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North American Water Monster Maps

September 3, 2013, 10:08 am
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I had mentioned before that I had done the whole series of Freshwater Monster maps for a proposed book to be published by the CFZ that never got finished. Part of the problem was that most of the categories were pretty mundane and not at all monstrous. Here are the maps over again, less the Longnecks map that was just updated and published separately.

01+Disputed+freshwater+octopus

02+Tlanusi,+The+Giant+Leech (=Lamprey)

03, Mysterious sharks and rays, withdrawn pending separate update)

04+Sturgeon+and+Paddlefishes

05+&+06_+Giant+Pike&Muskies+and+possible+Alligator+Gars

07+Catfishes+and+Kenai Taimen

08_Giant+Eels (Caribbean morays & others poorly represented & dubious)

09+Giant+Salamanders+&+Pinkies,+11_Aztec Rain Worms (Amphiumas)

10_Improbable+Giant+Frogs ( NOW Freshwater Monkeys / Kappas)

(12, Great Snakes=Chad Arment's "Boss Snakes" map)

(13, Possible Mosasaurs, pulled for updating)

14_+Snapping+Turtles

15_+Giant+Lizards+and+16_+Horned+Alligators

17+&+18_Giant Otters (Black),+Giant Beavers (Grey Squares)

19+&+20+Belugas,+Porpoises+and+Bottlenose+Whale

21_+Seals+ 1, 2 and Seal 3

22_+Northern+Manatees,+Mermaids+and+Seacows

23 Water Horses (moosemap)

(24, Longnecks and Loch Ness Monsters, Plesiosaur-shaped creatures, updated)
(Posted separately last time)
Snapping Turtle Mistaken for Water Monster, Muskrat Lake MN

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Giant Land Crab Invasion

September 4, 2013, 5:19 pm
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It seems that some people cannot believe this. The first photograph has often been labeled an "Urban Legend" and it supposedly originates from a construction site on Christmas Island circa 2006:
(trimmed from a larger photo. I have the larger print of this if anybody is interested)


OF THE two preceding images, the second has been authenticated (it appears in the photostream of a Flickr user named "BlueBec") and the first, though presumably just as authentic, has yet to be sourced. The EXIF data embedded in the image indicates the photo was taken on April 4, 2007 with an Olympus digital camera and was not subsequently edited.

Coconut crabs (also known as "robber crabs," scientific name Birgus latro) typically grow to about 16 inches in length, though there have been reports of specimens double that size. In any case, it is the world's largest species of land-crab and reputedly lives as long as 50 years.

An inhabitant of islands throughout the Indian and central Pacific oceans, the coconut crab tends to stick close to beaches, though it can't live in water. True to both of its common names, the omnivore's preferred food source is fallen coconuts, but it will accept whatever sustenance is at hand, including such delicacies as might be stolen from a garbage can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab

The coconut crab, Birgus latro, is a species of terrestrial hermit crab, also known as the robber crab or palm thief. It is the largest land-living arthropod in the world, and is probably at the upper size limit for terrestrial animals with exoskeletons in recent Earth atmosphere, with a weight of up to 4.1 kg (9.0 lb). It can grow to up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in length from leg to leg. It is found on islands across the Indian Ocean and parts of the Pacific Ocean as far east as the Gambier Islands, mirroring the distribution of the coconut palm; it has been extirpated from most areas with a significant human population, including mainland Australia and Madagascar.
The coconut crab is the only species of the genusBirgus, and is related to the terrestrial hermit crabs of the genus Coenobita. It shows a number of adaptations to life on land. Like hermit crabs, juvenile coconut crabs use empty gastropod shells for protection, but the adults develop a tough exoskeleton on their abdomen and stop carrying a shell. Coconut crabs have organs known as "branchiostegal lungs", which are used instead of the vestigial gills for breathing. They cannot swim, and will drown if immersed in water for long. They have developed an acute sense of smell, which has developed convergently with that of insects, and which they use to find potential food sources. Mating occurs on dry land, but the females migrate to the sea to release their fertilised eggs as they hatch. The larvae are planktonic for 3–4 weeks, before settling to the sea floor and entering a gastropod shell. Sexual maturity is reached after about 5 years, and the total lifespan may be over 60 years.
Adult coconut crabs feed on fruits, nuts, seeds, and the pith of fallen trees, but will eat carrion and other organic matter opportunistically. The species is popularly associated with the coconut, and has been widely reported to climb trees to pick coconuts, which it then opens to eat the flesh. While coconut crabs can climb trees, and can eventually open a coconut collectively, coconuts are not a significant part of their diet. Coconut crabs are hunted wherever they come into contact with people, and are subject to legal protection in some areas. In the absence of precise information, the IUCN lists the species as Data Deficient
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Coconut crab
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Arthropoda
Subphylum:Crustacea
Class:Malacostraca
Order:Decapoda
Superfamily:Paguroidea
Family:Coenobitidae
Genus:Birgus
Leach, 1816
Species:B. latro
Binomial name
Birgus latro
(Linnaeus, 1767) [2]

Coconut crabs live on most coasts in the blue area; red points are primary and yellow points secondary places of settlement
 
Birgus latro is the largest land-living arthropod in the world;[4][5] reports about the size of Birgus latro vary, but most sources give a body length of up to 40 cm (16 in),[6] a weight of up to 4.1 kg (9.0 lb), and a leg span of more than 0.91 m (3.0 ft),[7] with males generally being larger than females.[8] The carapace may reach a length of 78 mm (3.1 in), and a width of up to 200 mm (7.9 in).[5]
The body of the coconut crab is, like that of all decapods, divided into a front section (cephalothorax), which has 10 legs, and an abdomen. The front-most pair of legs has large chelae (claws), with the left being larger than the right.[9] The next two pairs, as with other hermit crabs, are large, powerful walking legs with pointed tips, which allow coconut crabs to climb vertical or overhanging surfaces.[10] The fourth pair of legs is smaller with tweezer-like chelae at the end, allowing young coconut crabs to grip the inside of a shell or coconut husk to carry for protection; adults use this pair for walking and climbing. The last pair of legs is very small and is used by females to tend their eggs, and by the males in mating.[9] This last pair of legs is usually held inside the carapace, in the cavity containing the breathing organs. There is some difference in colour between the animals found on different islands, ranging from orange-red to purplish blue;[11] in most regions, blue is the predominant colour, but in some places, including the Seychelles, most individuals are red.[9]
Although Birgus latro is a derived type of hermit crab, only the juveniles use salvaged snailshells to protect their soft abdomens, and adolescents sometimes use broken coconut shells to protect their abdomens. Unlike other hermit crabs, the adult coconut crabs do not carry shells but instead harden their abdominal terga by depositing chitin and chalk. Not being constrained by the physical confines of living in a shell allows this species to grow much larger than other hermit crabs in the family Coenobitidae.[12] Like most true crabs, B. latro bends its tail underneath its body for protection.[9] The hardened abdomen protects the coconut crab and reduces water loss on land, but has to be moulted periodically. Adults moult annually, and dig a burrow up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) long in which to hide while vulnerable.[10] It remains in the burrow for 3 to 16 weeks, depending on the size of the animal.[10] After moulting, it takes 1 to 3 weeks for the exoskeleton to harden, depending on the animal's size, during which time the animal's body is soft and vulnerable, and it stays hidden for protection.[13]

Respiration

 


Print of a coconut crab from the Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle of 1849
Except as larvae, coconut crabs cannot swim, and they will drown if left in water for more than an hour.[9] They use a special organ called a branchiostegal lung to breathe. This organ can be interpreted as a developmental stage between gills and lungs, and is one of the most significant adaptations of the coconut crab to its habitat.[14] The branchiostegal lung contains a tissue similar to that found in gills, but suited to the absorption of oxygen from air, rather than water. This organ is expanded laterally and is evaginated to increase the surface area;[10] located in the cephalothorax, it is optimally placed to reduce both the blood/gas diffusion distance and the return distance of oxygenated blood to the pericardium.[15] Coconut crabs use their hindmost, smallest pair of legs to clean these breathing organs and to moisten them with water. The organs require water to properly function, and the coconut crab provides this by stroking its wet legs over the spongy tissues nearby. Coconut crabs may drink water from small puddles by transferring it from their chelipeds to their maxillipeds.[16]
In addition to the branchiostegal lung, the coconut crab has an additional rudimentary set of gills. Although these gills are comparable in number to aquatic species from the families Paguridae and the Diogenidae, they are reduced in size and have comparatively less surface area.[15]

Sense of smell

The coconut crab has a well-developed sense of smell, which it uses to locate its food.[17] The process of smelling works very differently depending on whether the smelled molecules are hydrophilic molecules in water or hydrophobic molecules in air. As most crabs live in the water, they have specialised organs called aesthetascs on their antennae to determine both the concentration and the direction of a smell. However, as coconut crabs live on the land, the aesthetascs on their antennae are shorter and blunter than those of other crabs and look more like those of insects.[17] While insects and the coconut crab originate from different paths, the same need to detect smells in the air led to the development of remarkably similar organs. Coconut crabs flick their antennae as insects do to enhance their reception. They have an excellent sense of smell and can detect interesting odours over large distances. The smells of rotting meat, bananas, and coconuts, all potential food sources, catch their attention especially.[18] Research has shown that the olfactory system in the coconut crab's brain is well-developed compared to other areas of the brain.[19]

Life cycle

Coconut crabs mate frequently and quickly on dry land in the period from May to September, especially between early June and late August.[20] Male coconut crabs have spermatophores and deposit a mass of spermatophores on the abdomen of the female;[21] the abdomen opens at the base of the third pereiopods, and fertilisation is thought to occur on the external surface of the abdomen as the eggs pass through the spermatophore mass.[22] The extrusion of eggs occurs on land in crevices or burrows near the shore.[23] Shortly thereafter, the female lays her eggs and glues them to the underside of her abdomen, carrying the fertilised eggs underneath her body for a few months. At the time of hatching, the female coconut crab releases the eggs into the ocean.[22] This usually takes place on rocky shores at dusk, especially when this coincides with high tide.[24] The empty egg cases remain on the female's body after the larvae have been released, and the female eats the egg cases within a few days.[24]
The larvae float in the pelagic zone of the ocean with other plankton for three to four weeks,[5] during which a large number of them are eaten by predators. The larvae pass through three to five zoea stages before moulting into the post-larval glaucothoe stage; this process takes from 25 to 33 days.[25] Upon reaching the glaucothoe stage of development, they settle to the bottom, find and wear a suitably sized gastropod shell, and migrate to the shoreline with other terrestrial hermit crabs.[26] At that time, they sometimes visit dry land. Afterwards, they leave the ocean permanently and lose the ability to breathe in water. As with all hermit crabs, they change their shells as they grow. Young coconut crabs that cannot find a seashell of the right size often use broken coconut pieces. When they outgrow their shells, they develop a hardened abdomen. The coconut crab reaches sexual maturity around five years after hatching.[22] They reach their maximum size only after 40 to 60 years.[10]

Distribution

Coconut crabs live in the Indian Ocean and the central Pacific Ocean, with a distribution that closely matches that of the coconut palm.[27] The western limit of the range of B. latro is Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania,[28] while the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn mark the northern and southern limits, respectively, with very few population in the subtropics, such as the Ryukyu Islands.[5] There is evidence that the coconut crab once lived on the mainlands of Australia and Madagascar and on the island of Mauritius, but it no longer occurs in any of these places.[5] As they cannot swim as adults, coconut crabs must have colonised the islands as planktonic larvae.[29]
Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean has the largest and densest population of coconut crabs in the world,[17] although it is outnumbered there by more than 50 times by the Christmas Island red crab, Gecarcoidea natalis.[30] Other Indian Ocean populations exist on the Seychelles, including Aldabra and Cosmoledo,[31] but the coconut crab is extinct on the central islands.[32] Coconut crabs occur on several of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. They occur on most of the islands, and the northern atolls, of the Chagos Archipelago.[33]
In the Pacific, the coconut crab's range became known gradually. Charles Darwin believed it was only found on "a single coral island north of the Society group".[34] The coconut crab is far more widespread, though it is not abundant on every Pacific island it inhabits.[34] Large populations exist on the Cook Islands, especially Pukapuka, Suwarrow, Mangaia, Takutea, Mauke, Atiu, and Palmerston Island. These are close to the eastern limit of its range, as are the Line Islands of Kiribati, where the coconut crab is especially frequent on Teraina (Washington Island), with its abundant coconut palm forest.[34] The Gambier Islands marks the species' eastern limit.[28]

Ecology

Diet

 

A coconut crab atop a coconut
The diet of coconut crabs consists primarily of fleshy fruits (particularly Ochrosia ackeringae, Arenga listeri, Pandanus elatus, P. christmatensis), nuts (coconuts Cocos nucifera, Aleurites moluccana) and seeds (Annona reticulata),[35] and on the pith of fallen trees.[36] However, as they are omnivores, they will consume other organic materials such as tortoise hatchlings and dead animals.[10][37] They have been observed to prey upon crabs like Gecarcoidea natalis and Discoplax hirtipes, as well as scavenge on the carcasses of other coconut crabs.[35] During a tagging experiment, one coconut crab was observed killing and eating a Polynesian Rat (Rattus exulans).[38] Coconut crabs may be responsible for the disappearance of Amelia Earhart's remains, consuming them after her death and hoarding her skeletal remnants in their burrows.[39]
The coconut crab can take a coconut from the ground and cut it to a husk nut, take it with its claw, climb up a tree 10 m (33 ft) high and drop the husk nut, to access the content inside.[40] They often descend from the trees by falling, and can survive a fall of at least 4.5 metres (15 ft) unhurt.[41] Coconut crabs cut holes into coconuts with their strong claws and eat the contents, although it can take several days before the coconut is opened.[36]
Thomas Hale Streets discussed the behaviour in 1877, doubting that the animal would climb trees to get at the nuts.[34] In the 1980s, Holger Rumpff was able to confirm Streets's report, observing and studying how they open coconuts in the wild.[36] The animal has developed a special technique to do so: if the coconut is still covered with husk, it will use its claws to rip off strips, always starting from the side with the three germination pores, the group of three small circles found on the outside of the coconut. Once the pores are visible, the coconut crab will bang its pincers on one of them until they break. Afterwards, it will turn around and use the smaller pincers on its other legs to pull out the white flesh of the coconut. Using their strong claws, larger individuals can even break the hard coconut into smaller pieces for easier consumption.[42]

Habitat

Birgus_latro_(Bora-Bora)

 

Coconut crabs vary in size and colouring.
Coconut crabs are considered one of the most terrestrial decapods,[43] with most aspects of its life linked to a terrestrial existence; they will drown in sea water in less than a day.[16] Coconut crabs live alone in underground burrows and rock crevices, depending on the local terrain. They dig their own burrows in sand or loose soil. During the day, the animal stays hidden to reduce water loss from heat. The coconut crabs' burrows contain very fine yet strong fibres of the coconut husk which the animal uses as bedding.[34] While resting in its burrow, the coconut crab closes the entrances with one of its claws to create the moist microclimate within the burrow necessary for its breathing organs. In areas with a large coconut crab population, some may come out during the day, perhaps to gain an advantage in the search for food. Other times they will emerge if it is moist or raining, since these conditions allow them to breathe more easily. They live almost exclusively on land, returning to the sea only to release their eggs; on Christmas Island, for instance, B. latro is abundant 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the sea.[44]

Relationship with human beings

Adult coconut crabs have no known predators apart from other coconut crabs and people. Its large size and the quality of its meat means that the coconut crab is extensively hunted and is rare on islands with a human population.[45] The coconut crab is eaten by Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders and is considered a delicacy and an aphrodisiac, and intensive hunting has threatened the species' survival in some areas.[11] While the coconut crab itself is not innately poisonous, it may become so depending on its diet, and cases of coconut crab poisoning have occurred.[45][46] For instance, consumption of the sea mango Cerbera manghas by the coconut crab may make the coconut crab toxic due to the presence of cardiac cardenolides.[47]
The pincers of the coconut crab are powerful enough to cause noticeable pain to a human; furthermore, the coconut crab will often keep its hold for extended periods of time. Thomas Hale Streets reports a trick used by Micronesians of the Line Islands to get a coconut crab to loosen its grip: "It may be interesting to know that in such a dilemma a gentle titillation of the under soft parts of the body with any light material will cause the crab to loosen its hold."[34]
In the Cook Islands, the coconut crab is known as unga or kaveu, and in the Mariana Islands it is called ayuyu, and is sometimes associated with taotaomo'na because of the traditional belief that ancestral spirits can return in the form of animals such as the coconut crab.[48]

Conservation

Coconut crab populations in several areas have declined or become locally extinct due to both habitat loss and human predation.[49][50] In 1981, it was listed on the IUCN Red List as a vulnerable species, but a lack of biological data caused its assessment to be amended to Data Deficient in 1996.[5]
Conservation management strategies have been put in place in some regions, such as minimum legal size limit restrictions in Guam and Vanuatu, and a ban on the capture of egg-bearing females in Guam and the Federated States of Micronesia.[51] In the Northern Mariana Islands, hunting of non-egg-bearing adults above a carapace length of 30 mm (1.2 in) may take place in September, October and November, and only under licence. There is a bag limit of 5 coconut crabs on any given day, and 15 across the whole season.[52]
In Tuvalu coconut crabs live on the motu (islets) in the Funafuti Conservation Area, a marine conservation area covering 33 square kilometers (12.74 square miles) of reef, lagoon and motu on the western side of Funafuti atoll.[53]

Names

External identifiers for Birgus latro
Encyclopedia of Life2982586
NCBI177283
WoRMS208668
Also found in: Wikispecies, SeaLifeBase
The coconut crab has been known to western scientists since the voyages of William Dampier around 1688.[54] Based on an account by Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1705), who had called the animal "Cancer cruentatus", Carl Linnaeus (1767) named the species Cancer latro,[55] from the Latinlatro, meaning "robber". The genus Birgus was erected in 1816 by William Elford Leach, containing only Linnaeus' Cancer latro, which was thus renamed Birgus latro.[3]Birgus is classified in the family Coenobitidae, alongside one other genus, Coenobita, which contains the terrestrial hermit crabs.[3][28]
Common names for the species include coconut crab, robber crab and palm thief,[1] which mirrors the animal's name in other European languages (e.g.German: Palmendieb).[56] In the Pohnpeian language of the Eastern Caroline Islands, the crab is called Emp.[57]


Now for the "Mystery" part to this: it seems nobody seems quite certain where all these crabs live currently or in the past, and according to rumours they are appearing in other places further inland in East Africa, India and Southern Asia, and in South America. They could well be imported to many of the places but most rumours are unconfirmed. They were supposedly former residents of Southern Arabia, Madagascar, Australia and New Guinea but currently are killed off there. I would not be so certain about that part either. When I was first gathering reports of Cyptozoological creatures I included Coconut crabs because it seemed they were undocumented in many areas. Charles Darwin thought they only lived on one island in the whole Pacific just because he hadn't heard of them being anywhere else.

Well the stories are true they ARE that big. And the stories about them turning up in places like East Africa and South America (Brought in along with the coconuts) could also be true much of the time. The problem is simply that we haven't documented them there yet.
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Matamatas and Loch Ness Monsters

September 7, 2013, 12:39 pm
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More Loch Ness Monster Comparisons Submitted by Scott Mardis


Comparing the weird horns and tubercles of the Mata Mata turtle with alleged images and descriptions of horned Loch Ness monsters. The drawing on the second row far left is from Burton's book and is an artist's conception (non-authoritative) of Patrick Grant's 1938 sighting made as part of the Sir Edward Mountain's expedition, one of his paid watchers. And my drawing included on the right middle line includes Greta Finlay's sketch but it is rather compressed and not to scale with the figures in her report.

"Gargoyle Head" from underwater photo of the Loch Ness Monster, Henodus (Turtlelike Plesiosaur relative) at lower left, and Matamata turtle at lower right
Scott Mardis can be reached at: lochness969@yahoo.com

As usual, I am merely acting as a vehicle for Scott's publication on this blog and I do not necessarily endorse nor even necessarily agree with his statements.
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"Megalotaria longicollis"

September 8, 2013, 9:19 am
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Jay Cooney was circulating this on Facebook last night. I saw it and I said "If you're talking Hoy Sea Serpent, I'll buy that" It is an artwork of the Cryptid "Megalotaria longicollis" by Utahraptor on Deviant Art.
http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/artists/154174153?view_mode=2
Utahraptor did add "the real Nessie" to this but this is clearly NOT the same as the Loch Ness Monster since for one thing nothing like the male has ever been reported on Loch Ness. They are very like some IRISH sightings however, and probably some Australian and Tasmanian "Bunyips" also. Two things of note: like real sea lions the neck of the male is very THICK which is actually specified in reports of this type. And the length of the neck of the female is no more than four times its diameter. That's important, it would be the norm for this species and much shorter than the long necks of the Longnecks. The female is a mite too thin though, she has probably just pupped. As Heuvelmans notes, the big male is not more than three times the length of the pup and since we have a good substantial record of a young one about seven feet long, the big males would be expected to be twenty feet long and maybe a little more.

Since the female as drawn here does bear a resemblance to the Parson's Long Necked seal reprinted below, this is a plausible enough connection (The other drawing shows a plumper body and my feeling is also this female should have a plumper body.)

The hinder flippers are somewhat stylized but not too badly. This species has small spiky ear-pinnas but not the erectile nostrils stated by Heuvelmans. it has normal seal-like whiskers. The female could also have more developed hair on the neck but here it is slicked down as it is characteristically. Male shaggy fur and mostly reddish brown (a possible black circle around the eye is noted by Costello)and the female is more greyish-brown with darker spots.(The darker spots are still there but harder to see in the males which are uniformly darker overall)

"Long Necked Walrus" from Biological Marginalia, via Jay Cooney


They are huge seals, not quite so large as elephant seals but at least as large as walruses. Besides the
two geographic areas I mention, there is evidence of them in the North Sea and around Scandinavia, possibly near Florida (I am an NOT including Thomas Helm's SS but others would certainly include it), off South Africa and possibly off Patagonia. Austin Whittall speculates about Long necked sea lions as coming from Patagonia and the possibility that some of them could have been known as Iemisch (Yem'chen)but without any really good evidence. I would say that would be at least consistent
Text quoting from the book Patagonian Monsters

 


http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2010/10/long-necked-seals-in-south-america.html

My first blog posting on this topic was
http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/11/dale-drinnon-two-long-necked-sea.html
and it included also reference to the Kivik Stone:

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Followup to "Megalotaria Longicollis"

September 9, 2013, 6:56 am
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I made up some more illustrations for Megalotaria after I had published the last blog entry
  I have settled on the idea that the female had something like the common seal colouration, being a greyish brown with scattered darker spots, and the male was more of a reddish brown with muted streaks of other lighter colours showing in the fur" the male has longer and coarser hair overall, but it seems the female also has a hairier neck. The mane in these animals is indicated to be lionlike, or generally all around the neck like a ruff, rather than horselike with just the stripe down the spine.
 
BTW this was another recent posting where I was attempting to make an earlier reconstruction of the type. I did have about the same body plan for the males and females, assuming the 1918 Hoy SS was female and the male should have a much thicker neck..
   http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/07/early-merhorse-art-by-thomas-finley-and.html
Here are two comparisons of the Hoy SS with a typical "Loch Ness Monster" Longneck, the one above with average size overall (Typical estimated adult females) and below is matching up the proportions going by the maximum width (And not going by comparative size). The Hoy SS's neck still comes out as being about half the length of the Longneck's neck by proportion.
 
And here is our reference chart to the other pinnipeds.The  Hoy SS type (Megalotaria) is about the bulk of a walrus, maximum sizeabout as much as an elephant seal, whereas the Longneck's body is about the same size as the elephant seal's but adding an elongated neck and tail onto that base.


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Hagen Carcass Is a Dorudon?

September 9, 2013, 7:36 am
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While discussing the matter of the Hagen carcass with Jay Cooney, the possibility of an Archaeocete identity came up. I had several reservations about archaeocetes per se but I suggested that the creature could have been something like a Dorudon and have both the rear flippers and a whale-tail simultaneously. At this time I am thinking it could be the strongest candidate we have. Jay Cooney also feels it is something along those lines "Most likely something with the features of no dorsal fin, rear flippers[as well as the front flippers], and a whale-tail."
.
Dorudon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorudon
 
http://bizarrezoology.blogspot.com/2013/08/hagan-carcass-comparison-images-part_5.html
http://bizarrezoology.blogspot.com/2013/08/hagan-carcass-comparisons-part-2gambo.html
http://bizarrezoology.blogspot.com/2013/08/hagan-carcass-comparison-images-part.html

 
Above, top to bottom: top, Thomas Finlay's painting of the Hagen carcass,
two views of Gambo and a drawing of the carcass by the witness.

 
Above, Bruce Champagne's SeaSerpent category 2b,
Gambo in two views once again and the Hagen carcass once again.
 
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Ambon-serpent-165351556
Below is Tim Morris' (Pristichampsus') reconstruction for the Ambon SS from Deviant Art, and below that his reconstruction for Bruce Champagne's "Eel-like whale" Sea Serpent type 2b. Jay Cooney guesses that both of them could be related to Both Gambo and the Hagen carcass, and the back fin on the upper reconstruction is not shown on the witness' sketch for the Ambon SS.

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Giant Salamander Ogopogo

September 9, 2013, 10:25 pm
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It has just come to my attention that there are specific reports of giant salamander or "Water Lizards at BOTH lake Okanogan and Lake Champlain and I am waiting for a firsthand account of the Lake Okanogan version to be published here. The firsthand report specifies small ones of 18 inches to 6 feet (Half a meter to two meters) long, but the report falls into the greater category of Canadian Alligators as listed by George Eberhart in Mysterious Creatures (Listing follows). Although the name specifies "Canadian", the most of these reports are right along the US/Canadian border and several reports also take place on the US side of the border. (See Map)

Canadian Alligator

Supposed Crocodilian of western Canada. Variant name: Pitt Lake Lizard. Physical description: Length, usually 5–10 feet , with a maximum of 20 feet . Relatively smooth, dark skin. Horns or ears are sometimes reported. Long snout . Jaws 12 inches long. Four legs, 10 inches long. Behavior: Aquatic but seen on land occasionally. Tracks: Webbed.
Distribution: Pitt Lake, Kootenay Lake, Chilliwack Lake, Cultus Lake, Nitinat Lake, and the Fraser River , in British Columbia. Significant sightings: On October 10, 1900, George Goudereau saw an animal like a 12-foot alligator crawl out of Crawford Bay on Kootenay Lake and root for food in a garbage heap. Later , a trail of large, webbed tracks was found. In 1915, Charles Flood, Green Hicks, and Donald Macrae found some black, alligator-like lizards in a small mud lake south of Hope, British Columbia.
Possible explanation: An unknown species of cold-adapted crocodilian. The American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) is the most northerly American crocodilian and is found as far north as t he North Carolina coast . It was reported in southern Virginia in colonial times. Crocodilians depend on their environment to provide body warmth, and their hatchlings are more susceptible to chilling than adults. In fact , eggs incubated at temperatures lower than 88°F will tend to produce only female offspring and ultimately threat en the viability of the population. Nonetheless, both the American and the Chinese alligators (A. sinensis) dig burrows into which t hey can retreat dur ing cold spells. They can also survive in lakes that are frozen by keeping their nostrils above the surface as their metabolism and body temperature drop. In warmer times, at least three species of crocodilians lived in Canada: Leidyosuchus canadensisand Stangerochampsa in Alberta during the Late Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, and Borealosuchus acutidentatus in Saskatchewan during the Paleocene, 60 million years ago.
Sources: Ivan T. Sander son, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life (Philadelphia: Chilton, 1961), pp. 39–41; John Kir k, In the Domain of Lake Monsters (Toronto, Canada: Key Porter Books, 1998), pp. 176, 185–186; Chad Arment and Brad LaGrange, “Canadian ‘Black Alligators’: A Preliminary Look,” North American BioFortean Review 1, no. 1 (April 1999): 6–12, http://www.strangeark.com/nabr/NABR1.pdf
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Pitt Lake Lizard


Large LIZARD of western Canada. Variant name: CANADIAN ALLIGATOR.
Physical description: Length, 5–10 feet. Smooth skin. Horns behind the head. Two rows of sharp teeth. Distribution: Pitt Lake, British Columbia. Significant sighting: On June 3, 1973, Warren and Sharon Scott observed a number of huge reptiles in the lake. Warren captured three smaller specimens and sent one to the biology department of Simon Fraser University, but there is no record of its receipt.
Possible explanations: (1) The largest lizardlike animal in British Columbia is the Pacific giant salamander (Dicamptodon tenebrosus), but this amphibian has a marbled appearance with dark spots and only grows to about 11 inches. (2) An unknown species of Monitor lizard (Family Varanidae).
Sources: “Is a Lost World Waiting to Be Found near Pitt Lake?” Vancouver (B.C.) Province, May 12, 1978, p. 4; John Kirk, In the Domain of Lake Monsters (Toronto, Canada: Key Porter Books, 1998), p. 176; Chad Arment and Brad LaGrange, “Canadian ‘Black Alligators’: A Preliminary Look,” North American BioFortean Review 1, no. 1 (April 1999): 6–12, http://www.strangeark.com/nabr/NABR1.pdf

I only count the sightings under 6 feet in this category. the larger "Water Lizard with horns or ears at about 10-12 feet long (But sometimes reported as up to 20 feet long) I count as the giant otters instead. Those ones could have jaws a foot long, but that statement alone does not give any sense of proportion.

Ivan T Sanderson introduced the topic of these "Canadian Alligators" along the way in his book Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, and he thought the creatures were giant salamanders such as occur in China and Japan naturally. This information was promised to be added to future editions of the book, but it never was actually added in.

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Close-Up-of-a-Giant-Salamander-Megalobatrachus-Maximus-Posters_i7147905_.htm
The reviews above from Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures (2002) also do NOT mention there are similar "Canadian Alligator" reports further East, around the Great Lakes. That information IS found in Sanderson's files. There are other mentions of these giant salamanders found earlier on this blog. One entry concerning a style of Native artwork representing the creature is found here:

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/05/pnw-giant-salamander.html

Giant Salamanders Terrestrial Hunters of the Palaeogene

 
By , October 3, 2012
Research Shows that Giant Salamanders Were Once Land Dwelling Hunters

Extant Specimen of Japanese Giant Salamander
 
The increasingly rare Giant Salamander of Japan.
Picture Credit: BBC News
 
There are several species of giant Salamander living today, the largest Megalobatrachus [Andrias]japonicus grows up to 1.5 metres in length.  Like all giant Salamanders this species prefers fast running, well-oxygenated streams and they are all very much aquatic creatures.  However, a team of scientists studying ancestral giant Salamander fossils found in the Gobi desert; suggest that during the Palaeogene, these amphibians were very much at home on the land.  Not only were these giant Salamanders terrestrial, but studies of the skull fossils and teeth indicate that these animals probably hunted on land too.
Giant Salamanders are found today in Asia, with one species known from the United States.  The heads and bodies of these creatures are flattened, the tail is laterally flattened and the paired limbs are relatively small and weak when compared to the rest of the body.  Modern giant Salamanders lack eyelids and the larval teeth are retained into adulthood.  In fact these amphibians only undergo a partial metamorphosis from the larval stage and retain larval characteristics as mature animals (a form of neoteny – when traits of juveniles are seen in adults).

 
Scientists studying the fossilised remains of the oldest known member of the Giant Salamander group (Cryptobranchidae), fossils found in Mongolia and dated to around fifty-five million years ago, have proposed that these animals were adapted to a life on land.
Four specimens of the Palaeogene species Aviturus exsecratus located at the Moscow Palaeontological Institute reveal that these amphibians had robust limbs, strong backbones and powerful jaws that suggest adaptations to a terrestrial environment.
Vertebrate palaeontologist Davit Vasilyan of the University of Tübingen (Germany) who helped write the scientific paper on this study states that Aviturus exsecratus had the strongest head muscles of any giant Salamander, suggesting it went on land to hunt.  Supporting this idea is the fact that fossil remains of this salamander were found in rock typically formed from water’s-edge sediments.  Unlike their modern descendants, these early Cenozoic amphibians went through extra stages of metamorphosis and lost some of the juvenile traits that are retained in adults today.  The teeth for example, were much more developed than the teeth found in the large, wide mouths of their modern counterparts.
The evolution of terrestrial giant Salamanders coincides with a period of dramatic global warming (Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum), a time when much of the Earth became covered in tropical rain-forest and global temperatures rose to an average of around 26 degrees Celsius (compared to an average today of just 14 degrees Celsius).
Dr. Vasilyan proposes that giant Salamanders first appeared as land based carnivores during this warm era, perhaps exploiting niches in the ecosystems that had yet to be properly filled after the mass extinction event that ended the Mesozoic some ten million years earlier.  When global temperatures began to drop, these amphibians abandoned their more complete adult forms adapting to an entirely aquatic existence which still persists today.

Giant Salamanders Once Hunted on Land

Terrestrial Predators
Picture Credit: Davit Vasilyan
It seems that these rare, aquatic creatures that we know today, were once powerful, land-based hunters.
http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/category/animal-news-stories/page/2

This news item definitely puts the reports of the Giant Salamander-like Tatzelwurm which is said to move freely on land and acts most fearlessly and aggressively into a new light, and the fact that fossils are also found in Mongolia is also good news as far as the stories about the most similar cryptids go. Small "dragons" reported in both Eastern Europe and in Siberia also answer to this description [which is about what Ulrich Magin claimed about the Tatzelwurms in PURSUIT.] Some of the extinct forms were also bigger than the extant species, probably in the range of 2 to 3 meters long.-DD.
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Chupacabra Mystery Solved

September 10, 2013, 12:39 pm
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http://news.discovery.com/animals/pets/chupacabra-mystery-solved.htm

Old news by now but worth repeating

Chupacabra Mystery Solved

Oct 22, 2010 02:05 PM ET // by Jennifer Viegas
Halloween stories about the ghostly "chupacabra" circulate every year, but now scientists have solved the mystery surrounding this legendary animal.
Instead of being vicious, fanged creatures that supposedly drink the blood of livestock, chupacabras turn out to be wild dogs inflicted with a deadly form of mange, according to University of Michigan biologist Barry OConnor.
(Scientists believe legendary chupacabras monsters are actually coyotes with severe cases of mange, like the animal pictured here. Credit: Dan Pence)
 
The myth about chupacabras, also known as goatsuckers, started after reports of livestock attacks in Puerto Rico and Mexico, where dead sheep were discovered with puncture wounds, completely drained of blood. Similar reports began accumulating from other locations in Latin America and the U.S. Then came sightings of evil-looking animals, variously described as dog-like, rodent-like or reptile-like, with long snouts, large fangs, leathery or scaly greenish-gray skin and a nasty odor. Locals put two and two together and assumed the ugly varmints were responsible for the killings.
OConnor, however, and other scientists conclude that an 8-legged mite that burrows under the skin of coyotes can give these animals the "chupacabra" look.
He explains that the mite responsible for the extreme hair loss seen in "chupacabras syndrome" is Sarcoptes scabiei, which also causes the itchy rash known as scabies in people. Human scabies is an annoyance, but not usually a serious health or appearance problem, partly because our bodies are already virtually hairless and partly because the population of mites on a given person usually is relatively small—only 20 or 30 mites.
Humans have likely evolved natural defenses for this mite over the years. When we began to domesticate dogs, we likely spread the mites to them. When the mites then transfer to wild dogs, such as foxes, wolves and coyotes, the victims appear to be less able to fight them off.
"Whenever you have a new host-parasite association, it's pretty nasty," said OConnor, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a curator in the U-M Museum of Zoology. "It does a lot of damage, and mortality can be relatively high because that host species has not had any evolutionary history with the parasite, so it has not been able to evolve any defenses like we have."
In these unfortunate animals, large numbers of mites burrowing under the skin cause inflammation, which results in thickening of the skin. Blood supply to hair follicles is cut off, so the fur falls out. In especially bad cases, the animal's weakened condition opens the door to bacteria that cause secondary skin infections, sometimes producing a foul odor. Put it all together, and you've got an ugly, naked, leathery, smelly monstrosity: the chupacabras.
But what then explains the "goatsucker" livestock attacks?
"Because these animals are greatly weakened, they're going to have a hard time hunting," OConnor said. "So they may be forced into attacking livestock because it's easier than running down a rabbit or a deer."
Wild dogs aren't the only ones to suffer from deadly mites. Mite-infected squirrels often become roadkill because they are weak and less able to scurry away from cars. In Australia, the "chupacabra" mite is killing off wombats.
"(Wombats) presumably got the mites from dingoes, which got them from domestic dogs, which got them from us," he explained.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scabies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcoptic_mange
 
Itch Mite

Street Dog infected  with Sarcoptic Mange, Bali
 

Sarcoptic mange

See also: Scabies
Sarcoptic mange, also known as canine scabies, is a highly contagious infestation of Sarcoptes scabiei canis, a burrowing mite. The canine sarcoptic mite can also infest cats, pigs, horses, sheep and various other species. The human analog of burrowing mite infection, due to a closely related species, is called scabies (the "seven year itch").
All these burrowing mites are in the familySarcoptidae. They dig into and through the skin, causing intense itching from an allergic reaction to the mite, and crusting that can quickly become infected. Hair loss and crusting frequently appear first on elbows and ears. Skin damage can occur from the dog's intense scratching and biting. Secondary skin infection is also common. Dogs with chronic sarcoptic mange are often in poor condition, and in both animals and humans, immune suppression from starvation or any other disease causes this type of mange to develop into a highly crusted form in which the burden of mites is far higher than in healthy specimens.
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The 'Merfolk-Chupacabras' of Coleman/Hughe Field Guide as Compared to Tyler Stone's Freshwater Monkeys

September 11, 2013, 7:55 am
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Quoting from an online review of Loren Coleman's opinion of "Merbeings"

 Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman and Fortean researcher
Patrick Huyghe devote a whole chapter to "Merbeings,"and summarize a
number of actual "Merbeing" sighting reports, in The Field Guide to
Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates (Anomalist Books, 2006). Coleman
and Huyghe list the "Merbeing" as the ninth and last of their nine basic
categories of  possibly real unknown primates sharing our planet
with us, including also the Neo-Giant (including the "classic" or
"standard" North American Bigfoot/Sasquatch and Himalayan Yeti), True
Giant, Marked Hominid, Neandertaloid, Erectus Hominid, Proto-Pygmy
(including Sumatra's Orang pendek and Flores Island's  Ebu gogo),
Unknown Pongid, and Giant Monkey. They further subdivide the "Merbeing"
into two distinct subtypes, a more fishlike, fully aquatic sea-going
marine variety including the traditional "Mermaids" of Western legend,
and a bipedal semi-aquatic freshwater variety including the Latin
American Chupacabras, Japanese Kappa, Madagascar Kalanoro,
and North American "Lizard-men."

"The Merbeing, or water creature," Coleman and Huyghe note at the
beginning of their "Merbeing" chapter in The Field Guide to
Bigfoot..., is "perhaps the most traditional of all the undiscovered
nonhuman primates" (Loren Coleman & Patrick Huyghe, **The Field Guide
to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates**, p. 37). "Perhaps
surprisingly," however, "the Mermaids and Mermen of ancient lore are
still being seen today," though in seemingly far fewer numbers than
formerly. Yet this group of aquatic beings "ranges far beyond the
Merpeople of yore" and also includes creatures like "the Sea Ape of the
Bering Sea, the scaly-looking but actually hairy and misnamed Lizard
Men, and the fiery-eyed Latino phenomenon known as the Chupacabras."
Likewise, "Asians have been aware of their Kappa and other Merbeings
for centuries" (Coleman & Huyghe, The Field Guide to Bigfoot..., p. 37).

Merbeings, Coleman and Huyghe note, "appear to come in two varieties,"
marine and freshwater. The "marine subclass" is "distinguished by a
finlike appendage," while the freshwater subclass is "characterized by
an angular foot with a high instep and three pointed toes." The
Chupacabras, Kalanoro, and "Lizard Man" freshwater merbeings are
"often found venturing onto land" and are "far more aggressive and
dangerous, being carnivorous," than the "calmer" marine type** (Coleman
& Huyghe, The Field Guide to Bigfoot, p. 37).
[Personally I do not count the Kalaorno, either]

Merbeings vary in height, according to Coleman and Huyghe, from dwarf to
human-sized. Their bodies are "strong, bit not stocky or bulky." Marine
Merbeings have smooth skin, sometimes with a very short "fur," while the
freshwater type sometimes has patchy hair growths that appear "like
leaves" or "scaly," giving a reptilian impression responsible for the
popular name "Lizard Men." In both types, the hair is often "maned,"
though "some exhibit almost complete hair cover, especially in the
Chupacabras kin." Merbeings generally have oval or almond-shaped
eyes, "perhaps due to their watery origins." These "mostly nocturnal
creatures" have a "singsong vocalization," which has been "reported
almost universally from Eurasia to Africa" (**Coleman & Huyghe, The
Field Guide to Bigfoot, pp. 37-38).
**Coleman and Huyghe  suggest a relationship of the freshwater Merbeings--the
Chupacabras, Kappa, "Giant Frog", and "Lizard Man" types--to the
"prosimians" (primitive primates) known as the loris and potto,
especially the potto. Freshwater primates, they point out, often display
a row of spikes along their backs, a "rather unknown but not[?Completely] unknown
feature among primates." In the potto, a cat-sized African loris, the
spines of the last neck vertebra and first thoracic vertebra penetrate
the skin and are capped with horny spines. When the potto is threatened,
the spines stand up so that a predator can't bite it on the neck.
Also--while freshwater Merbeings appear to be three-toed, the potto has
an enormous big toe pointing in the opposite direction from its third,
fourth, and fifth toes, and a vestigial second toe reduced to a lump
bearing a cleaning claw. "So much for primates not having weird digits
and spines on their backs," they remark **Coleman & Huyghe, The Field
Guide to Bigfoot..., p. 38).*

*The "whole body of lore on Merbeings," Coleman and Huyghe believe,
"appears to have basis in reality and is not all myth," as "Credible
sightings have occurred." On the other hand, they feel, the "increased
activity or visibility of the _/chupcabras/_" and the decreased reports
of oceanic Mermaids and Mermen may "signal a shift toward the successful
survival of the more aggressive freshwater, land-oriented sublass" of
Merbeings. Sightings of Louisiana's "scary, triple-toed Honey Island
swamp monster," Canada's "three-fingered and three-toed Thetis Lake
monster," South Carolina's "similarly digited Scape Ore Swamp Lizard
Man." and the Latin American Chupacabras suggest that "the most
dangerous Merbeing variety is presently at the head of its class."
**(**Coleman & Huyghe, The Field Guide to Bigfoot_, p. 38).

I find that Tyler Stone's revision of the Freshwater Monkey category was constructed as a substitute for Coleman and Huyghe's freshwater Merbeing. the Fit is usually good enough, but the understanding about the Chupacabras in particular needs more clarification. My impression is that we have identified the "Freshwater Merbeing" pretty well but it is NOT what is being sighted and called a "Chupacabras." and there is a question about how frequently they are called "Swamp Monsters" and/or  if the "Lizardmen" really belong with the rest of the sightings of basically smaller creatures. I have been finding more sightings of the "Thetis Lake Monster" types in other lakes in British Columbia as well, so there is evidently indirect indication that the tradition does exist locally and some of the sightings could be legitimate at Thetis Lake. The Freshwater monkeys do NOT have spines but they have longer hair on the head and back, called a mane, and locks of it can stick together  to be called spines or scales

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/08/freshwater-monkeys.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/02/freshwater-monkeys-and-other.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-freshwater-monkeys-sprites.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/03/chaneques.html
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/03/some-speculations-on-freshwater-monkey.html

Europe: Watersprites and Goblins
 
Kittelsen_TheWaterSprite

Japan: Kappas

 

 
 Chaneques, Mexico

 
"Baby Chupacabras" as produced bya Japanese Toy company
 
Honey Island Swamp Monster, possible adult male with fully dry fur fluffed up
 
 

Macaque monkey going swimming
Some modern macque monkeys do go in for wading
 and swimming, and they can and do find food in there
 
 And for reference again the Line-up of the types to scale (Paste-up and editing by Dale D)



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'[Veloci]Raptor' Sightings

September 11, 2013, 5:14 pm
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Frequent commenter and now Co-Blogger Troodon Man has a specific interest in Cryptozoology, the rather specialized area of Troodon sightings (similar to the "Raptors" from Jusassic Park)

 Interested readers are invited to visit his blog below. One specific example he has pointed out is the following report.

http://paranormal.about.com/od/livingdinosaurs/a/tales_09_04_15t.htm

Raptor Sighting in Georgia

[Submitted]BY Y. PHILLIPS

By , About.com Guide

This happened to me and my grandpa on a hunting trip in July, 2008. I don't see my grandpa very often, so I always take the chance to take trips with him. Grandpa is pretty much an outdoorsman and enjoys hunting, fishing and just being out in nature.
Grandpa and I were out in the woods. It was around 3 to 3:30 o'clock on Friday the 25th of July. I was 18 at that time. We were on grandpa's land in Georgia. It's a pretty place with the typical Georgia woodland and a few grassy plains. We were walking on a little rocky road heading for a site where grandpa often sees deer. As normal, there were a lot of sounds going on at night in the woods. We ignored most of them and remained quiet to not scare away anything.
Suddenly, we heard an unusual noise we never heard before on our many hunting trips. Grandpa looked at me and listened. Then he raised his finger in front of his mouth to show me that we shouldn't make any more movements. I heard a lot of movement and more of the noise. I can't really describe the sounds, but I sure can describe what I saw, even when it was pretty dark.
We just kept listening to the sounds as suddenly something came walking slowly out of the bushes and onto the road maybe 150 yards in front of us. My eyes got really big, and at that moment I wasn't even scared, just amazed to see this creature. We didn't move. As crazy as it sounds, it looked just like a raptor from the popular Jurassic Park movies.
I just froze because I thought things like that lived many thousands of years ago. It had a long, stiff tail, walked on two feet and had short arms. It looked lizard-like and had a huge claw on both of his feet and smaller claws on his arms. Since the creature appeared to us that it could run fast, we decided to just not move at all. It raised its head in the air and it seemed like it was smelling the air. I estimate its height around 5 feet at the shoulders. After sniffing the air, it made these sounds again and turned around and ran off in the bushes.
Grandpa and I waited until we felt safe again and then quietly made our way back to the truck and drove home. In the truck, we talked to each other about what we had seen and decided to not tell it to grandma because she would think we were crazy.
I never believed in stuff like ghosts and creatures and paranormal stuff, and I still don't believe in ghosts. But since that encounter, I believe in creatures that science doesn't know about. That's my story, as odd as it sounds. I know what I saw.

Associated with this sighting in the string of postings were a couple of others:
http://paranormal.about.com/library/blstory_january06_16.htm

Your True Tales
January 2006– Page 16
Raptor in Oklahoma
by Bruce
In late June of 2005, I headed south on Highway 169 from my home in eastern Kansas to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend a youth baseball tournament that my son's team was playing in. My wife had gone on ahead the previous day and I was traveling alone. It was late in the day, a few minutes before sunset on a bright sunny and hot day, and I was just north of Tulsa in a suburb whose name now escapes me.
Suddenly, a strange creature darted across the road directly in front of my pickup and I got a clear look at it (because of the time of day and the nearness of the creature). It looked for all the world like a small dinosaur out of a Hollywood film, perhaps a velociraptor from Jurassic Park or something like that, because it ran upright on the two large back legs, with the smaller, front legs carried close to the torso rather like a human sprinter would do. Its head was tilted back and the mouth slightly open exposing a set of fearsome fangs while the eyes had a wild, fixed expression and were so wide open as to be slightly bug-eyed in appearnance.
It was shockingly fast, and appeared and disappeared in a moment, but not so fast that I didn't get an absolutely clear look at it. It was not a cat, dog, squirrel, fox, possum, raccoon or any other animal that I had ever seen, and I live in the woods and see these more common animals all the time around here. I have seen other references to this kind of animal on the Net, but now recently. What I haven't seen reported elsewhere though, is how absolutely feral and dangerous it looked. I count myself lucky though to have seen it, and hope to see one again.

And some rather less similar reports from Texas and Arkansas, both in regular "Mountain Boomer: territory.

I am keeping an open mind on the matter but so far theses sightings sound pretty much the same as the usual "River Liz/Mini-Rex sort, only some of them are from east of the Mississippi River, which is unusual, and there is a seeming complication in that the more common "Lizard Man" sightings also have a recognizably distinct subtype that has a long tail and looks like a small dinosaur.

As of right now I am considering the matter and alsothe regular Lizardman sightings. Despite Tyler Stone and despite Coleman and Huyghe, I am not so certain the Lizardman sightings fit very easily into the Freshwater Monkeys/Merfolk category either. More work needs to be done.
See Troodon Man's blog:
http://www.mysteriouszoology.blogspot.com/

See Also Raptormania if you have an interest in the topic.
http://albertonykus.blogspot.com/

Incidentally I have always wondered if Charles R Knight's "Laelaps" was actually a Dromeosaurid whose larger foot claw was not recovered and so the relationship was not realized.



























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Mosasaurs in Real Life

September 11, 2013, 5:23 pm
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Since the Mosasaurs had a sharklike (but reversed) tail it stands to reason that they had some sort of a back fin as well for stabilization. The Ichthyosaurs had a similar tail design and also had the need of a back fin (and also had four other limbs) Since the back fin was evidently NOT a high obvious triangular fin such as Ichthyosaurs and sharks have, a long low fin (centered on the area of the shoulder perhaps) would be the most logical alternative arrangement.

And since there were several very distinct kinds of Mosasaurs, there is no reason to insist that no evidence for a back fin in any one of the known species or genera precludes the possibility of any of the others from ever having a back fin.

Ancient ocean predators were reptiles that swam like sharks


Nidhi SubbaramanNBC News
Sep. 10, 2013 at 11:00 AM ET
Johan Lindgren
Johan Lindgren
A 70-million-year old fossil of a young mosasaur indicates that the marine reptiles had a forked tail like today's sharks.
The leviathans of the Late Cretaceous ocean were swift-swimming lizards, large as sperm whales and finned like sharks. New evidence shows how similar the flippers of these top predators from 90 million years ago were to the limbs of everyone's favorite predatory fish today.
The first mosasaur fossil was discovered in the 1700s. From their run-on spines, researchers first guessed the animals were related to snakes, and later proposed that the ocean-swimming reptiles swam like fish. Rare soft-tissue preserved on the new prognathodon fossil, one member of the family of mosasaurs, shows a well-defined body plan and the trademark shark-like forked tail, supporting that theory.
John Lindgren
Johan Lindgren
This fossil, collected from the Maastrichtian of Harrana site in Jordan in 2008, contains the first soft tissue evidence of the tail shape of the mosasaur.
"For more than 200 years there hasn't been a single specimen showing the outlines of the fins and most important, the tail fin," Johan Lindgren, a paleontologist at Lund University in Sweden, told NBC News. Lindgren is a member of the team that describes the fossil in the Sept. 10 issue of Nature Communications.
Stefan Sølberg
Stefan Sølberg
Mosasaurs could grow up to 50 feet in length, and were the top predators of the Late Cretaceous oceans.
The new fossil, only about 6 feet long and therefore a young 'un, adds to evidence that the mosasaurs, which started out as land-living reptiles, entered the water and changed their body plan over tens of millions of years.
"The proportions of its body are amazingly similar to those that we see in pelagic sharks," Lindgren said. He expects that other, later mosasaurs may have been "even more fish-like than this guy."
Remarkably, the mosasaurs, the Cambrian-age ichthyosaurs before them, and today's toothy sharks — all top ocean predators in their time — independently arrived at roughly the same, "drop-shaped" stream-lined body plan and a two pronged tail.
Unlike sharks, the spine of the mosasaurs curved downward into the lower lobe of the tail. This may have been designed to assist the reptilian swimmers come up to the surface for air, Lindgren said.

Johan Lindgren, Hani Kaddumi and Michael Polcyn are authors of "Soft tissue preservation in a fossil marine lizard with a bilobed tail fin" published in Nature Communications.
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Robert Lindsay Bigfoot News September 13, 2013

September 12, 2013, 3:30 am
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I have not been keeping readers posted about events in the World of Bigfooters. I'd have to say that since I've become involved in Bigfoot themed events and posting them to this blog, Ive become both disenchanted and discouraged. Not about the creature(s) itself (themselves) but at the quality of what is advanced as evidence and bickering among Bigfooters. Any more I would rather not get involved. Still readers do deserve an update and so I have decided to reprint Robert Lindsay's Bigfoot News blog from this morning.

by | September 11, 2013 · 10:11 PM
↓ Jump to Comments
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/bigfoot-news-september-11-2013/

Bigfoot News September 11, 2013

Dr. Bryan Sykes study may well prove that Bigfoots exist. From multiple sources, I have now received the news that not only will the Sykes DNA study publish soon, it will also prove that Bigfoots exist. None of the sources would tell me this in so many words, but they certainly implied that the findings would be positive. So I am looking forward to publication of the study. On the other hand, it is possible though not likely that the sources are all wrong and the study could be negative.
 
Rick Dyer dead Bigfoot video is taking orders now. Dyer’s video After the Shot is now on sale for $129. It is said to contain 45 minutes of HD footage of the dead Bigfoot, Hank, that Rick definitely shot and killed in San Antonio, Texas last year. Rick says that the film was shot soon after the shooting by a film crew from a film company that he is associated with in some way. Rick says he had to pay the film crew $20,000 for their efforts.
He is only selling 100 copies, so he should make $13,000 off this video. Therefore, he is not even making his money back. Dyer says that the crew did an excellent job, much better than Rick could do, in shooting the movie, and that it looks very nice and professional. They will get 100 orders and then ship the video. This is so they can make at least $13K before the video goes viral on the Internet as they fully expect it to do.
The videos have not yet started shipping, so Dyer has not yet received 100 orders.
Each copy has some sort of markers on it to distinguish it from all of the others. Therefore, if anything gets uploaded to the Net, Dyer says he will know who put it up there he will sue the pants off them. However, almost no one is ever sued for uploading copyrighted content to the Web. The DMCA was written to avoid the lawsuit abuse associated with pirating videos. In general, a DMCA takedown order is issued to the website or whoever put the video up there. Youtube will ban you if you get three DMCA orders. In addition, Youtube protects its uploaders and will not give out their name to any copyright holders to avoid lawsuit abuse.
There is an extremely stupid and evil law that was written a while back that actually makes it a federal offense to upload copyrighted material to the Internet. Two people have so far been prosecuted under this idiotic law. One fellow uploaded a copy of a new Star Wars movie to the Net and Lucasfilm went after him.
Curious incident when someone pretended to order a copy of Dyer’s new video. Someone pretended to order a copy of the new video After the Shot and the order came up After the Hoax instead of After the Shot. The person who faked the order says they think Dyer got the title mixed up because he was working on some other video about the 2008 Dyer Bigfoot hoax. Obviously the skeptics are going to have a great time with this news!
It is recommended that Dyer skeptics get their hands on the video. The skeptics insist that this video is a hoax using a dummy prop as a dead Bigfoot. Although Christopher Noel and I disagree with that and feel that there is probably a real dead Bigfoot in the video, the possibly yet exists that this video may be a gigantic hoax. As the movie has not yet shipped, there is no evidence one way or the other whether this video is real or faked.
However, if it is fake and the skeptics can prove it, Dyer is taking a huge risk. He would be risking interstate commerce fraud for promising a video of a real Bigfoot and delivering a clever hoax. In addition, to the criminal offenses, Rick would be civilly liable and could be sued for damages in civil court by anyone who bought the video. I would like to see the skeptics get their hands on some of this video or stills from it at the very least so they can try to debunk it.
 
[I was contacted by Rick Dyer early on in the current hoax affair and basically that was all I needed to hear. I have unfriended him on Facebook and I tell anybody that asks me that he had nothing before and this time around he has nothing again. He thinks anybody involved in looking for Bigfoot is a fool and all he wants to do is have a laugh at their expense. My opinion only of course and you are free to disbelieve me if you like-DD]
 
Real Bigfoot photo from a state park in Florida.
A screenshot from a recent video of a Bigfoot hunting deer at dusk in Florida.
A screenshot from a recent video of a Bigfoot hunting deer at dusk in Florida.
I cannot remember the name of the video, but it was shot by a father and son who noticed cars pulled over by the side of the road in a state park in Florida (forget the name). In the video, you see a number of visitors pulled off the to the side of the road with their binoculars out looking at some odd events happening in a field about a mile away. Deer would pop up, run a bit, and then plunge down to the ground out of sight.The visitors were mostly tripping on the strange antics of the deer, and they did not seem to notice the other figure.
It was the strangest thing to see!
In the background, some sort of a bipedal creature seemed to be moving towards the deer. The deer appeared to be reacting to the bipedal creature. They seemed to fear that the creature was hunting them or trying to kill them and they were using strange eluding tactics to avoid the thing.
Whatever this is, I do not believe it is a hoax. You mean some guy, presumably in cahoots with the videographer, put on a Bigfoot suit a mile away from the road at dusk and moved his way towards some deer? No. Anyway, if it just a guy in a suit, the deer would figure it out and would not be acting so weird. They would just run away from the man or maybe just stand their ground since it is a state park and hunting is prohibited. There is no way that everyone who pulled over was in on some sort of a hoax, and it is extremely dubious that the man and his son were involved in a hoax with a man in a suit running around in the sawgrass at dusk.
So what else is it? Misidentification? Nope. It’s a bipedal creature and it looks large and hairy. What else could it be? It’s a Bigfoot or skunk ape.
Further, the rangers at the park acted very weird when the heard about this sighting, denying that it happened in the first place and even closing down the road where the sighting occurred. Furthermore, they tried to ticket the videographer apparently as a message to back off of his story.
In other words, just another government Bigfoot coverup!
My opinion: This is a real Bigfoot herding the deer, possibly towards another Bigfoot who is trying to hunt one. The quality of the screenshot and the video are not that great due to distance, but I do not see who this could be anything else. One thing I am sure it is not is a hoax. Notice the swaying motions of the arms and how much that looks like Patty from the Patterson film!
 
[Closeup by Dale D: note big round head of subject]
 
[The proportions are of course nothing like Patty and neither is the head shape. However "Being Authentic" does not necessarily mean "Like the Patterson Film". In this case the torso is impressively burly but the arms are shorter, and the proportions more human-like. It could still be a Skunk Ape, Eastern Bigfoot version but the best evidence is behavioral as Robert Lindsay states. The actions would be consistent with what I had heard about Eastern Bigfoot hunting deer up here in states further North.-DD]
 
 
Rocky Mountain Sasquatch Organization catches possible Bigfoot on video.
In this video shot in Rough Hollow, Utah by the RMSO, there are 38 seconds of a possible Bigfoot seen from 2:16 to 2:54. The Bigfoot goes from a crouching position to a kneeling position to all the way down on its stomach. The possible movements are very slow and deliberate so as not to cause notice. The possible creature is in dark black in the video and was not noticed until later on. Skeptics are saying it is a stump or a cave overhang or a shadow, but it appears to move. Do stumps, cave overhangs and shadows move while you are filming them? Overall, a good video.
 
Possible juvenile Bigfoot filmed in Havana, Florida on a game cam.
The video above just shows a still from the game cam. There is a very interesting shadow there that could well be a juvenile Bigfoot. It does somewhat resemble the Jacobs juvenile Bigfoot photo from a game cam in Pennsylvania. Those photos are definitely pictures of a juvenile Bigfoot. It can’t be anything else. This Havana photo may be a juvenile Bigfoot, and then again, it may just be a stump or a shadow.
Vladimir Putin believes that Yetis are real.Very interesting. Putin is the Prime Minister of Russia, and it is said that he believes that Yetis are real. We need more celebrity believers. I am quite certain that if Bigfoots are real then Yetis will be proven to be real someday too. A source close to the Ketchum Project told me that an initial male-female peaks study of a Yeti sample by Ketchum showed that they were related to Bigfoots but not the same species. The entire sample was used up by the quick and dirty test, and there was no more to test. Ketchum also stated herself that she believes that Yetis are real in addition to Bigfoots being real.
 
[There is a problem in that the Russians are abusing the term "Yeti", having appropriated the term from the Tibetan Plateau area where the term is native. It is now being used freely where the term "Almas" had been used in former decades. However since the term as it is used seems to apply to some of the same creatures also called Yetis in Tibet and Bigfoot in North America, the point may be moot. Please note that all terms are nonspecific, general-category references rather than specific references to specific creatures (They are regularly applied to more than one thing and more than one species, probably species from different families even.)-DD]
 
  1. Joerg Hensiek
  2. September 11, 2013 at 10:28 PM
  3. Let`s see if the videos really exist, get shipped to Dyer and if they then get send out to customers as soon as possible. You mentioned the legal implications. Is Dyer really this stupid or ignorant? I have the feeling: No. However, IF the videos really exist and they reach the general public, then it gets really interesting. Decision time. About the Sykes study: would just be fantastic if these rumours are really true.  
  1.  Jacki Leighton-Boyce
    September 12, 2013 at 1:15 AM
    David Attenborough thinks that Yetis and Bigfoot are real. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWC-m_zY2Rw
    And so does Jane Goodall
    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/jane-goodall-fascinated-bigfoot-article-1.1172959
     

 LucasJ
September 12, 2013 at 1:56 AM
To RL;
Happened to see this about the Minnesota Iceman being put back on display again. I’m sure you are aware of the ‘Iceman’ story from the ’60′s.
What got me is that this ‘exhibit’ is in Austin, Texas…..perhaps RD is selling his video of his visit there….he doesn’t claim that the ‘dead bigfoot’ in his video is the one he shot.
anyway….I thought is was some what of a coincidence…site has a couple of pics also:
Thanks for your time,
J.Lucas
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/minnesota-iceman-photos_n_3517680.html
In the 1960s, the “Minnesota Iceman” was paraded from mall to fairground, leaving rumors of Bigfoot,
missing links and government conspiracy in its wake.
Then, just as quickly as the 6-foot-tall frozen beast surfaced, it vanished — until now.
Earlier this year, Steve Busti — owner of the Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas —
bought the ice man from the family of its original owner in Minnesota. He’s going to once
again reveal the ape-like creature to the world starting July 3 at his museum.
Before his big purchase, Busti spent the last two years researching the Minnesota Iceman
and trying to pin down its location. He found that the original exhibitor, Frank Hansen,
had it in a freezer at his home for decades after its last showing. It’s still unclear
why the big, hairy popsicle’s tour abruptly ended.
Somehow, Hansen managed to keep Mr. Freeze out of the public eye until he died about
10 years ago. Busti also learned that rumors of the Minnesota Iceman being discovered
in Siberia were untrue.
“[Hansen] shot it in Wisconsin — its eyeball’s blown out and its arm is broken,”
Busti told HuffPost Weird News. “I couldn’t believe it had been in Minnesota the entire time.”
Hansen froze the remains and put them on display. What’s not explained, however,
is what the Minnesota Iceman really is. It’s big. Hair covers its entire body.
And it doesn’t look too happy. It’s easy to see why many continue to think it’s
proof of Bigfoot, and why others think it’s simply a primate. From Wisconsin.
Below are two never-before-seen photos from Hansen’s collection in the late 60s.
Busti wouldn’t show us photos of the Minnesota Iceman in its current state.
You’ll have to head to Texas to see for yourself.
[This story has also been covered on this blog before. It is interesting that Busti is quoting from Hansen's description which does not describe the model now on display in two key features-the broken arm and the popped-out eye-DD]


  1.  Joerg Hensiek
    September 12, 2013 at 2:12 AM
    On the Sykes study: also the first “rumours” sound very promising (for believers like me), one has to be cautious. Remember the DNA brought back by a British TV expedition to Bhutan in 2001 or 2002? The hair samples from a place called Sakteng were handed over to Sykes. Sykes told the press after the first check that his team found DNA “never encountered before”? After that nothing was heard from Sykes anymore, but when a British “cryptozoologist” asked him about more conclusive results about one year later, Sykes told him that it was DNA from an Asiatic/Himalayan black bear! Black bear?!! One would think, DNA of such an obvious species would be identified easily during the very first examination. I also wrote an email to his laboratory and they given me the same answer. So, why did Sykes told the press there was “unknown DNA” in it? Just a comment to “advise caution” regarding Sykes – at least for those believers who expect too much from this study.
     
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Eastern Bigfoot, New Demonstrations

September 12, 2013, 1:38 pm
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A facebook Friend of mine sent me photos of a variety of casts he hasd made in the Midwestern part of the US (mostly in Ohio I think. I selected two that I thought were exceptionally representative of the "Ape" (Swamp Ape/Wood Ape) and more humanlike (Actually Neanderthaloid) tracks out of the dozen or more examples that were on display. Both kinds are called Skunk Apes in Florida and Brush Apes (etc) in Texas. I also added drawings of the equivalent foot bottoms for an actual ape and a human being, from a textbook illustration that went on display on this blog a while back. I hoped to get a better impression of the "Long and thin" types of ape footprint which more closely resembles an orangutan's foot.

Here is a selection of the Unknown apes from around the Pacific rim All of them seem to be just variations on the orangutan and derived from the ground-dwelling "Fossil Pongo" that inhabited China about the same time as Gigantopithecus. The fate of their classification in general depends on decisions regarding some of the samples that we already have. If the Yeti DNA samples, Orang Pendek hair samples, Yeren samples and even the "Fossil Pongo" are all classified in the same species as the commoner orangutans, we will not have a Cryptozoological situation, we will only have an expanded range for a known species. At present tis is a quandary.
             .
 
Neanderthal as Wildman from a Yowie Hunter site
 Our other problem is that the "Hairy Cavemen" such as the Neanderthals turn out have interbred with us and so they were the same species as the rest of us. Furthermore at some point in the development of our species, the hairless tropical mutant form at some point broke out into the territory of the more cold-adapted Northern forms of our species and predominated over them. The situation follows this  mock-up:
  And presumably this is the end result of the "out of Africa"movement.

But that means that the hairy wildmen that persist in pockets of wilderness worldwide (and which includes both pygmy, normal-sized, and giant variations) Is only another kind of people. That was my conclusion made decades ago and Im sticking to it. The problem is that these "Hairy Primitives" (as Ivan Sanderson called them) are also not Cryptozoological subjects they are a known species
(Below is what could be called a cosplay for "Old Yellow-top, a Canadian example of the more manlike Eastern Bigfoot.)

The Tote-Up

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2010/08/dale-drinnon-mystery-primates-tote-up.html
Coleman et al, in The Field Guide to Bigfoot... also gives nine categories, thus:
1. Neo-Giants, (=)
2.* True Giants,
3.x  Marked Hominid, (=)
4.x  Neandertaloid, (=)
5.x  Erectus Hominid, (=)
6.x Proto-pygmy,
7.x*  Unknown Pongid,
8.x * Giant Monkey,
9. Merbeing,

-out of which I discount as separate categories the true giants, marked hominids, neandertaloids, erectus hominids and proto-pygmys, the last four of these on the grounds that they are not only probably variants of one species, but that species is most likely not separable from Homo sapiens. I retain the categories neo-giants, unknown pongid, giant monkeys and allow the mer-beings but also keep that category as a questionable status. [There is a good chance that many sightings in the Unknown Pongid and Giant Monkey categories are of animals in known species and the categories are also invalid for that reason]

In this case, the categories unknown pongid, giant monkey and merfolk are NOT unified categories representing a single cryptid as a single species per category. The categories are thus also invalid as formulated. However, in each of those categories I have also eliminated some candidates such that the unknown pongids of Africa are removed from unknown status - they are very likely displaced or unusual chimpanzees and gorillas. The remaining Asiatic and American pongids are all mostly like orangutans and do form a recognisable sequence, although they may not belong to the same species ... By the same token, ALL of the giant monkeys are very likely merely outsized monkeys of known species, except for the South American Isnachi. It should be noted that it was a major error to make one category for both Old World and New World monkeys in the same group.
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Richard Smith on Surgeon's Photo Hoax Claim

September 12, 2013, 2:50 pm
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Material Submitted by Scott Mardis








I saw this at the "Lake Monsters" Facebook group and it motivated me to post scott Mardis' material. I left the comment " YES THIS PHOTO ISA FAKE. And it is a stupid attempt to back up the false claims made by Christian Spurling, who truly was a hoaxer when he claimed to have been involved in taking "the Surgeon's Photo" at Loch Ness. That whole affair was nothing more than a smear campaign against a specific other individual [Kenneth Wilson, otherwise credited with taking the photo] and slanderously alleges the Daily Mail's complicity in faking the photo. I'm surprised there was not legal action taken over that"
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Tracing Monsters, Cryptozoology 1987

September 12, 2013, 9:23 pm
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From CRYPTOZOOLOGY Magazine from the Editor. Submitted by Scott Mardis.




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Gargoyle Face at Loch Ness

September 14, 2013, 7:35 am
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster

Robert Rines's studies (1972, 1975...)

In the early 1970s, a group of people led by Robert H. Rines obtained some underwater photographs. Two were rather vague images, perhaps of a rhomboid flipper (though others have dismissed the image as air bubbles or a fish fin). The alleged flipper was photographed in different positions, indicating movement.[69] On the basis of these photographs, British naturalist Peter Scott announced in 1975 that the scientific name of the monster would henceforth be Nessiteras rhombopteryx (Greek for "The Ness monster with diamond-shaped fin").[70] Scott intended that this would enable Nessie to be added to a British register of officially protected wildlife. Scottish politician Nicholas Fairbairn pointed out that the name was an anagram for "Monster hoax by Sir Peter S".[71][72]
[This anagram actually is not exact and has a leftover extra letter, thus invalidating the claim]

The underwater photos were reportedly obtained by painstakingly examining the loch depths with sonar for unusual underwater activity. Rines knew the water was murky and filled with floating wood and peat, so he took precautions to avoid it. A submersible camera with an affixed, high-powered flood light was deployed to record images below the surface. If he detected anything on the sonar, he would turn the lights on and take some pictures. Several of the photographs, despite their obviously murky quality, did indeed seem to show an animal resembling a plesiosaur in various positions and lightings. One photograph appeared to show the head, neck and upper torso of a plesiosaur-like animal.[73] After two distinct sonar contacts were made, the strobe light camera photographed two large lumps in the water, suggesting there to be two large animals living in the loch. Another photo seemed to depict a horned "gargoyle head", consistent to that of several sightings of the monster.[74] Sceptics point out that several years later, a log was filmed underwater which bore a striking resemblance to the gargoyle head...

 
I thought this suggestion had some potential value and I looked up the images of the waterlogged stump that had been photographed in the same area on the second on the second occasion. Two alternative prints of the object in question are directly below.

 
On comparing this object to the "Gargoyle head" photo, several points of comparison do present themselves. In both cases the "mouth" is a sort of a bite that has been cut out of the one side of the stump, and there are both longer sticklike protrusions above this "Bite" and smaller warty lumps below it which are obvious features of the so-called gargoyle face and are readily discernible on the stump in question. The object is not in the same orientation in both images but the similar features are clearly there.
 
 
 On the other hand the Plesiosaurian head and neck photo does not show anything like the same kind of a head, which was one of the dead giveaways that some kind of a mistake had been made. There is no good reason to call the Plesiosaurian head+ neck photo anything but what is is supposed to be.
 

Scott Mardis has presented evidence on this blog in which he tried to justify the gargoyle head along with the rest of the 1975 Rines /AAAS underwater photos but in my opinion he was wrong to do so. As far as I am concerned it is clearly the same stump. However his evidence concerning the diamond-shaped flipper and the processing necessary to make it more visible sounds reasonable. He had also lined up two Plesiosaur skeletons to be in the same positions as the sonar-con "Two Bodies" photo and that also look reasonable to me. The criticisms of both photos sounds overly harsh once Scott has accounted for the seeming discrepancies. Although I cannot endorse the "Gargoyle Head" photo. the other underwater photos look like strong evidence for an unknown animal in the loch.
 
 

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Manipogo=Moose

September 14, 2013, 1:40 pm
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Sketch by Louis Bretecher, who saw the creature in the 50's when he was about 18. We interviewed him in August of 1999.



Manipogo Eye Witness

Interview by Russ McGlenn


http://tccsa.tc/adventure/manipogo_witness.html

Here is part of the transcript from our videotaped interview. If you'd like a copy of the video, e-mail Russ McGlenn and the cost is $15.00.

Russ McGlenn: Well, tell us a little bit about what you were doing here. I am just going to let you tell it. I have read one newspaper article, but you know how they do with newspapers and things. You said there was a sand spit here you were working on.

Louis Breteche: There was a sand bar just out that direction but it has all grown back into some weeds. This was probably in 1957. My Dad sent me with a half-ton truck to pick up some, well I was hauling more than one load, hauling gravel to put in front of the garage because there were a lot of rough bumps in there. So, I was hauling gravel. We had a hired man named Eddy Knicknack and we were down there shoveling away. We put in a half truck load because it was pretty heavy gravel and all of a sudden one of {us] happened to look towards the lake and we saw an object coming in the water coming about, oh, three four hundred yards and it looked like a bunch of ducks. But, they were all in line so we said, well gees that looks funny for ducks. It kept coming this way. We just quit shoveling right away and we started looking and kept on looking. It kept coming closer and it keep coming a little bit on the angle. I don't know if it could hear us or what, but then it got pretty close. As it got closer to us, within about 100 yards in the water, it lifted its head right out of the water about four feet and it had a head something, oh I would say just about like a horse. It was hard to explain it. The head was fairly long and it just lifted out and slapped the water again and did that a couple of times.

R: With its head, kind of slapped its head down.

L: Yes, he hit the water with his head, you know. But, I guess the bumps it must have been about 25 feet long and it had, I guess it was just like in the water, out the water. I tell you it was just like a, it wasn't flat, like it just kept like a snake, like to was...

R: Now, did it seem like it was going in and out this way or this way?

L: No, to me, if I remember right, it was going like this.

R: Up and down?

L. Yes, up and down.

R: You see, that is one characteristic of mammals. A mammal-like creature will tend to go this way where as if it is a reptile, it goes this way.

L: No, it wasn't going sideways. It was going up and down.

R: Now, you said its head was kind of like a horse. In other words it would be like a horse's head is long this way.

L: Well, it wasn't all that wide that I can recall, but it was fairly long. The head was more like a, it is hard to explain. The head on a horse is not that wide but longer going downwards. It had a head something like that.

R: Then, could you estimate, now you said about 25 feet long. The head, could you estimate this long or this long?

L: Oh, I would say the head must have been about, when it got out of the water a couple of times, it must have been at least 3 feet.

R: Now, was the head sticking straight out or kind of down again like a horse would have its head down?

L: Down, yes.

R: Did you see anything that looked like hair or sometimes they talk about a mane or a tuft of something behind its head?

L: No.

R: Anything look like ears or horns?

L: No, I can't say I seen anything that looked like ears.

R: Did it open it mouth at all so you could see teeth or anything like that?

L: It opened its mouth, but I didn't see teeth.

R: Maybe too far away?

L: Just too far away and I don't remember seeing teeth. It opened its mouth but not very wide, you know.

R: Now, as it was moving along, do you think you could, could you see its tail at all or rear end or something back there?

L: As it went along, I would say 20 feet was bigger and then the last 5 or 10 feet was smaller.

R: Thinner.

L: Yes, thinner.

R: Because in the newspaper article, it talked about it looked like the back of a tea kettle. Now are [you] saying like a tea kettle is fat and then the spout comes up? Is that what they maybe meant or maybe those weren't you words?

L: No, that wasn't my words. I don't recall seeing that.

R: Maybe that was another report, somebody else's.

L: To me it was just like it was pushing itself, like the tail, the back end, the rest of it was smaller but just it could have been up like a tea kettle but it was in the waves.

R: Could you see anything in the rear as well as a fin or a fluke like a whale? You know how a whale has flukes that spread out like this. Did you see anything like that?

L: No.

R: Anything in the front or sides that might look like fins or paddles or anything like that?

L: I can't recall that I saw anything like that, no.

R: Ok, how far then, Ok it [was] coming towards the shore then what finally happened?

L: Well, when it was coming toward us, then after that it started turning the other way again. I remember over there it starting going towards the southwest and then when it raised its head I would say it must have been from here to the end of that thin willow tree. So, that wasn't that far and then it kind of turned because we were looking and kind of making noise I guess. It kind of turned and started swimming.

R: Turned like broadside to you?

L: Yes, broadside. Like it was coming and just when of turned that way and it went that way. It didn't go any faster but we watched it for a little while and we were about that distance, about a quarter of a mile where we were with the truck, so we just left everything there and we took off with the truck and we came across here and we come to get these people that were living here.

R: Ok, that house was still there.

L: It was a house and not a cabin and we came to get them to see what we had seen and they did not want to come. They thought we were completely crazy. They said, you know, you are stupid, you a dumb, we are not going. So, ok that's fine, don't come.

R: Now as it was leaving it would be going almost south?

L: Well, it kind of turned and went like you know away from the shore and it just kept going south.

R: Do you know right out here does it drop off pretty fast in 10 or 15 feet?

L: Well, you don't have to go very far for the water to be deep. It you go 20-25 feet the water is deep.

R: Then, did you go home and tell your parents? How old were you then? You were in high school then?

L: Yes, that was in 1957 and I was born in 1941, so I would have been about 18.

R: Then you told your parents about it?

L: Oh, definitely I told my parents and they got all excited about it and from there it went to.....The man that was looking over Manitoba beach was Tom Locky and he, I don't think he is living anymore, but he was the main like the supervisor of all parks and I told him and he right away got ahold of the media, the CTDM in Daufin, the Winnipeg Free Press and in a day or two the Winnipeg Free Press was here and Winnipeg TV and it was on the radio and all that. Then, later on in life he seen it himself. Mr. Locky, yes, he seen it but he passed away.

R: Before this time, before you saw it had you heard stories about it or were you aware of it at all.

L: Yes, I was aware of it. There was Pete Adam and there was a Carl Adam and his sister, Lucille Adam, had seen it in Crane River. There was not too many people had seen it so far. There was maybe two, three. Then after that, when I seen it then after that there was a few more after that and that was it.

R: It seems like there have been a few sightings every year off and on for a few years.

L: There hasn't been for quite a few years now. I don't know, someplace.

R: Now in the newspaper it says they went over to Eagle Point and hiked back into Steep Rock Lake. Do you know why they decided that was the place to look for it?

L: Well, Eagle Point I think there is a cave there or something.

R: Yes, they said there was, well the newspaper article seemed to indicate that the cave was back at Steep Rock Lake, but you are thinking maybe the cave is right there a Eagle Point.

L: Well, one or the other because I remember them going to look out there and there is a cave and it is still there but I am not sure if it is Eagle Point or Steep Rock Bay.

R: Oh, maybe Steep Rock Bay, because it sounded like they walked up the creek to Steep Rock Lake, that bog back there.

L: There is a big stone ridge there. It is all stone in there and that is why they call it Steep Rock and it just drops right down.

R: At the bay though, so maybe we are still looking at the wrong place. Maybe Steep Rock Bay is where we should look. Maybe a cave along the edge of the cliff there.

L: My cousins know all about that. Clemon Bretecher lives just the other side of the lake there and he has got cattle. They use that Steep Rock for pasture.

R: The bay area or up to the lake too?

L: Yes, up to the lake. He would know more. He lives just the other side of the lake there.

R: He might even know where the cave is.

L: Oh yeh, I think he does, yep.

Trician McGlenn: Did you want to ask about the weather and the time of day?

R: What was the weather like?

L: It was nice and sunny.

R: Was it very windy or was the water fairly calm?

L: The water was, I would say, about like right now. Not calmed down but it wasn't the waves where you see the waves.

R: Was it morning or afternoon?

L: It was later on in the afternoon, I would say about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We had been hauling gravel most of the afternoon because I remember going to see these people and they were going to just have supper before too long. That is when they told us to get lost.

R: Now, the man who was working with you, how did he respond? He saw it too, right?

L: Oh yes. He was quite excited and then he was from Stonan Manitoba, which was about 40 miles north of here and he took his story home. He was an Indian.

R: Now he was an Indian. Do you know if the Indians had any stories or legends about this creature?

L: There were some that had some stories but then the one or two that I know off have passed away already too.

R: The newspaper said there was a LaFleur, an Indian man that took them over the Eagle Point. I can't remember his name. Fleury I think it was.

L: Marshtan Fleury. He passed away too. That is the one that I was thinking of that saw it a long time ago.

R: Did you have any other questions?

T: What time of the year?

R: Oh, do you know what month that was? Was it September? The newspaper article was dated September, but I didn't know if that…

T: It might have been before if he was working and not in school. It could have been in August because they came a couple weeks later.

L: Yes they came a couple weeks later, well a couple days later. They came as soon as Tom Locke told them and really Tom Locke, he was a nice guy but he told them about it and he teased me because I was fairly young at that time, about 18 or 19 and every time he would see me he would like of laugh at me about the Monapogo and I kind of laughed at him because about 4 or 5 years later he was fishing with his wife and some friends and they spotted it.

R: Did you write down Tom Locke?

T: He passed away, right?

L: Yah, I don't know if Mrs. Locke is even living anymore, but he passed away. He was in ......ok River.

R: Did you talk to him after he saw it then and what did he say?

L: Well, we had kind of the same story. They were in a boat and they were fishing and they seen it out at Crane River also. There is a little bay in Crane River there and people fish off the bridge, but I remember him saying that he was out in the bay and they were fishing and all of a sudden they noticed this thing coming towards them. Then the same thing, it kind of got out of the water a little bit and then it took off.

R: Did you have any theories about, maybe it is just curious do you think and maybe he was attracted by the noise of you working or them fishing or something.

L: I don't know what made it come this way, really. I don't know if it could have been the noise. I doubt it very much. I think it was just the way it was traveling and then when it heard us I think that is when it turned away from us.

Mary: It didn't make any noise that you heard, huh?

L: No it didn't make no noise. It just lifted itself out of the water, you know, maybe I would say it was a good 10 feet out of the water, yeh, 10 feet of the whole thing. We could see it real good. I can still remember just like the day that I seen it.

R: He lifted his head over 10 feet up?

L: Yeh, the body and the head and then he just let it go down.

R: He kind of slapped the water when it came down?

L: Well, yeh, with the weight it kind of slapped the water. I knew it was a big reptile or something pretty huge because when it was going sideways. We couldn't see it this way. We thought it was ducks coming. Little ducks sometimes follow each other in a row, but they kind of spread out and make a V. When it was straight and raised itself out of the water, I could see that it wasn't duck anymore because it was going like this. That is when I could tell the length of it because it had about 6 lumps in there, at least 6 humps.

T: What about Bird Island?

L: Oh, Bergs Island?

R: Well, there is an island up here, a pure white island with all the birds on it, is that called Bergs Island? Now, as we drove up there, we were over at Eagle Point.

L: You went to Eagle Point already?

R: Yes, today and we hiked clear back to Steep Rock Lake thinking that is where they hiked and we followed the creek up there but we could not find any cave. So, maybe it is Steep Rock Bay that is where we should be looking.
*******

In a recent posting by Jay Cooney about a horse-headed "Sea Serpent" reported recently in Maine, I mentioned that the swoimming moose series of reports featured a horselike head of about a yard long across the board- that the head was an unvarying feature no matter how long the rst of the creature was supposed to be (because the "Body" is only the illusion caused by waves in the wake anyway). Jay was skeptical of this but the 3 foot long horselike head alone I would consider as diagnostic of a swimming moose report. That is what Louis Breteche reported about Manipogo, except that at one point the creature reared up ten feet or so and plunged back down. A moose is large enough that it actually is capable of rearing up ten feet and still keep its rear quarters in the water. In cases in Maine, Nova Scotia and in the case of Manipogo we have a solid minimum length statement given  as 12 feet long. That is the approximate length of a full-grown moose. See the dimensions of the lifesized statue advertised below:

 
--Which also gives you the impression of how big the moose could rear up in the water if it wanted to. It is easy to distinguish the swimming moose reports from the Longnecks because the head is larger (half again on average), the neck is shorter and thicker (Head and neck less than half the length and probably twice as thick) and there is often some giveaway other feature such as the hairy coat, ears or the bell/beard. in the case of Louis Breteche's report, he said he did not see ears but his sketch indicates something that looks like ears in the right location to actually be ears. And the position of the eyes and shape of the nostrils are also dead giveaways. The allegation that the head looks like a horse's or a camel's is often enough. The swimming moose can also sometimes be heard to give a peculiar loud bleating cry.

To look at other sites that mention Manipogo, some viewed with skepticism, check these:

http://www.theshadowlands.net/serpent2.htm
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/chaney/627/manipogo.htm
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf053/sf053b10.htm
http://www.unmuseum.org/nlake.htm
http://paranormal.about.com/cs/sealakemonsters/index_2.htm
http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/lakemonsters.htm
http://www.strangemag.com/ogopogo.html
http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/nlake.htm



Summer 2000 Reports
[Reports by teams that did interviews of local folks and Native Americans (First Nation peoples) We plan to follow up on these leads next summer.]
Report to Mr. Russ Mc Glenn on interview with Abigail Moar at Band office on reservation at Crane River, Manitoba Canada conducted by Ron Green, Bill Olmsted and Luella Jensen and prepared by Ronald M. Green 9/18/00.
Her great grandfather saw the “dragon with a horse head.” He saw him at least 50 years ago. Crane River is 40 feet across, pretty deep in some spots. Is Crane River the same as “Lake Manitoba River” which runs through the town of Crane River?—Probably so. [Need to follow up on this location]
Abigail's mother in law was there and saw it half on the shore half in the water. I believe this was the same sighting as what her great grandfather had. A teacher was with her and saw it too and then fainted. said Luella: “You don't faint if you see a log” Abigail said the teacher said it had a horse's head. The teacher who saw it is named Genevieve. She was out of town the week we interviewed Abigail.
Abigail mentioned that nearby on Louis's Island there were caves there that had pictures (drawings) of three (?) men and a horse. It didn't seem to myself and Bill Olmsted that these were related to what we were looking for because there was no mention of it being serpent-like drawing, but of just a horse. Someone there at the office could guide us to that cave—but again that man was gone for the weekend. [This may be a drawing of the creature as many eyewitnesses say the head of the creature looks like a horse. We hope to send a team to explore this island next summer]
Other information:
In calling back to the Waterhen Inn, the lady who was the owner's wife told me that she knows of someone who saw something akin to the creature (or the same) we are looking for just three years ago. The person to contact about this is Mr. Camille Catcheway who lives at Water Hen First Nation on the Skownan Reservation. This sighting was on Water Hen Lake, 20 miles north of where we were staying.

http://tccsa.tc/adventure/manipogo.html

Although the outline as given at top is more of a standard "Lake Monster" impression, the prominent single shoulder hump with the following slope of the back is also a dead giveaway for a swimming moose report.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manipogo

Manipogo

 is the name given to the lake monster reported to live in Lake Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada. Sightings of this serpent-like sea monster have been going on since roughly 1908. The creature was dubbed Manipogo in 1957, the name echoing British Columbia'sOgopogo. There is also a Lake Winnipegosis sea monster called Winnepogo, thought possibly to be the same creature as the lakes are connected. Some[who?] have speculated that the monster sightings may be attributed to sightings of an unusually large lake sturgeon, or a relict population of prehistoric plesiosaurs. Although many experts[who?] believe the correct name is Winnipego, as confirmed by local residents.[clarification needed]
The monster is thought to be anywhere from 12 feet to 50 feet long. It is described as being "A long muddy-brown body with humps that show above the water, and a sheep-like head."[1]
There is a provincial park on the west shore of Lake Manitoba named Manipogo Provincial Park.
St Laurent, a community on the south east shores of Lake Manitoba, holds a Manipogo festival the first week of March every year.
Since the 1800s, people have claimed to have seen the sea monster Manipogo.[2]
The local native population has legends of serpent-like creatures in Lake Manitoba going back hundreds of years.
A group of seventeen witnesses, all reportedly strangers to one another, claimed to have spotted three Manipogos swimming together.[3]
In the early 1960s, Professor James A. McLeod of Manitoba University investigated the creature by trying to locate its remains. If there is a breeding population in the lake, they should be leaving carcasses and bones when they die. McLeod found none.

Alleged sightings

  • 1935: Timber inspector C. F. Ross and a friend saw the creature. On its head was a single horn and its head was small and flat. To them it looked very much like a dinosaur.
  • 1948: C. P. Alric reported that some sort of creature rose six feet out of the lake and gave a "prehistoric type of dinosaur cry".
  • 1957: Louis Belcher and Eddie Nipanik saw a giant serpent-like creature in the lake.
  • 1962: Two fishermen, Richard Vincent and John Konefell, saw a large creature like a serpent or giant snake 60 yards away from their boat. (Storm, 38)
  • 1960s: Around the 1960s, Mr. and Mrs. Stople saw a “reptile-like beast surfacing about thirty feet from their boat
  • 1989: Sean Smith and family visiting from Minneapolis on a camping trip stayed at Shallow point off highway #6 on Lake Manitoba and saw what he described as 'many humps" in the lake about 80 feet off shore.
  • 1997: Several reports by cross country campers from Quebec staying at Lundar Beach campground saw what appeared to be a large reptile head rise and fall in the water several hundred feet off shore. Swimmers were evacuated from the water; the head only appeared one time. It was dismissed as a floating log, but no log was seen afterwards.
  • 2004: Commercial fisherman Keith Haden, originally from Newfoundland, reported several of his fishing nets on Lake Manitoba near the narrows one day to be torn up by what seemed like an ocean shark or killer whale. The fish that were in the nets were not nibbled on, but actually torn in half, by what seemed like huge bites.[Possible giant otter?-DD]
  • 2009: Several residents at Twin Lakes Beach reported seeing several humps a few hundred yards from their lake-front cottages. No photos were taken.
  • 2011: Many sightings of several humps emerging and then submerging seen offshore at locations like Marshy Point, Scotch Bay, and Laurentia Beach by security personal patrolling flooded cottage and home areas.
  • 2012: Aug. 9 @ 9pm just off shore of Outlet at Twin Beach Rd. Surfaced twice, showing a scaled / sawtooth jagged back of that of a giant Sturgeon.

Television

Manipogo was featured on an episode of the television documentary series Northern Mysteries

http://www.bcscc.ca/manipogo.htm
 Manipogo (Lake Manitoba)

The Manitoba lake systems and communities.Copyright Hammersmith Books.In 1997 a hoax was perpetrated claiming that Manipogo the monster of the Manitoba lake system had been captured and killed by a local farmer who saw the creature out of water and promptly shot it. The farmer was alleged to have hidden the creature in barn near the sandy point native reservation and was offering it for sale at a price of $200,000.
The Royal Canadian Mounted police Detachment at the resevation were supposed to have seen the creature, but the story began to unravel when the RCMP officer-in-charge denied that any such creature had been apprehended. That did not stop major Canadian newspapers and news services from running the story as if it were acknowledged fact, but thanks to the efforts of contacts of noted Fortean author Loren Coleman and the Manitoba UFO Research Association it was discovered that the story was utterly false and had been the work of a practical joker.
While the "Manipogo" flap was quite fictional, there remains the fact that animals of unclassified type inhabit lakes Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, Manitoba, Dauphin, Cedar and Dirty. Since the early 1900s Manipogo has made sporadic appearances in the lakes which are all quite shallow and interlinked through amzae of rivers and streams. It is no surprise that so many lakes should boast this snakey creature as it is so very easy to swim through this natural waterway.
Variously described as black or muddy brown in colour, Manipogo is an elongated creature with its body frequently showing as a series of arches above the surface. Most witnesses have described being able to see under the arches meaning that the back sections rise well out of the water. Measuring from 12 to over 50 feet in length, Manipogos are reluctant to show their heads, but when they have been seen they have always been regarded by thos epresent to be rather like a snake or sheep in shape.
In 1962 the animal was apparently photographed by two recreational fishermen who spotted the cryptid crossing the lake in front of their boat (above). Richard Vincent, operations manager for TV station CKND and an American television commentator by the name of John Konefell first sighted something in the water 300 yards infront of their boat. They believed it to be Manipogo and were fortunate enough to have a camera handy, so they availed themselves of the opportunity an promptly snapped a photo of the creature afterthey had moved closer to it. The original uncropped photograph includes the gunwhale of the boat which can be used for comparison purposes when attempting to determine the size of the object and it can be determined that the object is about two feet out of the water. At least 12 feet of the creature's length was visible above the surface and it appeared to be approximately 12 inches in diameter. The men claimed to have watched the creature for more than 5 minutes before it vanished. Their ten horsepower boat was unable to keep up with the speedy creature so they were always behind the animal.
In 1974 Vincent was asked about his experience with the strange thing in his photo, but cryptically he refused to say that he had seen Manipogo, but preferred to say that he witnessed and photographed "something" in the lake. A number of investigators have posited that the object bears a strong resemblance to nothing [more unusual than] a log with a bent branch arching over. This is a perfectly plausible explanation and is more likely than Manipogo. There is also the absence of a discernible wake in the photo which must have been created by an animal which was allegedly swimming faster than a 10 HP motorboat. Interesting as the Vincent/Konefell may be it is not acceptable evidence of a creature living in the Manitoba Lakes.
Veteran researcher and writer, Gary Mangiacopra has theorised that Manipogo may well be a left over population of zeuglodons (basilosaurus) which were thought to have died out tens of millions of years ago. This theory is also held by Dr. Roy Mackal of Loch Ness fame, but a problem arises with Mangiacopra and Mackal's identification. The Manitoba lakes are usually frozen in winter and as zeuglodons were air breathers, they would, of necessity be forced to migrate via the Nelson River to Hudson's Bay where large sections remain free of ice. Even if they were able to reach the Nelson River they would have to overcome numerous manmade and natural obstructions which would prevent them from even arriving at the starting point of their voyage to Hudson's Bay.
Manipogo has been seen frequently in one particular location since the beginning of summer, 1999. As investigations of a spate of sightings is presently underway, we are unable to divulge the location until our investigators have completed their research and return with their pertinent findings.
The content of this page are the respective copyright of Orbis Books,
Richard Vincent and John Kirk, 1987, 1962, 1996.
This is probably a twisted piece of driftwood
it is not swimming faster than the water flow and hence it is not making any wake.
 
Water Horse=Moose

ADDITIONAL INFO FROM EBERHART, MYSTERIOUS CREATURES:
[NB especially reports with the recurring features of head about three feet long, total length about 12-15 feet long, dark brown colour, single hump on shoulders, and mane or beard]

Maner
A category of Sea Monsteridentified by Gary Mangiacopra.
Physical description: Serpentine or eel-like. Length, 15–50 feet.
 Horselike or snakelike flat head, 3 feet long, tapering down to the muzzle. Enormous eyes. Slender neck, 10 feet long or more. A mane or beard has been reported. Round tail, either fanlike or tapering to a point.
Behavior: Swims rapidly by squirming. Churns up the water. Spouts. Curious and cautious; sometimes playful. Has been reported to circle a boat, jump completely out of the water, and land on its stomach.[More likely try to board the boat by climbing over the side]
Distribution: North Atlantic Ocean along the coast of the United States. ... Present status: Similar to Bernard Heuvelmans’s Merhorse. Possible explanation: An unknown mammal, perhaps related to the Seals (Suborder Pinnipedia). Sources: “The Sea Serpent,” St. Louis Globe- Democrat, September 27, 1888, p. 6; “Sea Serpent Hits Hell Gate Pilot,” New York Herald, August 11, 1902, p. 12; Gary S. Mangiacopra, “The Great Unknowns of the 19th Century,” Of Sea and Shore 8, no. 3 (Fall 1977): 175–178. [This clearly conflates the mooselike Northern Water Horse reports with the more conventional SeaSerpent reports seen in other areas further South. Eberhart gives as examples the more typical Sea-serpent reports from further South and I deleted them here]

Manipogo
Freshwater Monster of Manitoba, Canada. Etymology: Named by Tom Locke in 1960, in imitation of Ogopogo. Variant name: Manny. Physical description: Serpentine. Length, 10–40 feet [Commonly 15-20]. Brownish-black upper body. At least one hump. Flat, diamond-shaped [or horselike] head. Behavior: Bellows like a train whistle. Distribution: Lake Manitoba, Manitoba. The animal’s name is also used as a synonym for Winnipogo in other Manitoban lakes.
Significant sightings: Louis Betecher and Eddie Nipanik saw a serpentine animal in the lake in 1957. On August 10, 1960, government land inspector Tom Locke and sixteen other witnesses saw three creatures swimming offshore near Manipogo Beach. They looked like huge, darkbrown snakes. Many other sightings were reported that summer. Zoologist James A.McLeod led an expedition to Lake Manitoba later in the year and interviewed many residents.
Richard Vincent and John Konefall saw a “large black snake or eel” off Meadow Portage on August 12, 1962. Vincent took three photos, one of which shows an elongated, snakelike object with a hump. Unfortunately, some inconsistencies have undermined the credibility of this case.
In the summer of 1987, Allen McLean and his family were boating in Portage Bay when they saw a large, black object swimming toward them. Sources: Winnipeg Free Press, August 5, 1961, and August 15, 1962; Chris Rutkowski, Unnatural History: True Manitoba Mysteries (Winnipeg, Canada: Chameleon, 1993), pp. 137–147.
Winnipogo
FRESHWATER MONSTER of Manitoba, Canada. Etymology: In imitation of OGOPOGO. Physical description: Diameter, 2 feet 6 inches. Small, flat [or Horselike] head. Head and neck 4-5 feet long.
Distribution: Lake Winnipegosis and Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba. Significant sightings: Oscar Frederickson was shooting ducks at Fuller Bay, Lake Winnipegosis, in April 1918 when something large pushed up a big chunk of ice from below in about 3 feet of water. C. F. Ross and Tom Spence saw a dinosaurlike animal with a single horn in the back of its head at the north end of Lake Winnipegosis in 1935. A serpentine animal 15 feet long was rammed by a boat in July 1983 in Lake Winnipegosis off Pelican Rapids. A black creature was hit by a boat in July 1984 in Traverse Bay on Lake Winnipeg. Sources: Winnipeg Free Press, August 5, 1961, and August 15, 1962; Dorothy Eber, “The Scientific Search for a Prehistoric Monster,” Macleans 74 (August 12, 1961): 1; Waldemar Lehn, “Atmospheric Refraction and Lake Monsters,” Science 205 (July 13, 1979): 183; Chris Rutkowski, Unnatural History: True Manitoba Mysteries (Winnipeg, Man., Canada: Chameleon, 1993), pp. 137–147. [A deerlike animal or moose could be sheding antlers and thus only have one of them when sighted]

Horse’s Head
Freshwater Monsterof Québec, Canada. Variant name: Misiganebic [Horned Serpent]. Physical description: Length, 6–30 feet [Average is 12-18 feet]. Head is like a horse’s. Behavior: Swims swiftly. Travels on land between lakes. Tourists used to put cartons of cream in the water for the monster to drink.[Leaves cloven-hoofed footprints on land, said to be reversed]
Distribution: Baskatong Lake, Lac Bitobi, Lac Blue Sea, Lac-des-Cèdres, Lac Creux, Lac Désert, Gatineau River, Lac Pocknock, and Lac Trente-et-un-Milles, all in Québec. Significant sighting: Around 1910, Olivier Garneau was fishing in Lac Blue Sea when he saw a 10-foot animal with a horse’s head rise up out of the water. Source: Michel Meurger and Claude Gagnon, Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross- Cultural Analysis (London: Fortean Tomes, 1988), pp. 104–110.
Cheval Marin
Sea Monster of the coastal waters of Canada and West Africa.
Etymology: French, “sea horse.”
Physical description: Horselike head. Clawed (cloven hooved) forearms. Fishlike, scaly tail(Wake).
Size: 12-15 feet long
Behavior: Neighs like a horse. Distribution: Île Brion and Rivière-St.-Jean, Québec, Canada; West Africa.
Possible explanations: (1) Explorer Jacques Cartier saw two Walruses (Odobenus rosmarus)(?) on the Île Brion in 1534 and fish-shaped, horselike animals in a river that may have been the modern Rivière-St.-Jean off the St. Lawrence. The French naturalist Louis Nicolas conflated the two stories and mixed in Native American legends of the Horse’s Head to describe a composite animal.
(2) Early reports from French Africa may have confused the Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) and the West African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis).[Need to drop this out]
(3) A Sea Monster resembling Heuvelmans’s Merhorse.
Sources: Marc Lescarbot, History of New France [1609], trans. Henry Percival Biggar (Toronto, Canada: Champlain Society, 1907–1914), vol. 7, p. 73; Gabriel Sagard, Le grand voyage du pays des Hurons [1632], ed. Marcel Trudel (Montreal, Canada: Hurtubise HMH, 1976); Girolamo Merolla, A Voyage to Congo [1682], in Awnsham Churchill, ed., A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London: A. and J. Churchill, 1704), vol. 1, pp. 651–756; Henry Percival Biggar, The Voyages of Jacques Cartier (Ottawa: F. A. Acland, 1924); Michel Meurger and Claude Gagnon, Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (London: Fortean Tomes, 1988), pp. 211–216.

[Eich Uisige/Water Horse tradition also noted in Newfoundland and other parts of Eastern Canada]
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Wiwiliámecq’ and the New England Whale-Eater

September 15, 2013, 3:46 am
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                                (Photo credit, Gerry Biron: 2 of them are shown)
 
I found something interesting while surfing the net and unfortunately it involves another ambiguous use of "Monster" names
http://www.native-languages.org/weewillmekq.htm

Name: Weewillmekq
Tribal affiliation:Maliseet, Passamaquoddy
Alternate spellings: Wiwilomeq, Wiwilmekw, Wiwilmeku, Weewilmekq, Wiwillmekq', Wiwilameq, Wiwilemekw, Wiwila'mecq, Wewillemuck, Wiwiliamecq', Wiwil'mekq, Wiwilmeku, Wee-Will-l'mick, Wee-wil-li-ah-mek, Wee-wil-'l-mekqu'
Pronunciation: wee-will-uh-meck-w
Type:Lake monster, serpent
Related figures in other tribes: Axxea (Cheyenne), Apotamkin (Passamaquoddy)Axxea Although this monster features in several Wabanaki tales, little information about it has survived. It was certainly a water monster, but is variously described as resembling a giant snail, leech or slug, worm, or alligator. Some Wabanaki people believe Weewillmekq was actually the same creature as Kci Athusoss, but in other legends the two monsters were said to fight one another.
[Kci-Athussos is an underwater horned serpent, common to the legends of most Algonquian tribes. It is said to lurk in lakes and eat humans. Its Maliseet-Passamaquoddy name literally means Great Serpent.]

Weewillmekq Stories

The Magic of the Weewillmekq'*The Dance of Old Age:
    Stories about the magic healing powers of the horns of the Wiwilomeq.
*How a Woman Lost a Gun for Fear of the Weewillmekq':
    19th-century story about a boastful woman who was not as brave as she claimed to be.
*Jipijka'm and Weewillmekq':
    Tales about the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet horned serpents.
*Weewilmekq and Kitchi-at'Husis:
    Story of a fight between two Wabanaki water monsters.

Recommended Books of Related Native American Legends

Giants of the Dawnland:
    Good collection of Wabanaki legends told by a Penobscot Indian author.
On the Trail of Elder Brother:
    Another good book of traditional stories told by a Mi'kmaq author and illustrator.
Algonquian Spirit:
    Excellent anthology of stories, songs, and oral history from the Maliseet and other Algonquian tribes.
When the Chenoo Howls:
    Eerie collection of Native American ghost stories and monster tales.

In this case we do have a traditional Horned serpent which is alternatively said to be like a snail or a worm, the horns in this case meaning to be like snail's horns. The length of this one is given as approximately 30-50 feet and it is probably based on the standard Longneck (although mistaken impressions of other natural phenomena and other traditions got grafted onto it). The other component is the Alligator like form that was one of the originally different things that got grafted onto the tradition, and the Alligator like one is the one depicted in the carving at the top of this entry. It is twice the length of the other, 60-100 feet long according to other references.

George Eberhart's Mysterious Creatures describes the creature in this way:

Wiwiliámecq’

FRESHWATER MONSTER of northeastern North America.
Etymology: Abnaki-Penobscot and Malecite- Passamaquoddy (Algonquian), “snail.” Variant names: Weewilmekq, Wiwil’mékq, Wiwilmeku.
Physical description: Serpentine. Length, 30–40 feet. Soft horns. Behavior: Lurks under waterfalls. Habitat: Both freshwater and saltwater. Distribution: Boyden Lake, Maine; New Brunswick, Canada. Significant sighting: The eighteenth-century Penobscot shaman Old John Neptune (or, more probably, a similarly named ancestor) battled an enemy Micmac warrior who took the form of his familiar spirit, a huge water snake, on the east side of Boyden Lake. Sources: Charles Leland, Algonquin Legends of New England (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), pp. 324–329, 345–347; Albert S. Gatschet, “Water-Monsters of American Aborigines,” Journal of American Folklore 12 (1899): 255–260; Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Old John Neptune and Other Maine Indian Shamans (Portland, Me.: Southworth- Anthoensen Press, 1945), pp. 39–48.

In other words the battle would have looked like THIS:

 
And both types of Sea Serpent are reported in the Massachussets Bay area. We have had a few mentions of the situation recently with this as an outstanding example:
 
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/08/more-sea-serpents-from-ivan-sandersons.html

 #72: South Pacific [position undisclosed (Actually NW of the Marquesas)], 1852. A whaling vessel [The Monongahela-DD] encountered something that captain and crew did not recognize as being any sort of whale. It was black, serpentine and moved with a snake-like motion. After some debate, they decided to chase the thing as they would a whale, harpooning it and killing it. It was 103' long. with a 6' diameter neck, widening to 8' at "shoulders". The body was about 16' at its broadest. The tail diminished to a point. The head was flat-topped and elongated. Its tongue was tipped with a "heart-shape". It had 94 teeth. Two spout holes, and four webbed paws. The back was black, the sides brown, and the belly yellow. They dismembered the thing as they would a Whale, but decided not to try to bring any of the bulk of it home. [I believe that some accident also occurred which flushed the evidence-ITS]. Oh well, such is Cryptozoology. [The Monongahela was later wrecked with a loss of all hands after the message was sent home by another ship in a parcel of letters. The authenticity of the letters was vouched for by the captain's surviving relatives and the letters together with the accompanying affidavits are now in the archives of the New Bedford Whaling museum. Several important points which needed to be specified!-DD]

#73: New Bedford, MA, 1964. An animal 50' long was seen just 50-100' off starboard. Water was "Flat and calm as a mill pond". The head was shaped alligator-ish, with lumps all along its midline, like camel humps. Head was also huge, about 20' long. The thing had a blow-hole, but was without a discernible neck. Body was dark but with white spotting. Its tail was like a lobster's and it flapped it upon the water. It paralleled the boat for some time and seemed "friendly". [Hey boys, come on in; the water's fine...]. [This one sighted by the Blue Sea was likely a whale but it is usually included together with the next one because both have "Alligator heads"-DD]

#74: New Bedford, MA, 1957. A creature with a very large body [of which 40' could be seen out of the water], was estimated at weighing over 35-40 tons. It had a seal-like shaped body but a long neck which held its head 26' out of the water. The head was "alligator-ish". It sported a mane of bristly hair.[The Noreen report, probably a "Whale-Eater" or the same as the Monongahela creature, and the midline crest is more ordinarily called a fin-DD]

The head and neck Periscope of the Whale-Eater type is commonly estimated to measure 25 feet, 10 feet of neck and 15 for the head, and this is also given in the case of the Monongehela creature. Hence it is not really the long neck that is so distinctive as it is the big head. Sightings of creatures with the head "the size of a rowboat" are uncommon but are on record off both New England and also Scandinavia, and sometimes in association with trains of the very large humps that could be due to pods of whales (hence the very largest "Super-otters" of absolutely fantastic dimensions) So once again we have our Whale-eater out chasing whales.
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Administrative Notice

September 16, 2013, 4:50 am
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The Blogs are going on hiatus this week as selections are being pulled with the idea of having them published in book form. Readers shall be posted when the procedure is done, but it should not take longer than a week.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

PS, this also means that any comments which might be added will not be answered for the duration. That is also understood within the terms of "This blog is under hiatus"
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New Species Discovered in Amazon Rain Forest

November 1, 2013, 1:05 pm
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New Species Discovered in Amazon Rain Forest

From Animal Planet


Allobated amissibilis: Kok, P.J.R., Hölting, M., Ernst, R. (in press 2013) A third microendemic to the Iwokrama Mountains of central Guyana: a new "cryptic" species of AllobatesImage Credit: © Philippe Kok
 

Apistogramma cinilabra: Description of a potentially endangered endemic cichlid species (Teleostei: Perciformes: Chichlidae) from the Departamento Loreto, Peru.Image Credit: © Uwe Rîmer


Callicebus caquetensis Bueno; Marta; Garcia, Javier (2010). "Callicebus caquetensis: A New and Critically Endangered Titi Monkey from Southern Caquetá, Colombia". Primate Conservation.Image Credit: © Javier Garcia

Cercosaura hypnoides: Doan T.M. and Lamar W.W. 2012. A new montane species of Cercosaura (Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae) from Colombia, with notes on the distribution of the genus.Image Credit: © Tiffany M Doan



Chrionius Challenger: Kok, P. J. R. 2010. A new species of ChironiusFitzinger, 1826 (Squamata: Colubridae) from the Pantepui region, northeastern South America.Image Credit: © Philippe Kok


Dicrossus Warzeli: two new cichlid species from the Rio Negro and the Rio Tapajós, Amazon drainage, Brazil.Image Credit: © Frank Warzel


Gonatodes timidus: This extraordinary-looking species of lizard was discovered in 2011 in the part of the Amazon that extends into Guyana.Image Credit: © Philippe Kok


Passiflora longifilamentosa: A new species of passion flower was discovered in the rainforests of the Brazilian state of Para in 2013. Passion flowers are evergreen climbers with exotic looking flowers, often accompanied by brightly coloured fruits.Image Credit: © João Batista Fernandes da Silva

Potamotrygon tatianae: Silva, J.P.C.B. da and M.R. de Carvalho, 2011. A new species of neotropical freshwater stingray of the genus Potamotrygon Garman 1877 from the Río Madre de Díos, PeruImage Credit: © F. Reyda


Sobralia imavierae: Sobralia imavieirae Campacci & J.B.F.Silva, Colet. Orquídeas Brasil.Image Credit: © Andre Cardoso


Tometes Camunani: Andrade, M.C., Giarrizzo, T. & Jégu, M. (2013): Tometes camunani (Characiformes: Tometes camunani Andrade et al., 2013 Neotropical Ichthyology,Image Credit: © Tommaso Giarrizzo


http://animal.discovery.com/wild-animals/photos/amazon-rain-forest-new-species.htm#mkcpgn=fbapl14
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