneously, her face became that of his obedient daughter Rosa again, except for the faintest of smiles that lingered as she stood up. After all, she speculated, tonight would be as good a time as any to bring this charade to an end, and the death of her father would appear to anyone examining his body to have been caused by nothing more dramatic than a massive heart attack. The shock of her father’s sudden, unexpected demise would even very conveniently explain why she hadn’t gone to Maria’s house that evening as promised. She walked out of her bedroom, closed the door, and walked along the landing towards the stairs. Yes, it was time...

Downstairs, her father stood motionless, willing his mind and his heart to accept what must be done. A few minutes earlier, he had received a phone-call from a near-hysterical Maria, who, with her brother Juan’s help, had somehow managed to convey what had happened with the manananggal, and that they fervently hoped all was well with Rosa, as she had never arrived at Maria’s house. When he put the phone down, Rosa’s father was ashen and shaking. He knew very well that Rosa had set out, because a friend driving by in his car had happened to see her walking through the fields not far from Maria’s house. Yet when Rosa had unexpectedly arrived back home only a few hours later, she had gone straight to her room without even speaking, let alone explaining why she hadn’t stayed at Maria’s. He had naturally assumed that she would explain everything at dinner, but the horrific news from Maria had driven all other thoughts from his mind – all other thoughts but one, that is.

So, it had indeed begun again, and closer to home in every sense this time than ever before. After all, Maria was a good friend. How could it be? It cannot be, surely – and yet, it must be. No longer was there any other explanation. No longer could there be any further attempt to brush aside such events as mere coincidences.

He glanced at an open drawer in his writing desk, then looked down at his hand, at what he had taken out of that drawer and was now holding, which gleamed brightly even in the evening’s subdued light. It was a long slender dagger, with a razor-sharp blade. A silver dagger.

He stood in the shadows at the foot of the stairs, and waited. Yes, it was time...

With my very own berbalang! (Dr Karl Shuker)