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CONTEMPLATING THE CON RIT
Tim Morris's excellent reconstruction of the con rit as a giant marine crustacean, based upon my proposed identity for it in my 1995 book In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (© Tim Morris)When it...
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BIRD-EATING DEER AND FLESH-EATING SHEEP – A GRUESOME SELECTION OF UNEXPECTED...
Red deer - not always strictly vegetarianOriginally uploaded onto YouTube on 16 May 2010, but currently going viral again, is a short wildlife video by Linda Ford from the USA that films in her own...
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DOMINICA'S DEAD PARROT - A PERFECT PICTURE OF MYSTERY?
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } Close-up of the mystery parrot in Bartholomeus van Bassen's famous painting 'Renaissance Interior With Banqueters' (1618-1620) (this high-res image supplied to me...
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THE SHAMIR AND THE STONE WORM
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } The first of two engravings of a medieval and highly mysterious stone worm contained within a late 17th-Century book by Eberhard Werner HappelThere are a number of...
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TEN OF MY FAVOURITE CRYPTOZOOLOGY-LINKED LOCATIONS IN BRITAIN
Nessie and family ((c) Richard Svensson)What do Cannock Chase, Renwick, Exmoor, Drummans, Falmouth Bay, and Bala Lake all have in common? If I added Loch Ness to the list, I'm sure that you'd guess...
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MIDAS MARSUPIALS - THE GOLDEN WONDER OF GOLDEN WOMBATS
Icy (on left, held by Senior Keeper Karen Davis) and Polar (on right, held by Education Officer Claire Peterson) - two golden-furred specimens of southern hairy-nosed wombat housed at...
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IN SEARCH OF PREHISTORIC SURVIVORS - HOW IT CAME TO BE, AND WILL BE AGAIN...
Of all of my 20 books, none has attracted such acclaim but also such controversy as In Search of Prehistoric Survivors. Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of its original publication in 1995, and...
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ANOMALOUS JAGUARS AND OTHER SPECKLED MYSTERY CATS FROM SOUTH AMERICA
Jardine's enigmatic 19th-Century illustration of a putative speckle-coated jaguarI was pleased to learn yesterday that the long-awaited paper that I obliquely alluded to in my book Cats of Magic,...
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ALBERTUS SEBA AND A PAIR OF SPECKLE-COATED MYSTERY BIG CATS FROM THE 1750S
A pair of anomalous speckle-coated 'tigers' depicted in a 1750s plate from Albertus Seba's ThesaurusIn yesterday's ShukerNature blog post (click here), I presented a selection of speckle-coated mystery...
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THE STRIPED ANTEATER THAT MADE A BUFFOON OUT OF BUFFON
Colour plate of the fraudulent striped tamandua from Buffon's Histoire Naturelle (1749-1788)There are four recognised species of modern-day South American anteater – or vermilinguan, to be...
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REMEMBERING MY MOTHER
Mom, wearing the beautiful protea-decorated coat that she purchased in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2008 (© Dr Karl Shuker)Today it is one year since, on Easter Monday (1 April) 2013, my dear mother,...
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WHEN FLYING CATS WERE FLYING LEMURS
Ventral and dorsal view of a Philippines colugo, plus an American false vampire bat (above), depicted in Plate 58 from the first volume of Albertus Seba's Thesaurus (1734)Colugos must surely be among...
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DID I SEE AN UNDISCOVERED SPECIES OF GIANT PRAYING MANTIS IN SOUTH AFRICA?
19th-Century engraving of a praying mantisThe longest species of praying mantis currently known to science is the giant stick mantis Ischnomantis gigas. Brown in colour, enabling it to blend in with...
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WRONG-FOOTING A ONE-LEGGED MYSTERY SNAKE FROM CHINA
Close-up photo of China's one-legged mystery snake (© CEN/Europics) - click it to enlarge itSome zoological photographs are so bizarre that long after they first hit the news headlines, they still...
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WHITHER THE LOST WHITE EAGLES OF EUROPE AND AMERICA?
On Easter Monday 2013, my dear mother, Mary Shuker, passed away. So today, on Easter Monday 2014, I am dedicating this ShukerNature blog post to her. God bless you, little Mom - I shall always love...
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SOME FISHY FINDINGS REGARDING THE MONSTERS OF RUSSIA'S LAKE LABYNKYR
The burbot – does this unusual fish hold the key to the monsters of LakeLabynkyr?Almost 9 miles long, 2.5 miles wide, and up to 260 ft deep in one particular section, LakeLabynkyr in far-eastern...
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AN EXPLOSIVE ENIGMA FROM KALMYKIA – THE 'OTHER' MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM?
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } Amphisbaenians and a tentacled caecilian illustrated in an engraving from 1811 – could the exploding 'worm' of Kalmykia be allied to one of these limbless herpetological...
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THE PERILS OF PANGOLINS WHEN ENCOUNTERING LIVING DINOSAURS…?
Late 1800s engraving of a pangolinAlso known as scaly anteaters, pangolins are native to Africa and Asia, and have been implicated in certain cryptozoological cases - most notably the veo reported from...
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STRIPE ME - A SPOTTED ZEBRA!
The spotted zebra of Zambia's Rukwa Valley (copyright owner unknown to me) The fascinating - and genuine - photograph of a spotted zebra presented above appears commonly on the Net, but with no...
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CRYPTID HAS RETURNED! - ONE OF THE BEST BIGFOOT NOVELS IS NOW EVEN BETTER,...
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } The recently-published Author's Edition of Eric Penz's bigfoot novel Cryptid (© Eric Penz)Within my collection of cryptozoology-themed novels are several whose plots...
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