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Crypto-pedia II
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This is more information taken from various websites. Enjoy.
Crypto-Pedia part II
(more on) Thunderbird(s)
The Comanche tribe call it ba'a' and the Potawatomi use the name chequah, but most people know of this mystery animal as Thunderbird. Although gigantic birds are reported in the past and present from various areas of the globe, the Thunderbird is isolated to North America. Native Americans believed that these giant birds brought thunder and rain with them as they flew through the air by flapping their wings, and lightning by closing their eyes. Nevertheless, the distinction between the stories of the Native Americans and people of today are not too far apart. Modern reports of Thunderbirds arise from various locations in North America, with a large occurrence from Pennsylvania to the Central states. Mark A. Hall, one of the foremost investigators of the Thunderbird story, gives the following description of the avian cryptid drawn from numerous sightings:
"The bird is distinguished by its size and lifting capabilities exceeding those of any known bird living today anywhere in the world. Wingspan estimates are necessarily all guesswork. But observers sometimes have had the benefit of a measurable object for comparison or the benefit of time to observe a resting bird. The results most often provide sizes of 15 to 20 feet. The bird at rest or on the ground appears to be four to eight feet tall. Typically the coloring of the birds overall is dark.."
Remarkably, a bird of 15 feet in size would be the largest bird known in the world today. The largest wingspan known on a living bird is that of the wandering albatross (diomedea exulans) with a wingspan to 12 feet, and while not a predatory bird, it still boasts an impressive span. The Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) and the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) are among the largest predatory birds in the world, with the Andean condor reaching a wingspan of 10.5 feet and the California condor (the largest North American predatory bird) reaches a wingspan of up to 10 feet. These are all truly marvelous birds and respectable in their majesty.
But consider the Thunderbird, reputedly capable of lifting a deer or a person from the ground. The current predatory birds are not equipped with grasping feet that are strong enough to hold much weight, instead they live primarily as carrion eaters and are only seldom predatory, and then usually on smaller animals. Reports of the Thunderbird, however, describe lifting deer and humans off the ground.
Perhaps the most controversial inclusion of the Thunderbird capable of lifting a human comes from 1977 in Lawndale, Illinois. It was here that on July 25, 1977 towards 9:00 pm a group of three boys were in the backyard. They saw two large birds coming, and as the birds came in closer they went after the boys. Two of the boys escaped, but the third, Marlon Lowe, did not. One of the birds clamped onto his shoulder with its claws and proceeded to lift the ten year old boy about two feet off the ground for a distance of at least 30 yards. With screams of distress calling adults outside and coupled with a series of blows by the 65-pound boy, the bird finally released him. The boy was relatively unharmed, with psychological damage instead of physical.
Although viewed by some as a tall tale, the descriptions given by the witnesses of these birds describe a large black bird, with a white ring on its neck and a wingspan of up to 10 feet, traits oddly reminiscent of the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) which exhibits the same basic physical characteristics as that of the Lawndale bird. To this day, no one can explain away the incident from 1977 in any convincing manner, either the incident didn't happen or a large bird (of known or unknown status) attacked and carried a small boy one summer night to his and his family's terror.
The evidence thus far for the existence of a large undescribed predatory bird in North America is based on historical and modern anecdotal evidence with no physical evidence. There are however two tantalizing images of the Thunderbird, or at least of a large bird. The first was taken in the same year as Marlon Lowe's attack and in the same state. On July 30, 1977 John Huffer, an ex-marine and photographer, took a 100 foot roll of color film of two birds taking off from a tree in an inlet of Lake Shelbyville. The film concentrates on one of the birds only. Highly controversial, and thought by many to be of a turkey vulture, it sits as a little known film of a possible mystery animal. To date little, if any, evaluation of the birds in the film has been done. The Discovery Channel in their program "Into the Unknown" did give the film some mention, with a dismissal of a medium sized bird, probably a vulture.
The other possible photographic evidence is even more of a mystery, as it may not exist at all!! The image in question is the "Thunderbird Photograph" taken at the end of the nineteenth century in Texas. The image is said to depict six western clothed adult men, standing fingertip to fingertip in front of a barn where a large bird is nailed to the wall. Many have claimed to have seen or held this infamous image, including the late Ivan T. Sanderson who reportedly had acquired a photocopy of the image in 1966, the same year in which Sanderson gave the image, later lost, to a couple of men from Pennsylvania who were searching for the Thunderbird. The image has yet to surface, and may well not exist at all. The image was reported to have been published in 1886 in the Tombstone Arizona Epitaph, however this was somewhat dubiously reported in a 1963 article by Jack Pearl called "The Monster Bird That Carries Off Human Beings!" in Saga magazine. Searches of the Tombstone Epitaph have come up empty, aside from an article from April 26, 1890 of a 16 foot bird found in the desert by a couple of ranchers. So the mystery of the "Thunderbird Photo" is no closer to being solved then it was nearly 40 years ago during its first mention.
What then is the Thunderbird? It is a mystery. It has been reported by Native Americans and people today from all walks of life as an enormous bird, larger than any known species, but similar in appearance to a condor. Theories as to what the Thunderbird may be have run the gamut from surviving pterodactyls to the teratorns. The teratorns were large predatory birds from the Pleistocene that exhibited wingspans of upwards of 25 feet. Although thought to be extinct, their general presumed appearance is that of a giant condor-like species, similar in appearence to the Thunderbird. North America has many mysteries, among them the Thunderbird. These creatures are surely one of the most enigmatic cryptids in the world. With misinformation abounding, such as the "Thunderbird Photograph," and the lack of support in searching for these birds, it is no wonder that these creatures have evaded discovery like so many others from around the world.
By Craig Heinselman
Megalania
In this day and age, Australia is thought of as desert filled with eucalyptus trees and cotton plantations. The animals usually associated with this continent are koalas, kangaroo, wombats, and crocodiles, some of the largest to be found. There used to be other animals, commonly referred to as megafauna, that roamed this continent before being wiped out by plague or man. These were nightmarish versions of the creatures that we have today. Australia once held 10-foot tall kangaroos that fed on flesh rather than vegetation, and at one time had monitor lizards that dwarfed the Komodo dragon. This was megalania prisca, a reptile reaching 30 feet in length and weighing at least 1,000 pounds or more. The Komodo dragon is roughly the size of a lion, but megalania was bigger than an average dairy cow. Extinct megalania is listed with the many casualties of the Ice Age. Or is it extinct? The creature has been sighted many times in the last century, and some sightings suggest that it lives also in New Guinea.
During the middle of the day, a surveyor returned to his truck. Tired, he wanted nothing more than to go home. He spied what he thought was a fallen tree near his car. Blaming his fatigue for his lack of details he climbed in his car and slammed the door. The "log" suddenly bolted away! It ended up being a lizard of 15 feet in length. Australian cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy is convinced these creatures are still alive and it is only a matter of time before one is captured or killed and brought in.
As recently as the late '70s there have been megalania sightings. In July 1979, Rex Gilroy was informed of footprints of the creature found in a recently plowed field. Across the field were 30 or so tracks from what looked like an enormous lizard. Rain had ruined most of the tracks but Gilroy was able to make a plaster cast of one that had been preserved. The footprint looked surprisingly like something that might have been made by a Megalania.
Also in 1979 a sighting of megalania arose, this time by the best possible witness. Herpetologist Frank Gordon, after conducting some field work in the Wattagan Mountains in New South Wales, returned to his vehicle. After starting his engine he saw, what he at first thought was a log, scampering off. It ended up being a lizard of some 30 feet or more in length.
Another incident includes a farmer who observed a gigantic lizard walking along one of his fields. It walked along a wire fence, so the farmer used a set of fence posts as a guide. His estimate of the beast was a length of twenty to twenty-five feet. The size corresponds with megalania.
Megalania might not be constrained only to Australia--some sightings suggest it may live in New Guinea. A French priest in the 1960's was traveling up river with a native guide in order to reach his mission. During the trip he spotted a large lizard lying on a fallen tree in the sun. He told the native to stop, but being badly frightened, the native continued the journey. The priest returned to the spot the following morning and measured the tree. It was 40 feet long, yet the lizard almost matched it.
Whether or not megalania is still alive today is uncertain, but until a dead body, or perhaps a living one, is brought in we will forever find it in textbooks as an extinct animal of prehistoric times.
Mokele Mbembe
Amidst the dry leaves and fallen branches, nearly indistinguishable, lay the footprint. It was rather small yet puzzling. After examining it intently, Dr. Roy P. Mackal concluded that, despite the lingering possibility, it might have also been made by a small elephant. Yet, what is this lingering possibility? He believes it may be a dinosaur, one of many creatures that once roamed the earth, and vanished. Could it indeed be that a prehistoric relic still roams the jungles of the African Congo, could it just be a case of misidentification, or is it nothing more than a vision that drives our imaginations? Or perhaps, is it something totally new to science? After all, humanity needs mysteries, and solving all of them would be a shame. But the sheer thrill of learning of these mysterious and puzzling conundrums pushes us, and so we must push into the past, where the enigmatic beginning of this story lies.
Humankind itself originated in Africa, and it comes as no surprise that the story of Mokele-mbembe stretches far into history. The first written accounts came from odd claw marks found in the Congo in the year of 1776. After 134 years passed, Captain Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz spoke to the natives and was shown footprints of the creature.
"The animal is said to be of a brownish-gray color with a smooth skin, its size approximating that of an elephant; at least that of a hippopotamus. It is said to have a long and very flexible neck and only one tooth but a very long one; some say it is a horn. A few spoke about a long muscular tail like that of an alligator. Canoes coming near it are said to be doomed; the animal is said to attack the vessels at once and to kill the crews but without eating the bodies. The creature is said to live in the caves that have been washed out by the river in the clay of its shores at sharp bends. It is said to climb the shore even at daytime in search of food; its diet is said to be entirely vegetables. This feature disagrees with a possible explanation as a myth. The preferred plant was shown to me; it is a kind of liana with large white blossoms, with a milky sap and apple-like fruits. At the Ssombo River I was shown a path said to have been made by this animal in order to get at its food. The path was fresh and there were plants of the described type nearby."
Three years later, another German expedition into the area stumbled upon the natives. They were also told about Mokele-mbembe, which translates into "one that stops the flow of rivers." It is then that legends, stories, and encounters were put forth in detail and revealed to the rest of the world, sparking interest that would lead to many journeys and expeditions set out to capture the beast, and bring back evidence of its existence back to civilizations.
One fantastic tale, not bearing much difference from a legend, tells how the locals, or pygmies, built a barrier of stakes to keep the Mokele-mbembe from entering Lake Tele. That way, the pygmies could fish in a safe haven. This particular story is actually quite recent, somewhere around the 1930s to be precise. As the story goes, two of the creatures, obviously displeased with the course of action taken by the natives, attacked the wall of stakes. The pygmies attacked and speared one of the creatures to death. To memorialize this achievement, the pygmies cooked the animal and feasted over its flesh. It is said that all who tasted the meat died. This, of course, might just be an exaggeration, an effect evident on all stories that travel through time. The pygmies believe that the magical and mystical properties of the Mokele-mbembe were released after this event.
Since then, there have been many major expeditions to this particular region in the Congo, all concentrating on this mystifying creature. Yet, what could it be? Long neck and tail, massive body and thick legs? It comes as no surprise that people immediately considered the Mokele-mbembe as a surviving sauropod. A sauropod is one of many dinosaurs beneath which the ground once trembled. They are herbivorous beasts, typical, with their long necks and tails, small heads, bulky bodies, and thick, elephantine legs. It must be emphasized that throughout the millions of years since the demise the "terrible lizards", Africa has changed relatively little, climatically and physically. To lend support to the theory that Mokele-mbembe is a remnant of the dinosauria, the pygmies have been given a certain test many times over. The test involves a group of pictures of animals that live in the area. The pygmies would recognize the drawings of leopards, gorillas, and elephants, among other creatures. After this, they would be shown a depiction of a typical sauropod. The pygmies usually replied with a simple, instantaneous reply, "It's Mokele-mbembe!"
When recently repeated, this experiment bore different results. The BaAka tribes recognized the gorillas, calling them Ebobo. They easily recognized the elephant, calling it Doli. Then, they were showed a picture of a rhinoceros, and replied just as before, "Mokele-mbembe!" Indeed, a rhinoceros seems a likely candidate for a misinterpretation of this mysterious creature. Some reports point toward Mokele-mbembe having a horn, being like a hippopotamus, yet bigger. This truly seems like a fitting description of a rhinoceros.
Mokele-mbembe is reputed as a rather aggressive animal. It is known to turn over boats, and even to have killed by biting or hitting with its tail. One important detail, as stated by Captain von Stein, is that the creature never fed on its victims. This particular detail shows that this behavior is not hunting, but more of a territorial aggression.
So Mokele-mbembe is herbivorous, just like the rhinocerous or dinosaur some say it is. The river-stopping animal is particularly prone to the Malambo plant, or so say the natives. There is the Landolphia manni genus and the Landolphia owariensis genus, both of which are referred to as the Malambo plant. The Malambo plant is a shrub, with berry-like fruits covered in seeds. According to Mackal, these fruits have an "acrid sweet taste". Both, state the pygmies, are a favorite aliment of the Mokele-mbembe.
The story of Mokele-mbembe spread when increasing amounts of trustworthy sources began reporting tales no stranger than legends. African hunter Nicolas Mondongo later recalled: "Without warning, the waters parted and a huge animal surfaced-beginning with an extremely long, slender neck and well-defined head, followed by a very bulky, elephantine body rising up on four massive legs, and finally revealing lengthy, tapering tail."
From the early 80s, up until today, there have been numerous expeditions to the Congo in search of this elusive animal. A large portion of them, including the first one in 1980, was led by American biochemist from Chicago, Roy Mackal. He would later lead an expedition in December of 1981 and lead the Congo Ministry of Water and Forests in April and May of 1983 to search for this animal once more. Despite his persistence, Mackal did not once catch sight of anything. But, he did come close
It began with a loud splash behind the boat, which was floating down the Likouala River. Not long after came a large wake. The pygmies that accompanied Mackal started yelling, "Mokele-mbembe! Mokele-mbembe!" Mackal never saw the creature behind the commotion, but he does believe it was indeed the creature that he was seeking. He figured the only logical explanation for the splash would be a large water-dwelling animal such as a hippopotamus, yet no hippopotamuses have been recorded in that part of the Congo. Could Mokele-mbembe perhaps be just that? Nonetheless, Mackal is convinced that is chasing more than the wind. "I admit that my own views are tinged with some romanticism, but certainly not to the extent that I would endure extreme hardship, even risk my life, to pursue a dream with no basis in reality."
Marcellin Agnagna, a Congolese biologist who had accompanied Mackal on his second expedition, led his own expedition in 1983. It was in Lake Tele, the lake where it is believed that the Mokele-mbembe resides. He claims that he saw the creature's neck and back, but the legs and tail were submerged. For 20 minutes, the creature moved about the lake. The Congolese biologist had a camera and started filming. However, because of his excitement (some say to his convenience) he forgot to remove the lens cap, thus the creature once more slipped away from what could have been conclusive proof. It seems odd that this man would lead his own expedition and immediately find the creature, even odder that he did not get it on film. We must keep in mind that Agnagna is a respected biologist. Something of this sort could indeed happen, people behave erratically when excited. However, the man claims he observed the creature for 20 minutes, and that should have been enough time for him to finally come to some realization, and to actually get some hard evidence. We may never truly know whether it was excessive excitement or a way to earn publicity.
Another encounter involved Herman Regusters from Seattle during the September of 1981, when he led his own expedition into the Congo. Through his binoculars, he observed an animal that "appeared to have a slender neck about 6 feet long, a small head and about 15 feet of back." He estimates that a counterbalancing tail would put the creature's length at about 30 to 35 feet long. He never saw the body, legs, or tail. One way to rationally explain cases of this sort would be an elephant. The elephant swims by being mostly submerged with its trunk held above the water so the animal can breathe. It is entirely plausible that the trunk could be mistaken for a neck. Herman Regusters, however, disagrees. "It certainly was much larger than an elephant."
His story has a twist that does not differ much from Marcellin Agnagna's. He shot 23 rolls of film, all of which came underexposed, because of jungle conditions. This is more believable, however. The jungle is moist and a rough place to be, leading to a more plausible excuse. But, he did not return completely empty-handed. With him, he carried droppings, casts of footprints, and even sound recordings of the alleged Mokele-mbembe
Rory Nugent's luck was no better. After four months of searching for the beast in Lake Tele, he returned empty handed, but not without his own mild encounter. He claims to have seen a shape like that of a thin neck. He naturally wanted to get closer, but his pygmy guides held him back. "The god can approach man," they told him. "But man never approaches the god."
Without a doubt, the most tantalizing evidence for the Mokele-mbembe has come in the year of 1992 from a Japanese television crew that was not particularly looking for the animal. Instead, they were shooting a documentary. From a small plane above Lake Tele, while getting aerial shots for the documentary, they spotted something moving about the lake. The cameraman focused, and got something quite extraordinary for about fifteen seconds before the 'thing' plunged back down into the murky lake.
Upon analysis, a black object can be seen, with clearly discernible protrusions above the water. A neck, some suggest. The object is moving at a rapid pace, leaving a V-shaped wake behind it. If one looks for it, they can also see a hump and tail. However, as with most lake monster videos, it is a Rorschach test where one can see whatever he or she wants. Still, because of its protrudances, a crocodile can be ruled out. Its rapid pace also rules out elephant. One thing that it does somewhat resemble is a boat with persons inside it, some say, but its rapid pace and mysterious sinking oppose this explanation.
So, where does all of this evidence point? The prospect of a surviving dinosaur intrigues us all, but we must also be realistic. Everyone should keep an open mind and ponder at the mysteries of the earth. When, and if, Mokele-mbembe is revealed, many will be disappointed, for it will be the death of yet another mystery. This story of adventure and wildlife will drive our imaginations forth, well into the next decade. Our imagination or not, humanity needs great mysteries. This is one of them.
By Nik Petsev
Cadborosaurus Willsi (Caddy)
By Aaron Justice
Off the British Colombian coast of Cadboro Bay lives a monster, affectionately named Caddy or Cadborosaurus Willsi. It is described as a long, serpent like beast with flippers, hair on the neck, and a camel like head. It could be anywhere from 40 to 70 feet long in length. The monster has been seen less than 100 times in the last 60 years, but the sightings remain consistent and precise unlike sightings of the Loch Ness monster and Ogopogo in which sightings vary due to misidentification. Ogopogo has been described as having "a dark brownish-gray skin like texture" to "bluish-green-gray" scales. Yet all the sightings of Caddy remain consistent, usually because it was visible long enough to get an accurate description.
The first reported sighting of Caddy was in 1933 by a Victoria lawyer and his wife on a cruise in their yatch. They described a "horrible serpent with the head of a camel." This is generally what every sighting of the beast is like. The creature showed itself again in 1934 when two members of the Provincial Government reported seeing the creature, the same description as the first. Later that same year two fishermen saw TWO monsters in the bay, one about 60 feet long, the other half that size. A rather interesting sighting was made by two hunters as they tried to recover their wounded duck. The monster rose out of the water, swallowed the duck, snapped at some gulls then submerged. They noted the six-foot long head with saw-like teeth.
It was in 1937 that a photograph of Caddy was obtained. A whaling station in Vancouver just caught and killed a sperm whale in October of 1937. While removing the stomach contents at the Naden Harbor whaling station they came across a twenty-foot long carcass of an unidentified creature. It had the head of a horse, a snake-like body and a finned, spiny tail. A photograph was taken, but no one knows exactly what happened to its remains. No scientist can properly identify the creature in the photograph. It seems to have mammalian and reptilian traits, but which it is, no one is sure of. It is suggested that the creature is a Zeuglodon, but that explanation isn't 100% satisfactory seeing that it is much slimmer and the head is shaped improperly.
Perhaps the closest sighting of Caddy was taken in 1939 by Captain Paul Sowerby.
"We were headin' North, and, about thirty miles offshore, and saw this thing standing about four feet out of the water. So, I headed over towards it and took a look at it. At first, I thought it looked like a polar bear with its ruffles of hair. When we got right up alongside of it-and the water was crystal clear-there was just this column of this thing going at least forty feet and huge eyes. I had an old Newfoundlander as a mate and he said 'Do you see eyes on him?' Mouth and nose I have no recollection of at all, just those great big eyes. And the eyes seemed to open from top to bottom."
The sightings did not stop in the 30's, it continued into the 50's when ten people saw him on February 13, 1953. All of them watched it from different points of view and not one of the descriptions contradicted each other. The sightings continued into the 80's, but the sightings slimmed down considerably. Perhaps the creature had moved on, looking for warmer waters more plentiful with fish. They could also have died; perhaps the young were eaten by whales that frequent the coast. The real question is not where they have gone, but what they are.
The Head of Caddy, by Alisa Stern.
The descriptions place Caddy as some sort of a mammal, long, slender, and with a bifurcated tail. This suggests that it is a Zeuglodon, an ancient whale thought to be extinct. The only problem is that the head of the creature is described as a camels or a horses, while a Zeuglodon, or Basilosaurus, head is more like that of a snakes. The monster of Lake Okanagon, known as Ogopogo, is believed to be a Zeuglodon, but the sightings are different of that of Caddy. It never raises its neck, nor does it have hair, nor is the head camel-like, it is more like that of a snake. My belief is that Caddy is a relative of the Zeuglodon, longer but slimmer. If we only had the body that was found we would have a good idea of what it was, but until another one shows up we will always have an unknown creature on our hands.
Waitoreke
New Zealand, a island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, separated from the super-continent of Gondwanaland (Gondwana) and all other land masses for eighty (80) million years has evolved a unique biosphere. With only bats as the indigenous land mammals the avian fauna predominated, yet reports of a mammal living in the mountain lakes and rivers has been reported over the years. What then is this animal, the waitoreke?
Known to the natives in various incarnations as kaureke and waitoreke (various spellings waitoreke, waitoreki, and waitoteke), yet with varying descriptions from otter-like, beaver-like and seal-like in habitat and characterization, have occurred from South Island, New Zealand for over two hundred years. The more descriptions offered the more enigmatic the reality of this animal becomes. Also creating an enigma is how could this animal, this mammal (one agreement is that it is mammalian in characteristic) have arrived on an island isolated for millions of years, yet with no fossil record in existence?
That is the chore ahead. To evaluate the various theories as to what the waitoreke is, and through that process determine the most likely identification as to what the waitoreke is. We shall do so by looking at the etymology of the name of this animal, the diversities of life on and around New Zealand, the habitat of the animal, the theories (through behavior, anatomy and habitat) and the evidence thus far provided by the witnesses and chroniclers of the waitoreke.
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ON NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand formed from the super-continent of Gondwanaland. Gondwanaland is the Southern Hemispheres super-continent made up of what are know known as the continents of Africa, Antarctica, Australia and South America as well as India, Madagascar and New Zealand. Gondwanaland and its counterpart Laurasia (for the Northern Hemisphere) once joined as part of Pangea, the mega-continent. As the tectonic plates shifted, the landmasses drifted apart (as they still do today). Roughly 80 million years ago New Zealand separated from Gondwanaland along the edge of what would become Australia. Australia separated about 30 million years later from Antarctica.
Since the time frame separating New Zealand was greater than of its neighbor Australia the faunas were not the same. The animal species that migrated to the islands did so on wing, in such a time when the distances between New Zealand and other coastal areas were close to each other. New Zealand boasts some of the oldest terrestrial life on Earth. The beech forests originated in South America, and the ones on New Zealand (as once part of South America via the super-continent) are perhaps the longest surviving forests on Earth.
Additionally, New Zealand boasts the tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus and Spehodon guntheri), an archaic reptile that has virtually remained unaltered for over 200 million years. The primitive genus Leiopelma frongs (Leipelma hochstetteri, L. hamiltoni and L. archeyi) are found in New Zealand as well. These constitute the oldest lineage of frogs alive today, sharing characteristics with fish and lacking characteristics associated with other frogs (aside from an American cousin Ascaphus truei).
Flightless birds like the moa, kiwi, and kakapo have evolved in this landscape. What were lacking were indigenous mammalian carnivores. There were several bat species present on the mainland; the New Zealand short tailed bats (Mystacina tuberculata and Mystacina robusta) and the lobe lipped bat of New Zealand (Chalinolobus tuberculatus ) as well as the later arrival of pinnipeds like the New Zealand sea lion (Phocartos hooker) and the New Zealand fur seal (Arctocephalus forsteri). There may also have been a few small rodents native to the island (the fossil records of a shrew like mammal 115 million years old was found in 1997 in Australia). But lacking were the larger carnivores associated with other continental landmasses.
It was not until humans began to arrive on the islands that the animal diversities began to grow. With the arrival of the Maori (various dates on their arrival abound, typically 1000 - 2000 years ago) the ecosystem changed. The Polynesian Rat, or Kiore (Rattus exulans) was introduced as were dogs. Later when explorers like James Cook and colonists arrived in the 1700's livestock and foreign animals were introduced. Nowadays there are many mammals present in New Zealand, amongst them seven species of deer, wild hogs, wallabies, possums, and quolls to name a few are present or were present. These new inhabitants now threaten the original animals and in some cases have brought them to the brink of extinction, and over.
ETYMOLOGY OF THE WAITOREKE
What does waitoreke mean in a language aside from the Maori language (the natives of New Zealand)? John Colarusso offers that the word waitoreke and kaureke that ended with "reke" are the closest of the various spellings for translation. "reke" meaning quill or spur (knob and bone), and when put with other Maori words waitoreke translates (roughly) out to water diver (with the) spurs. Kaureke would translate to many spurs, with extension of kaurehe meaning monster and perhaps tuatara.
For all intents and purposes the term waitoreke will be used here out for this cryptid animal. Although kaureke may be a valid name as well (or a separate animal altogether), the popular and more common waitoreke will be suitable.
THE HABITAT OF THE WAITOREKE
The habitat of the waitoreke varies little from report to report. The animal is associated with water, and is seen in it or just beside it. What does vary are the reports of what kind of home the waitoreke lives in, is it a lodge like a beaver or a tunnel system like some otters and the platypus?
In 1855 Reverend Richard Taylor's book Te Ika A Maui, or, New Zealand and Its Inhabitants, was published. In it is the following note:
"A man named Seymour, or Otaki, stated that he had repeatedly seen an animal in the Middle Island [Note: Middle Island is actually modern South Island], near Dusky Bay, on the south-west coast, which he called a musk-rat, from the strong smell it emitted. He said its tail was thick and resembled the ripe pirori, the fruit of the kie-kie, which is not unlike in appearance to the tail of a beaver. This account was corroborated by Tamihana te Rauparaha, who spoke of it as being more than double the size of the Norway rat, and as having a large flat tail. A man named Tom Crib, who had been engaged in whaling and sealing in the neighborhood of Dusky Bay for more than twenty-five years, said he had not himself seen the beaver, but had several times met with its habitations, and had been surprised by seeing little streams dammed up, and houses like bee-hives erected on one side, having two entrances, one from above and the other below the dam. One of the Camerons, who lived at Kaiwarawara, when the settlers first came to Wellington, stated that he saw one of these large rats and pursued it, but it took to the water, and dived out of sight."
In this account we have references to a beaver type lodge. Yet, in 1921 one A.E. Trapper witnessed an animal while on a bridge crossing the Waikiwi River. Shortly after he found a hole in a bank in the location the animal disappeared in. And again in 1973 a G. Pollock, who had been researching the animal, found a tunnel system in the reeds of a swamp on the Taieri Plain. These two shelters described match different known animals.
So the question of living habitat is troublesome. The one item that can be agreed upon is that aside from waterways, the waitoreke lives in higher elevations towards the southern portion of South Island. Elevations vary from sea level to 3764 meters (12,349 feet) at Mount Cook in the Southern Alps across the island, with lakes varying in altitudes. There are some exceptions to this statement, as captain James Cook's crew described seeing an animal along the coast in Dusky Sound: in 1773:
"A four-footed animal was seen by three or four of our people; but as no two gave the same description of it, I cannot say what kind it is. All, however, agreed that it was about the size of a cat, with short legs, and of a mouse-color. One of the seamen, and he who had the best view of it, said it had a bushy tail, and was most like a jackal of any animal he knew."
Giant Fish(Lake Lliamma)
Alaska is a land of countless lakes, many of them impressively large. The largest of all is Lake Iliamna, which Ivan Sanderson described as "not a lake at all but really an inland sea." Some 80 miles long and with a surface area over a thousand square miles, Iliamna is approximately the size of the state of Connecticut. This makes it the second-largest fresh-water lake (after Lake Michigan) lying entirely within the United States. Iliamna has a mean depth of 144 feet and is over 900 feet deep in some areas. The lake is connected to Bristol Bay, 60 miles southwest, by the Kvichak River, through which such marine mammals as harbor seals and belugas can travel. Iliamna even has a resident population of harbor seals, along with a very successful sport-fishing industry.
The most intriguing thing about Lake Iliamna, however, is the possibility it houses huge unknown animals. These are totally unlike the oft-reported "lake monsters," with their small heads and long necks. Instead, the animals alleged to live in Iliamna look like gigantic fish.
Reports of something odd in Iliamna go back to the Aleut and other indigenous tribes, although no one knows how far back in time these stories began. The Aleuts did not hunt the lake's creatures, and believed them to be dangerous to men fishing in small boats. Some early white settlers and visitors reportedly saw the things, too, but the stories about Iliamna did not gain wide circulation until the 1940s, when pilots began spotting monsters from the air. The flyers' descriptions generally matched the native tales. The lake's mystery inhabitants were most often described as long, relatively slender animals, like fish or whales, up to 30 feet in length.
In 1988, bush pilot and fishing guide "Babe" Alsworth (commonly misspelled Aylesworth) recounted his 1942 sighting in an interview with Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman. Alsworth saw several animals, each well over 10 feet long, in a shallow part of the lake. He said they had fishlike tails and elongated bodies. He described the color as "dull aluminum." Larry Rost, a survey pilot for the U.S. government, saw a lone creature of the same type while crossing the lake at low altitude in 1945. Rost thought the animal was over 20 feet long.
There have been at least three attempts to find or catch Iliamna's mystery inhabitants. In the 1950s, sportsman Gil Paust and three companions (one a fisherman named Bill Hammersly, who had been in the plane with Alsworth in 1942 and shared his amazing sighting), tried to fish for the creatures. According to Paust, something grabbed the moose meat used as bait and snapped the steel cable it was hooked to. In 1959, oilman and Cryptozoology enthusiast Tom Slick hired Alsworth to conduct an aerial search of the lake, but nothing was sighted. An expedition in 1966 also apparently met with no success, as no results were announced. In 1979, the Anchorage Daily News offered $100,000 for tangible evidence of the Iliamna creatures. The reward brought both serious and non-serious researchers (one man reportedly played classical music to lure the animals up). Apparently, there has never been a well-financed expedition with sophisticated sonar and photographic gear.
According to a 1988 article in Alaska magazine, a noteworthy (but unnamed) witness was a state wildlife biologist. In 1963, this official was reportedly flying over the lake alone when he spotted a creature which appeared to be 25 to 30 feet long. In the ten minutes it was under observation, the thing never came up for air. Other flying witnesses mentioned in media accounts include a geologist who flew over the lake with two companions in 1960, reportedly spotting four 10-foot fish, and air taxi pilot Tim LaPorte in 1977. In LaPorte's case, the veteran pilot and air-service owner was near Pedro Bay, at the northeast end of the lake. He was flying just a few hundred feet above a flat calm surface. LaPorte and his two passengers, one a visiting Michigan fish and game official, saw an animal lying still, its back just breaking the surface. As the plane came closer, the creature made a "big arching splash" and dove straight down. LaPorte remembers watching a large vertical tail moving as the animal sounded. Comparing the object to an 18-foot boat often observed from the same altitude, LaPorte and his companions estimated the thing was 12 to 14 feet long. LaPorte described the object as either dark gray or dark brown. LaPorte had been a passenger in a different aircraft in 1968 when the other two individuals in the plane had a very similar sighting. (LaPorte, who was in the left seat, could not see the animal from his side.)
Modern sightings have occurred mostly near the villages of Iliamna and Pedro Bay. It was off the latter town in 1988 that several witnesses, three in a boat and others on shore, reported one of the creatures. In this case, it was described as black. One witness thought she could see a fin on the back, with a white stripe along it.
Lake Iliamna is still an isolated body of water, its shores largely unpopulated. The largest village, Kakhonak, counts only 200 permanent residents. The lake cannot be reached overland. Summer visitors must come by boat or fly in to a single airstrip. If there are unusual creatures in the lake, it's hardly surprising that a long time can pass between good sightings.
A common theory about the Lake Iliamna creatures (sometimes called "Illies") is that they are gigantic sturgeon. These could be either an outsized population of a known type or an unknown species. Sturgeon - huge fish with armorlike scutes covering their backs and a heritage going back before the dinosaurs - match most descriptions from Iliamna fairly well. A witness named Louise Wassillie, who watched a creature from her fishing boat in 1989, said specifically, "It's only a fish. It was about 20 feet long and had a long snout. Probably a sturgeon." Biologist Pat Poe of the Fisheries Research Institute (FRI) at the University of Washington, who has studied the salmon populations in Iliamna and neighboring Lake Clark, once commented, "I'm sure there's a big fish. I think the lakes have a lot of interesting secrets. We don't know much about other resident fish in the lake." Warner Lew, currently the senior biologist with the FRI's Alaska Salmon Program, agrees the lake seems a suitable habitat for large sturgeon. Lew reports several witnesses have told him of sighting giant fish, but he has yet to see any fish larger than a four-foot Northern pike in his 24 years of research visits to the lake. The white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) is the largest known fresh-water fish in North America. The record claim for a white sturgeon, caught in Canada's Fraser River in 1912, was 20 feet in length and 1,800 pounds. A fish of 1,500 pounds was reported caught in 1928 in the Snake River in the northwestern United States. An 11-foot specimen weighing 900 pounds was found dead on the shore of Seattle's Lake Washington in 1987. Sturgeon expert Don Larson, curator of the Sturgeon Page Website, reports that sturgeons over 10 feet long are often caught in the Fraser and Columbia Rivers. Larson comments, "Most biologists I've talked to say that white sturgeon over 20 feet and 1800 pounds is highly probable." White sturgeons are not known from Iliamna, but have been found in other Alaskan lakes and in coastal waters as far north as Cook Inlet. There is a single record of a catch in Bristol Bay, which puts a migration to Iliamna within the bounds of possibility. It's also plausible that white sturgeon became trapped in the lake thousands of years ago, when the last glaciers receded, and have developed in isolation. Sturgeons are bottom-feeders and would rarely be seen near the surface, which fits the Iliamna phenomenon. The appearance of white sturgeon - gray to gray-brown in color, with huge heads and long cylindrical bodies -match most Iliamna reports. (No one is certain how the species got the name "white sturgeon," although some genuinely white specimens have been reported from salt water.) It may be a distinct sturgeon population has developed, distinguished from the known white sturgeon mainly by unusual size. Whether this hypothetical type is different enough to be a new species is unknown. There is plenty of food in Iliamna, where averages of 20 million sockeye salmon return to the lake from the sea every year. There is also plenty of room. Iliamna has 15 times the volume of Loch Ness. At the same time, it must be admitted there is no physical or film evidence for unknown creatures of any kind. A landlocked population of fish becoming larger than their relatives which are anadromous (dividing their lives between fresh and salt water) would be unusual. In most cases where a species has become split between freshwater and anadromous populations, as with salmon, the freshwater variety becomes smaller. However, this rule may not be valid for Lake Iliamna, with its huge size and bountiful food supply.
So what is lurking in Lake Iliamna? Sturgeons? Monsters? Tall tales? Or something completely different? Whatever is going on constitutes one of the most intriguing lake monster mysteries in the world. If I had to pick one "monster" lake to bet on as the home of a real creature of prodigious size, it is Iliamna, rather than the better-known candidates in Canada and Scotland, where I would put my money.
Crypto-Pedia part II
(more on) Thunderbird(s)
The Comanche tribe call it ba'a' and the Potawatomi use the name chequah, but most people know of this mystery animal as Thunderbird. Although gigantic birds are reported in the past and present from various areas of the globe, the Thunderbird is isolated to North America. Native Americans believed that these giant birds brought thunder and rain with them as they flew through the air by flapping their wings, and lightning by closing their eyes. Nevertheless, the distinction between the stories of the Native Americans and people of today are not too far apart. Modern reports of Thunderbirds arise from various locations in North America, with a large occurrence from Pennsylvania to the Central states. Mark A. Hall, one of the foremost investigators of the Thunderbird story, gives the following description of the avian cryptid drawn from numerous sightings:
"The bird is distinguished by its size and lifting capabilities exceeding those of any known bird living today anywhere in the world. Wingspan estimates are necessarily all guesswork. But observers sometimes have had the benefit of a measurable object for comparison or the benefit of time to observe a resting bird. The results most often provide sizes of 15 to 20 feet. The bird at rest or on the ground appears to be four to eight feet tall. Typically the coloring of the birds overall is dark.."
Remarkably, a bird of 15 feet in size would be the largest bird known in the world today. The largest wingspan known on a living bird is that of the wandering albatross (diomedea exulans) with a wingspan to 12 feet, and while not a predatory bird, it still boasts an impressive span. The Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) and the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) are among the largest predatory birds in the world, with the Andean condor reaching a wingspan of 10.5 feet and the California condor (the largest North American predatory bird) reaches a wingspan of up to 10 feet. These are all truly marvelous birds and respectable in their majesty.
But consider the Thunderbird, reputedly capable of lifting a deer or a person from the ground. The current predatory birds are not equipped with grasping feet that are strong enough to hold much weight, instead they live primarily as carrion eaters and are only seldom predatory, and then usually on smaller animals. Reports of the Thunderbird, however, describe lifting deer and humans off the ground.
Perhaps the most controversial inclusion of the Thunderbird capable of lifting a human comes from 1977 in Lawndale, Illinois. It was here that on July 25, 1977 towards 9:00 pm a group of three boys were in the backyard. They saw two large birds coming, and as the birds came in closer they went after the boys. Two of the boys escaped, but the third, Marlon Lowe, did not. One of the birds clamped onto his shoulder with its claws and proceeded to lift the ten year old boy about two feet off the ground for a distance of at least 30 yards. With screams of distress calling adults outside and coupled with a series of blows by the 65-pound boy, the bird finally released him. The boy was relatively unharmed, with psychological damage instead of physical.
Although viewed by some as a tall tale, the descriptions given by the witnesses of these birds describe a large black bird, with a white ring on its neck and a wingspan of up to 10 feet, traits oddly reminiscent of the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) which exhibits the same basic physical characteristics as that of the Lawndale bird. To this day, no one can explain away the incident from 1977 in any convincing manner, either the incident didn't happen or a large bird (of known or unknown status) attacked and carried a small boy one summer night to his and his family's terror.
The evidence thus far for the existence of a large undescribed predatory bird in North America is based on historical and modern anecdotal evidence with no physical evidence. There are however two tantalizing images of the Thunderbird, or at least of a large bird. The first was taken in the same year as Marlon Lowe's attack and in the same state. On July 30, 1977 John Huffer, an ex-marine and photographer, took a 100 foot roll of color film of two birds taking off from a tree in an inlet of Lake Shelbyville. The film concentrates on one of the birds only. Highly controversial, and thought by many to be of a turkey vulture, it sits as a little known film of a possible mystery animal. To date little, if any, evaluation of the birds in the film has been done. The Discovery Channel in their program "Into the Unknown" did give the film some mention, with a dismissal of a medium sized bird, probably a vulture.
The other possible photographic evidence is even more of a mystery, as it may not exist at all!! The image in question is the "Thunderbird Photograph" taken at the end of the nineteenth century in Texas. The image is said to depict six western clothed adult men, standing fingertip to fingertip in front of a barn where a large bird is nailed to the wall. Many have claimed to have seen or held this infamous image, including the late Ivan T. Sanderson who reportedly had acquired a photocopy of the image in 1966, the same year in which Sanderson gave the image, later lost, to a couple of men from Pennsylvania who were searching for the Thunderbird. The image has yet to surface, and may well not exist at all. The image was reported to have been published in 1886 in the Tombstone Arizona Epitaph, however this was somewhat dubiously reported in a 1963 article by Jack Pearl called "The Monster Bird That Carries Off Human Beings!" in Saga magazine. Searches of the Tombstone Epitaph have come up empty, aside from an article from April 26, 1890 of a 16 foot bird found in the desert by a couple of ranchers. So the mystery of the "Thunderbird Photo" is no closer to being solved then it was nearly 40 years ago during its first mention.
What then is the Thunderbird? It is a mystery. It has been reported by Native Americans and people today from all walks of life as an enormous bird, larger than any known species, but similar in appearance to a condor. Theories as to what the Thunderbird may be have run the gamut from surviving pterodactyls to the teratorns. The teratorns were large predatory birds from the Pleistocene that exhibited wingspans of upwards of 25 feet. Although thought to be extinct, their general presumed appearance is that of a giant condor-like species, similar in appearence to the Thunderbird. North America has many mysteries, among them the Thunderbird. These creatures are surely one of the most enigmatic cryptids in the world. With misinformation abounding, such as the "Thunderbird Photograph," and the lack of support in searching for these birds, it is no wonder that these creatures have evaded discovery like so many others from around the world.
By Craig Heinselman
Megalania
In this day and age, Australia is thought of as desert filled with eucalyptus trees and cotton plantations. The animals usually associated with this continent are koalas, kangaroo, wombats, and crocodiles, some of the largest to be found. There used to be other animals, commonly referred to as megafauna, that roamed this continent before being wiped out by plague or man. These were nightmarish versions of the creatures that we have today. Australia once held 10-foot tall kangaroos that fed on flesh rather than vegetation, and at one time had monitor lizards that dwarfed the Komodo dragon. This was megalania prisca, a reptile reaching 30 feet in length and weighing at least 1,000 pounds or more. The Komodo dragon is roughly the size of a lion, but megalania was bigger than an average dairy cow. Extinct megalania is listed with the many casualties of the Ice Age. Or is it extinct? The creature has been sighted many times in the last century, and some sightings suggest that it lives also in New Guinea.
During the middle of the day, a surveyor returned to his truck. Tired, he wanted nothing more than to go home. He spied what he thought was a fallen tree near his car. Blaming his fatigue for his lack of details he climbed in his car and slammed the door. The "log" suddenly bolted away! It ended up being a lizard of 15 feet in length. Australian cryptozoologist Rex Gilroy is convinced these creatures are still alive and it is only a matter of time before one is captured or killed and brought in.
As recently as the late '70s there have been megalania sightings. In July 1979, Rex Gilroy was informed of footprints of the creature found in a recently plowed field. Across the field were 30 or so tracks from what looked like an enormous lizard. Rain had ruined most of the tracks but Gilroy was able to make a plaster cast of one that had been preserved. The footprint looked surprisingly like something that might have been made by a Megalania.
Also in 1979 a sighting of megalania arose, this time by the best possible witness. Herpetologist Frank Gordon, after conducting some field work in the Wattagan Mountains in New South Wales, returned to his vehicle. After starting his engine he saw, what he at first thought was a log, scampering off. It ended up being a lizard of some 30 feet or more in length.
Another incident includes a farmer who observed a gigantic lizard walking along one of his fields. It walked along a wire fence, so the farmer used a set of fence posts as a guide. His estimate of the beast was a length of twenty to twenty-five feet. The size corresponds with megalania.
Megalania might not be constrained only to Australia--some sightings suggest it may live in New Guinea. A French priest in the 1960's was traveling up river with a native guide in order to reach his mission. During the trip he spotted a large lizard lying on a fallen tree in the sun. He told the native to stop, but being badly frightened, the native continued the journey. The priest returned to the spot the following morning and measured the tree. It was 40 feet long, yet the lizard almost matched it.
Whether or not megalania is still alive today is uncertain, but until a dead body, or perhaps a living one, is brought in we will forever find it in textbooks as an extinct animal of prehistoric times.
Mokele Mbembe
Amidst the dry leaves and fallen branches, nearly indistinguishable, lay the footprint. It was rather small yet puzzling. After examining it intently, Dr. Roy P. Mackal concluded that, despite the lingering possibility, it might have also been made by a small elephant. Yet, what is this lingering possibility? He believes it may be a dinosaur, one of many creatures that once roamed the earth, and vanished. Could it indeed be that a prehistoric relic still roams the jungles of the African Congo, could it just be a case of misidentification, or is it nothing more than a vision that drives our imaginations? Or perhaps, is it something totally new to science? After all, humanity needs mysteries, and solving all of them would be a shame. But the sheer thrill of learning of these mysterious and puzzling conundrums pushes us, and so we must push into the past, where the enigmatic beginning of this story lies.
Humankind itself originated in Africa, and it comes as no surprise that the story of Mokele-mbembe stretches far into history. The first written accounts came from odd claw marks found in the Congo in the year of 1776. After 134 years passed, Captain Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz spoke to the natives and was shown footprints of the creature.
"The animal is said to be of a brownish-gray color with a smooth skin, its size approximating that of an elephant; at least that of a hippopotamus. It is said to have a long and very flexible neck and only one tooth but a very long one; some say it is a horn. A few spoke about a long muscular tail like that of an alligator. Canoes coming near it are said to be doomed; the animal is said to attack the vessels at once and to kill the crews but without eating the bodies. The creature is said to live in the caves that have been washed out by the river in the clay of its shores at sharp bends. It is said to climb the shore even at daytime in search of food; its diet is said to be entirely vegetables. This feature disagrees with a possible explanation as a myth. The preferred plant was shown to me; it is a kind of liana with large white blossoms, with a milky sap and apple-like fruits. At the Ssombo River I was shown a path said to have been made by this animal in order to get at its food. The path was fresh and there were plants of the described type nearby."
Three years later, another German expedition into the area stumbled upon the natives. They were also told about Mokele-mbembe, which translates into "one that stops the flow of rivers." It is then that legends, stories, and encounters were put forth in detail and revealed to the rest of the world, sparking interest that would lead to many journeys and expeditions set out to capture the beast, and bring back evidence of its existence back to civilizations.
One fantastic tale, not bearing much difference from a legend, tells how the locals, or pygmies, built a barrier of stakes to keep the Mokele-mbembe from entering Lake Tele. That way, the pygmies could fish in a safe haven. This particular story is actually quite recent, somewhere around the 1930s to be precise. As the story goes, two of the creatures, obviously displeased with the course of action taken by the natives, attacked the wall of stakes. The pygmies attacked and speared one of the creatures to death. To memorialize this achievement, the pygmies cooked the animal and feasted over its flesh. It is said that all who tasted the meat died. This, of course, might just be an exaggeration, an effect evident on all stories that travel through time. The pygmies believe that the magical and mystical properties of the Mokele-mbembe were released after this event.
Since then, there have been many major expeditions to this particular region in the Congo, all concentrating on this mystifying creature. Yet, what could it be? Long neck and tail, massive body and thick legs? It comes as no surprise that people immediately considered the Mokele-mbembe as a surviving sauropod. A sauropod is one of many dinosaurs beneath which the ground once trembled. They are herbivorous beasts, typical, with their long necks and tails, small heads, bulky bodies, and thick, elephantine legs. It must be emphasized that throughout the millions of years since the demise the "terrible lizards", Africa has changed relatively little, climatically and physically. To lend support to the theory that Mokele-mbembe is a remnant of the dinosauria, the pygmies have been given a certain test many times over. The test involves a group of pictures of animals that live in the area. The pygmies would recognize the drawings of leopards, gorillas, and elephants, among other creatures. After this, they would be shown a depiction of a typical sauropod. The pygmies usually replied with a simple, instantaneous reply, "It's Mokele-mbembe!"
When recently repeated, this experiment bore different results. The BaAka tribes recognized the gorillas, calling them Ebobo. They easily recognized the elephant, calling it Doli. Then, they were showed a picture of a rhinoceros, and replied just as before, "Mokele-mbembe!" Indeed, a rhinoceros seems a likely candidate for a misinterpretation of this mysterious creature. Some reports point toward Mokele-mbembe having a horn, being like a hippopotamus, yet bigger. This truly seems like a fitting description of a rhinoceros.
Mokele-mbembe is reputed as a rather aggressive animal. It is known to turn over boats, and even to have killed by biting or hitting with its tail. One important detail, as stated by Captain von Stein, is that the creature never fed on its victims. This particular detail shows that this behavior is not hunting, but more of a territorial aggression.
So Mokele-mbembe is herbivorous, just like the rhinocerous or dinosaur some say it is. The river-stopping animal is particularly prone to the Malambo plant, or so say the natives. There is the Landolphia manni genus and the Landolphia owariensis genus, both of which are referred to as the Malambo plant. The Malambo plant is a shrub, with berry-like fruits covered in seeds. According to Mackal, these fruits have an "acrid sweet taste". Both, state the pygmies, are a favorite aliment of the Mokele-mbembe.
The story of Mokele-mbembe spread when increasing amounts of trustworthy sources began reporting tales no stranger than legends. African hunter Nicolas Mondongo later recalled: "Without warning, the waters parted and a huge animal surfaced-beginning with an extremely long, slender neck and well-defined head, followed by a very bulky, elephantine body rising up on four massive legs, and finally revealing lengthy, tapering tail."
From the early 80s, up until today, there have been numerous expeditions to the Congo in search of this elusive animal. A large portion of them, including the first one in 1980, was led by American biochemist from Chicago, Roy Mackal. He would later lead an expedition in December of 1981 and lead the Congo Ministry of Water and Forests in April and May of 1983 to search for this animal once more. Despite his persistence, Mackal did not once catch sight of anything. But, he did come close
It began with a loud splash behind the boat, which was floating down the Likouala River. Not long after came a large wake. The pygmies that accompanied Mackal started yelling, "Mokele-mbembe! Mokele-mbembe!" Mackal never saw the creature behind the commotion, but he does believe it was indeed the creature that he was seeking. He figured the only logical explanation for the splash would be a large water-dwelling animal such as a hippopotamus, yet no hippopotamuses have been recorded in that part of the Congo. Could Mokele-mbembe perhaps be just that? Nonetheless, Mackal is convinced that is chasing more than the wind. "I admit that my own views are tinged with some romanticism, but certainly not to the extent that I would endure extreme hardship, even risk my life, to pursue a dream with no basis in reality."
Marcellin Agnagna, a Congolese biologist who had accompanied Mackal on his second expedition, led his own expedition in 1983. It was in Lake Tele, the lake where it is believed that the Mokele-mbembe resides. He claims that he saw the creature's neck and back, but the legs and tail were submerged. For 20 minutes, the creature moved about the lake. The Congolese biologist had a camera and started filming. However, because of his excitement (some say to his convenience) he forgot to remove the lens cap, thus the creature once more slipped away from what could have been conclusive proof. It seems odd that this man would lead his own expedition and immediately find the creature, even odder that he did not get it on film. We must keep in mind that Agnagna is a respected biologist. Something of this sort could indeed happen, people behave erratically when excited. However, the man claims he observed the creature for 20 minutes, and that should have been enough time for him to finally come to some realization, and to actually get some hard evidence. We may never truly know whether it was excessive excitement or a way to earn publicity.
Another encounter involved Herman Regusters from Seattle during the September of 1981, when he led his own expedition into the Congo. Through his binoculars, he observed an animal that "appeared to have a slender neck about 6 feet long, a small head and about 15 feet of back." He estimates that a counterbalancing tail would put the creature's length at about 30 to 35 feet long. He never saw the body, legs, or tail. One way to rationally explain cases of this sort would be an elephant. The elephant swims by being mostly submerged with its trunk held above the water so the animal can breathe. It is entirely plausible that the trunk could be mistaken for a neck. Herman Regusters, however, disagrees. "It certainly was much larger than an elephant."
His story has a twist that does not differ much from Marcellin Agnagna's. He shot 23 rolls of film, all of which came underexposed, because of jungle conditions. This is more believable, however. The jungle is moist and a rough place to be, leading to a more plausible excuse. But, he did not return completely empty-handed. With him, he carried droppings, casts of footprints, and even sound recordings of the alleged Mokele-mbembe
Rory Nugent's luck was no better. After four months of searching for the beast in Lake Tele, he returned empty handed, but not without his own mild encounter. He claims to have seen a shape like that of a thin neck. He naturally wanted to get closer, but his pygmy guides held him back. "The god can approach man," they told him. "But man never approaches the god."
Without a doubt, the most tantalizing evidence for the Mokele-mbembe has come in the year of 1992 from a Japanese television crew that was not particularly looking for the animal. Instead, they were shooting a documentary. From a small plane above Lake Tele, while getting aerial shots for the documentary, they spotted something moving about the lake. The cameraman focused, and got something quite extraordinary for about fifteen seconds before the 'thing' plunged back down into the murky lake.
Upon analysis, a black object can be seen, with clearly discernible protrusions above the water. A neck, some suggest. The object is moving at a rapid pace, leaving a V-shaped wake behind it. If one looks for it, they can also see a hump and tail. However, as with most lake monster videos, it is a Rorschach test where one can see whatever he or she wants. Still, because of its protrudances, a crocodile can be ruled out. Its rapid pace also rules out elephant. One thing that it does somewhat resemble is a boat with persons inside it, some say, but its rapid pace and mysterious sinking oppose this explanation.
So, where does all of this evidence point? The prospect of a surviving dinosaur intrigues us all, but we must also be realistic. Everyone should keep an open mind and ponder at the mysteries of the earth. When, and if, Mokele-mbembe is revealed, many will be disappointed, for it will be the death of yet another mystery. This story of adventure and wildlife will drive our imaginations forth, well into the next decade. Our imagination or not, humanity needs great mysteries. This is one of them.
By Nik Petsev
Cadborosaurus Willsi (Caddy)
By Aaron Justice
Off the British Colombian coast of Cadboro Bay lives a monster, affectionately named Caddy or Cadborosaurus Willsi. It is described as a long, serpent like beast with flippers, hair on the neck, and a camel like head. It could be anywhere from 40 to 70 feet long in length. The monster has been seen less than 100 times in the last 60 years, but the sightings remain consistent and precise unlike sightings of the Loch Ness monster and Ogopogo in which sightings vary due to misidentification. Ogopogo has been described as having "a dark brownish-gray skin like texture" to "bluish-green-gray" scales. Yet all the sightings of Caddy remain consistent, usually because it was visible long enough to get an accurate description.
The first reported sighting of Caddy was in 1933 by a Victoria lawyer and his wife on a cruise in their yatch. They described a "horrible serpent with the head of a camel." This is generally what every sighting of the beast is like. The creature showed itself again in 1934 when two members of the Provincial Government reported seeing the creature, the same description as the first. Later that same year two fishermen saw TWO monsters in the bay, one about 60 feet long, the other half that size. A rather interesting sighting was made by two hunters as they tried to recover their wounded duck. The monster rose out of the water, swallowed the duck, snapped at some gulls then submerged. They noted the six-foot long head with saw-like teeth.
It was in 1937 that a photograph of Caddy was obtained. A whaling station in Vancouver just caught and killed a sperm whale in October of 1937. While removing the stomach contents at the Naden Harbor whaling station they came across a twenty-foot long carcass of an unidentified creature. It had the head of a horse, a snake-like body and a finned, spiny tail. A photograph was taken, but no one knows exactly what happened to its remains. No scientist can properly identify the creature in the photograph. It seems to have mammalian and reptilian traits, but which it is, no one is sure of. It is suggested that the creature is a Zeuglodon, but that explanation isn't 100% satisfactory seeing that it is much slimmer and the head is shaped improperly.
Perhaps the closest sighting of Caddy was taken in 1939 by Captain Paul Sowerby.
"We were headin' North, and, about thirty miles offshore, and saw this thing standing about four feet out of the water. So, I headed over towards it and took a look at it. At first, I thought it looked like a polar bear with its ruffles of hair. When we got right up alongside of it-and the water was crystal clear-there was just this column of this thing going at least forty feet and huge eyes. I had an old Newfoundlander as a mate and he said 'Do you see eyes on him?' Mouth and nose I have no recollection of at all, just those great big eyes. And the eyes seemed to open from top to bottom."
The sightings did not stop in the 30's, it continued into the 50's when ten people saw him on February 13, 1953. All of them watched it from different points of view and not one of the descriptions contradicted each other. The sightings continued into the 80's, but the sightings slimmed down considerably. Perhaps the creature had moved on, looking for warmer waters more plentiful with fish. They could also have died; perhaps the young were eaten by whales that frequent the coast. The real question is not where they have gone, but what they are.
The Head of Caddy, by Alisa Stern.
The descriptions place Caddy as some sort of a mammal, long, slender, and with a bifurcated tail. This suggests that it is a Zeuglodon, an ancient whale thought to be extinct. The only problem is that the head of the creature is described as a camels or a horses, while a Zeuglodon, or Basilosaurus, head is more like that of a snakes. The monster of Lake Okanagon, known as Ogopogo, is believed to be a Zeuglodon, but the sightings are different of that of Caddy. It never raises its neck, nor does it have hair, nor is the head camel-like, it is more like that of a snake. My belief is that Caddy is a relative of the Zeuglodon, longer but slimmer. If we only had the body that was found we would have a good idea of what it was, but until another one shows up we will always have an unknown creature on our hands.
Waitoreke
New Zealand, a island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, separated from the super-continent of Gondwanaland (Gondwana) and all other land masses for eighty (80) million years has evolved a unique biosphere. With only bats as the indigenous land mammals the avian fauna predominated, yet reports of a mammal living in the mountain lakes and rivers has been reported over the years. What then is this animal, the waitoreke?
Known to the natives in various incarnations as kaureke and waitoreke (various spellings waitoreke, waitoreki, and waitoteke), yet with varying descriptions from otter-like, beaver-like and seal-like in habitat and characterization, have occurred from South Island, New Zealand for over two hundred years. The more descriptions offered the more enigmatic the reality of this animal becomes. Also creating an enigma is how could this animal, this mammal (one agreement is that it is mammalian in characteristic) have arrived on an island isolated for millions of years, yet with no fossil record in existence?
That is the chore ahead. To evaluate the various theories as to what the waitoreke is, and through that process determine the most likely identification as to what the waitoreke is. We shall do so by looking at the etymology of the name of this animal, the diversities of life on and around New Zealand, the habitat of the animal, the theories (through behavior, anatomy and habitat) and the evidence thus far provided by the witnesses and chroniclers of the waitoreke.
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ON NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand formed from the super-continent of Gondwanaland. Gondwanaland is the Southern Hemispheres super-continent made up of what are know known as the continents of Africa, Antarctica, Australia and South America as well as India, Madagascar and New Zealand. Gondwanaland and its counterpart Laurasia (for the Northern Hemisphere) once joined as part of Pangea, the mega-continent. As the tectonic plates shifted, the landmasses drifted apart (as they still do today). Roughly 80 million years ago New Zealand separated from Gondwanaland along the edge of what would become Australia. Australia separated about 30 million years later from Antarctica.
Since the time frame separating New Zealand was greater than of its neighbor Australia the faunas were not the same. The animal species that migrated to the islands did so on wing, in such a time when the distances between New Zealand and other coastal areas were close to each other. New Zealand boasts some of the oldest terrestrial life on Earth. The beech forests originated in South America, and the ones on New Zealand (as once part of South America via the super-continent) are perhaps the longest surviving forests on Earth.
Additionally, New Zealand boasts the tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus and Spehodon guntheri), an archaic reptile that has virtually remained unaltered for over 200 million years. The primitive genus Leiopelma frongs (Leipelma hochstetteri, L. hamiltoni and L. archeyi) are found in New Zealand as well. These constitute the oldest lineage of frogs alive today, sharing characteristics with fish and lacking characteristics associated with other frogs (aside from an American cousin Ascaphus truei).
Flightless birds like the moa, kiwi, and kakapo have evolved in this landscape. What were lacking were indigenous mammalian carnivores. There were several bat species present on the mainland; the New Zealand short tailed bats (Mystacina tuberculata and Mystacina robusta) and the lobe lipped bat of New Zealand (Chalinolobus tuberculatus ) as well as the later arrival of pinnipeds like the New Zealand sea lion (Phocartos hooker) and the New Zealand fur seal (Arctocephalus forsteri). There may also have been a few small rodents native to the island (the fossil records of a shrew like mammal 115 million years old was found in 1997 in Australia). But lacking were the larger carnivores associated with other continental landmasses.
It was not until humans began to arrive on the islands that the animal diversities began to grow. With the arrival of the Maori (various dates on their arrival abound, typically 1000 - 2000 years ago) the ecosystem changed. The Polynesian Rat, or Kiore (Rattus exulans) was introduced as were dogs. Later when explorers like James Cook and colonists arrived in the 1700's livestock and foreign animals were introduced. Nowadays there are many mammals present in New Zealand, amongst them seven species of deer, wild hogs, wallabies, possums, and quolls to name a few are present or were present. These new inhabitants now threaten the original animals and in some cases have brought them to the brink of extinction, and over.
ETYMOLOGY OF THE WAITOREKE
What does waitoreke mean in a language aside from the Maori language (the natives of New Zealand)? John Colarusso offers that the word waitoreke and kaureke that ended with "reke" are the closest of the various spellings for translation. "reke" meaning quill or spur (knob and bone), and when put with other Maori words waitoreke translates (roughly) out to water diver (with the) spurs. Kaureke would translate to many spurs, with extension of kaurehe meaning monster and perhaps tuatara.
For all intents and purposes the term waitoreke will be used here out for this cryptid animal. Although kaureke may be a valid name as well (or a separate animal altogether), the popular and more common waitoreke will be suitable.
THE HABITAT OF THE WAITOREKE
The habitat of the waitoreke varies little from report to report. The animal is associated with water, and is seen in it or just beside it. What does vary are the reports of what kind of home the waitoreke lives in, is it a lodge like a beaver or a tunnel system like some otters and the platypus?
In 1855 Reverend Richard Taylor's book Te Ika A Maui, or, New Zealand and Its Inhabitants, was published. In it is the following note:
"A man named Seymour, or Otaki, stated that he had repeatedly seen an animal in the Middle Island [Note: Middle Island is actually modern South Island], near Dusky Bay, on the south-west coast, which he called a musk-rat, from the strong smell it emitted. He said its tail was thick and resembled the ripe pirori, the fruit of the kie-kie, which is not unlike in appearance to the tail of a beaver. This account was corroborated by Tamihana te Rauparaha, who spoke of it as being more than double the size of the Norway rat, and as having a large flat tail. A man named Tom Crib, who had been engaged in whaling and sealing in the neighborhood of Dusky Bay for more than twenty-five years, said he had not himself seen the beaver, but had several times met with its habitations, and had been surprised by seeing little streams dammed up, and houses like bee-hives erected on one side, having two entrances, one from above and the other below the dam. One of the Camerons, who lived at Kaiwarawara, when the settlers first came to Wellington, stated that he saw one of these large rats and pursued it, but it took to the water, and dived out of sight."
In this account we have references to a beaver type lodge. Yet, in 1921 one A.E. Trapper witnessed an animal while on a bridge crossing the Waikiwi River. Shortly after he found a hole in a bank in the location the animal disappeared in. And again in 1973 a G. Pollock, who had been researching the animal, found a tunnel system in the reeds of a swamp on the Taieri Plain. These two shelters described match different known animals.
So the question of living habitat is troublesome. The one item that can be agreed upon is that aside from waterways, the waitoreke lives in higher elevations towards the southern portion of South Island. Elevations vary from sea level to 3764 meters (12,349 feet) at Mount Cook in the Southern Alps across the island, with lakes varying in altitudes. There are some exceptions to this statement, as captain James Cook's crew described seeing an animal along the coast in Dusky Sound: in 1773:
"A four-footed animal was seen by three or four of our people; but as no two gave the same description of it, I cannot say what kind it is. All, however, agreed that it was about the size of a cat, with short legs, and of a mouse-color. One of the seamen, and he who had the best view of it, said it had a bushy tail, and was most like a jackal of any animal he knew."
Giant Fish(Lake Lliamma)
Alaska is a land of countless lakes, many of them impressively large. The largest of all is Lake Iliamna, which Ivan Sanderson described as "not a lake at all but really an inland sea." Some 80 miles long and with a surface area over a thousand square miles, Iliamna is approximately the size of the state of Connecticut. This makes it the second-largest fresh-water lake (after Lake Michigan) lying entirely within the United States. Iliamna has a mean depth of 144 feet and is over 900 feet deep in some areas. The lake is connected to Bristol Bay, 60 miles southwest, by the Kvichak River, through which such marine mammals as harbor seals and belugas can travel. Iliamna even has a resident population of harbor seals, along with a very successful sport-fishing industry.
The most intriguing thing about Lake Iliamna, however, is the possibility it houses huge unknown animals. These are totally unlike the oft-reported "lake monsters," with their small heads and long necks. Instead, the animals alleged to live in Iliamna look like gigantic fish.
Reports of something odd in Iliamna go back to the Aleut and other indigenous tribes, although no one knows how far back in time these stories began. The Aleuts did not hunt the lake's creatures, and believed them to be dangerous to men fishing in small boats. Some early white settlers and visitors reportedly saw the things, too, but the stories about Iliamna did not gain wide circulation until the 1940s, when pilots began spotting monsters from the air. The flyers' descriptions generally matched the native tales. The lake's mystery inhabitants were most often described as long, relatively slender animals, like fish or whales, up to 30 feet in length.
In 1988, bush pilot and fishing guide "Babe" Alsworth (commonly misspelled Aylesworth) recounted his 1942 sighting in an interview with Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman. Alsworth saw several animals, each well over 10 feet long, in a shallow part of the lake. He said they had fishlike tails and elongated bodies. He described the color as "dull aluminum." Larry Rost, a survey pilot for the U.S. government, saw a lone creature of the same type while crossing the lake at low altitude in 1945. Rost thought the animal was over 20 feet long.
There have been at least three attempts to find or catch Iliamna's mystery inhabitants. In the 1950s, sportsman Gil Paust and three companions (one a fisherman named Bill Hammersly, who had been in the plane with Alsworth in 1942 and shared his amazing sighting), tried to fish for the creatures. According to Paust, something grabbed the moose meat used as bait and snapped the steel cable it was hooked to. In 1959, oilman and Cryptozoology enthusiast Tom Slick hired Alsworth to conduct an aerial search of the lake, but nothing was sighted. An expedition in 1966 also apparently met with no success, as no results were announced. In 1979, the Anchorage Daily News offered $100,000 for tangible evidence of the Iliamna creatures. The reward brought both serious and non-serious researchers (one man reportedly played classical music to lure the animals up). Apparently, there has never been a well-financed expedition with sophisticated sonar and photographic gear.
According to a 1988 article in Alaska magazine, a noteworthy (but unnamed) witness was a state wildlife biologist. In 1963, this official was reportedly flying over the lake alone when he spotted a creature which appeared to be 25 to 30 feet long. In the ten minutes it was under observation, the thing never came up for air. Other flying witnesses mentioned in media accounts include a geologist who flew over the lake with two companions in 1960, reportedly spotting four 10-foot fish, and air taxi pilot Tim LaPorte in 1977. In LaPorte's case, the veteran pilot and air-service owner was near Pedro Bay, at the northeast end of the lake. He was flying just a few hundred feet above a flat calm surface. LaPorte and his two passengers, one a visiting Michigan fish and game official, saw an animal lying still, its back just breaking the surface. As the plane came closer, the creature made a "big arching splash" and dove straight down. LaPorte remembers watching a large vertical tail moving as the animal sounded. Comparing the object to an 18-foot boat often observed from the same altitude, LaPorte and his companions estimated the thing was 12 to 14 feet long. LaPorte described the object as either dark gray or dark brown. LaPorte had been a passenger in a different aircraft in 1968 when the other two individuals in the plane had a very similar sighting. (LaPorte, who was in the left seat, could not see the animal from his side.)
Modern sightings have occurred mostly near the villages of Iliamna and Pedro Bay. It was off the latter town in 1988 that several witnesses, three in a boat and others on shore, reported one of the creatures. In this case, it was described as black. One witness thought she could see a fin on the back, with a white stripe along it.
Lake Iliamna is still an isolated body of water, its shores largely unpopulated. The largest village, Kakhonak, counts only 200 permanent residents. The lake cannot be reached overland. Summer visitors must come by boat or fly in to a single airstrip. If there are unusual creatures in the lake, it's hardly surprising that a long time can pass between good sightings.
A common theory about the Lake Iliamna creatures (sometimes called "Illies") is that they are gigantic sturgeon. These could be either an outsized population of a known type or an unknown species. Sturgeon - huge fish with armorlike scutes covering their backs and a heritage going back before the dinosaurs - match most descriptions from Iliamna fairly well. A witness named Louise Wassillie, who watched a creature from her fishing boat in 1989, said specifically, "It's only a fish. It was about 20 feet long and had a long snout. Probably a sturgeon." Biologist Pat Poe of the Fisheries Research Institute (FRI) at the University of Washington, who has studied the salmon populations in Iliamna and neighboring Lake Clark, once commented, "I'm sure there's a big fish. I think the lakes have a lot of interesting secrets. We don't know much about other resident fish in the lake." Warner Lew, currently the senior biologist with the FRI's Alaska Salmon Program, agrees the lake seems a suitable habitat for large sturgeon. Lew reports several witnesses have told him of sighting giant fish, but he has yet to see any fish larger than a four-foot Northern pike in his 24 years of research visits to the lake. The white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) is the largest known fresh-water fish in North America. The record claim for a white sturgeon, caught in Canada's Fraser River in 1912, was 20 feet in length and 1,800 pounds. A fish of 1,500 pounds was reported caught in 1928 in the Snake River in the northwestern United States. An 11-foot specimen weighing 900 pounds was found dead on the shore of Seattle's Lake Washington in 1987. Sturgeon expert Don Larson, curator of the Sturgeon Page Website, reports that sturgeons over 10 feet long are often caught in the Fraser and Columbia Rivers. Larson comments, "Most biologists I've talked to say that white sturgeon over 20 feet and 1800 pounds is highly probable." White sturgeons are not known from Iliamna, but have been found in other Alaskan lakes and in coastal waters as far north as Cook Inlet. There is a single record of a catch in Bristol Bay, which puts a migration to Iliamna within the bounds of possibility. It's also plausible that white sturgeon became trapped in the lake thousands of years ago, when the last glaciers receded, and have developed in isolation. Sturgeons are bottom-feeders and would rarely be seen near the surface, which fits the Iliamna phenomenon. The appearance of white sturgeon - gray to gray-brown in color, with huge heads and long cylindrical bodies -match most Iliamna reports. (No one is certain how the species got the name "white sturgeon," although some genuinely white specimens have been reported from salt water.) It may be a distinct sturgeon population has developed, distinguished from the known white sturgeon mainly by unusual size. Whether this hypothetical type is different enough to be a new species is unknown. There is plenty of food in Iliamna, where averages of 20 million sockeye salmon return to the lake from the sea every year. There is also plenty of room. Iliamna has 15 times the volume of Loch Ness. At the same time, it must be admitted there is no physical or film evidence for unknown creatures of any kind. A landlocked population of fish becoming larger than their relatives which are anadromous (dividing their lives between fresh and salt water) would be unusual. In most cases where a species has become split between freshwater and anadromous populations, as with salmon, the freshwater variety becomes smaller. However, this rule may not be valid for Lake Iliamna, with its huge size and bountiful food supply.
So what is lurking in Lake Iliamna? Sturgeons? Monsters? Tall tales? Or something completely different? Whatever is going on constitutes one of the most intriguing lake monster mysteries in the world. If I had to pick one "monster" lake to bet on as the home of a real creature of prodigious size, it is Iliamna, rather than the better-known candidates in Canada and Scotland, where I would put my money.
Big Black Cats
Not exactly a cryptid. But there have been many sightings mainly throughout the countryside of the UK. People have seen huge black cats walking through thier garden. Some people think that it is an escaped panther. There have also been droppings found which match those of a big cats (Tiger, Panther etc). Not in a zoo, but in a field. How else would that get there?
Not exactly a cryptid. But there have been many sightings mainly throughout the countryside of the UK. People have seen huge black cats walking through thier garden. Some people think that it is an escaped panther. There have also been droppings found which match those of a big cats (Tiger, Panther etc). Not in a zoo, but in a field. How else would that get there?
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