Cryptozoology Comes Of Age

Long dismissed as the domain of Ufology and conspiracy theories, cryptozoology has come of age and become a legitimate science thanks to the discovery of various new animal speices previously unknown to science.

If you've read Scott Weidensaul's excellent book The Ghost With Trembling Wings (2002), you'll recall the story of Louise Emmons and the giant Peruvian rodent she discovered. But before I get to that, let me say that The Ghost With Trembling Wings isn't about ghosts at all, but about the search for cryptic or supposedly extinct species. Think thylacines, British big cats, Ivory-billed woodpeckers, Cone-billed tanagers, the resurrection of the aurochs, Night parrots, Richard Meinertzhagen and the Indian forest owlet. It begins with Weidensaul's search for Semper's warbler Leucopeza semperi, an enigmatic parulid endemic to St. Lucia, discovered in 1870 and last seen alive in 1969 (although with a trickle of post-1969 sightings, some reliable and some not so reliable). If you're interested in the hunt for cryptic species and zoological field work and its history, it is mandatory that you obtain and read this inexpensive book.
Louise Emmons is a highly distinguished, experienced mammalogist who has worked on bats, tree shrews, cats big and small, and rodents, and is also the foremost expert on the mammals of the Neotropical rainforests (she wrote the only field guide to Neotropical rainforest mammals: Emmons 1999a). On 15th June 1997, while on an expedition to the northern Vilcabamba range of Cusco, Peru, she was walking along a forest track when, lying dead on the track in front of her, she discovered a big dead rodent. Pale grey, but handsomely patterned with a white nose and lips, and with a white blaze running along the top of its head, it was over 30 cm in head and body length, and with a tail over 20 cm long. Its broad feet, prominent and curved claws, large hallux, and palms and soles covered in small tubercles indicated that it was a tree-climbing species. A large bite wound on the neck indicated that it had recently been killed by a predator, probably a Long-tailed weasel Mustela frenata.
And it was entirely new: no one had ever recorded anything like it before. In her description of the new species, Emmons (1999b) named it Cuscomys ashaninka (meaning 'mouse from Cusco, of the Ashaninka people') and showed that it was a member of Abrocomidae. This is an entirely South American group previously known only from Abrocoma Waterhouse 1837, members of which are sometimes called rat chinchillas, chinchilla rats or chinchilliones, and from the Miocene fossil Protabrocoma Kraglievich 1927. Abrocoma is known from eight species (A. bennetti, A. boliviensis, A. cinerea, A. vaccarum, A. uspallata, A. budini, A. famatina and A. schistacea), among which A. boliviensis was only recognised in 1990 and A. uspallata in 2002 (Glanz & Anderson 1990, Braun & Mares 1996, 2002). Incidentally A. bennetti has 17 pairs of ribs - more than any other rodent. Abrocoma produces midden piles, and Pleistocene rodent middens from Chile have been identified by DNA analysis as having been produced by Abrocoma (Kuch et al. 2002).

And speaking of unkown species here is a possible explanation for the Ogopogo.

Could unknown Okanagan creature be baby Ogopogo?
Kent Spencer, Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, November 10, 2008
VANCOUVER - A TV documentary crew has added to the mystery surrounding Ogopogo by finding an unknown biological specimen in the depths of Okanagan Lake.
"I told a radio station tongue-in-cheek I thought it was the baby Ogopogo," monster-watcher Bill Steciuk of Kelowna said Monday after the History Channel completed a nine-day shoot.
"It was all curled up. The features were really hard to see. You could see a little head tucked in and a straight tail with no fins.
"It's a huge mystery. We have no idea what it is," said Steciuk, who helped organize the shooting locations.
The unidentified specimen has been shipped to the University of Guelph in Ontario for DNA tests, but Ogopogo buffs will have to wait until February to find out more, when the Monster Quest program weighs in on the legendary mega-serpent.
Ogopogo, first sighted in the 1870s, is reputed to be 12 metres long with multiple humps and a small head.
The History Channel, which had a bigger budget than previous expeditions, mounted a thermal infrared imaging camera on a helicopter for the first time. It picked up an unidentified shadow on the lake, while sonar spotted something over three metres long moving in the water.
"That's pretty big for a fish," said Steciuk.
But divers made the most interesting find in an underwater cave on the west side of Rattlesnake Island.
"I couldn't recognize it," said Steciuk. "Nor could anyone else. Maybe a new species has been found."

See
Sea Serpent
Die Vurm
Strange Sea Creatures
Chupacabra A Shunka Warakin
Cryptozology Part 1
Cryptozoology Part 2
They Walk Among Us


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Watch For Falling Rock

He said what? This is an example of why folks don't trust scientists. When they act as PR flaks for scientism, dismissing the facts before all the empirical evidence is in.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Modesto Montoya, told the state press agency that a fallen meteorite did not present any danger unless it hit some structure on impact.

And yes he was referring to this;

The meteorite impact crater high in the Peruvian Andes is said to be emitting noxious fumes. Photograph: EPA


A meteorite has struck a remote part of Peru and carved a large crater that is emitting noxious odours and making villagers ill, according to local press reports

The soil around the hole appeared to be scorched and there was a "strange odour", a local health department official, Jorge López, told Peru's RPP radio.

Later the farmers complained of headaches and vomiting. Police who went to investigate the crater were also stricken with nausea, prompting authorities to dispatch a medical team that reached the site today.

According to Peru's La Republica newspaper, due to the high number of illnesses, district authorities are considering placing the town of Carancas, Puno, Peru in a state of emergency. It has been reported that at least 600 people have been affected by the meteorite

Me thinks Mr. Montoya spoke too soon. Not too modest of him to dismiss the complaints of the villagers. When the science says they are right to be concerned.

Luisa Macedo, a geologist with the Mining Geology and Metallurgy Institute in Lima, told Reuters the reaction between the elements in a meteorite and the Earth's surface can generate gases that then dissipate.

Of course another literalist dismisses the complaints as well by saying its the dust rising from the impact not the meteor itself.

But meteor expert Ursula Marvin, cast doubt on that theory, saying, "It wouldn't be the meteorite itself, but the dust it raises."

Well sure that argument appears logical like saying it wasn't that the WTC was toxic it was the dust and remnants from its collapse that were toxic.

The lesson here seems to be unstated that it is not a good idea to get to close to a meteor or other space debris when it crashes to earth until well after the area has cooled off and the impact dusts have settled. All meteor impacts can be toxic.

The extreme heat that results from a meteorite strike causes elements to fuse and releases noxious clouds of gas.
Pictured here, Meteor Crater in Arizona, which is over 1 kilometre across and 150 metres deep (Image: NASA, JSC)

"We have determined with precision instruments that there is no radiation," says engineer Renan Ramirez of the Peruvian Nuclear Energy Institute.

Ramirez says the illnesses may have been triggered by sulfur, arsenic or other toxins that may have melted in the extreme heat produced by the meteorite strike.

"It is a conventional meteorite that, when it struck, produced gases by fusing with elements of the terrain," he says.

However no one has come out and said that. Because that would of course be seen for what it is; blaming the victim. These uneducated peasants should have known better. Better to say they don't know what they are talking about. The reality is the villagers believed it was a plane crash. So they went out to the crash site to be helpful. And got sick.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Of course thes comments on meteors not being dangerous is not science but the 'scientism' of PR flaks and apologists, like those in the EPA who approved the clean up of the WTC site which they said wasn't toxic.

And we of course would not even be talking about this meteor, except that folks did get sick at the crash site. When meteors crash normally they don't make the news unless they are mistaken for something else like a plane crash or UFO

And the off the cuff dismissal that meteors are not inherently dangerous. Oh yeah tell it to the dinosaurs.


SEE:

Holy Kryptonite Superman

Space Litter

, Peru, latin america, south america, toxic, meteor, space, science