Vlad the Impaler steps out of Dracula’s shadow


AFP
October 26, 2023

Fangs for coming: visitors admire one of the few portraits of Vlad III, aka Dracula, in Austria's Forchtenstein Castle 

- Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File KEVIN WINTER

Blaise GAUQUELIN with Ionut IORDACHESCU in Romania

Cloaked in a black cape like the infamous count himself, 10-year-old Niklas Schuetz runs through the dark corridors of a hill-top castle in search of the truth about Dracula.

“He was a Romanian prince, not a vampire,” said the schoolboy, as he tripped by torchlight through the nocturnal gloom of Forchtenstein Castle.

The group being guided through the Austrian fortress are eager to sink their teeth into the gripping life of Vlad Tepes, the notorious “Vlad the Impaler”, whose descendants once held the schloss.

The castle is home to one of the few paintings of the cruel 15th-century prince, and this Halloween its curators are trying to bring the real historical figure out from the chilling shadow of the monster invented by the Irish writer Bram Stoker.

Rather than being a ghoulish fiend, the real Vlad Tepes had for a “long time gone down in history as a positive figure” who courageously fought the Ottoman Turks, said the director of its collections, Florian Bayer.

“More and more people are able to distinguish between the bloodsucking vampire and the historical figure,” he said.

Voivode Vlad III — also known by his patronymic name Dracula derived from the Slavonic word for dragon — once ruled over Wallachia, a Romanian-speaking vassal state of the Kingdom of Hungary.

– ‘Forest’ of the impaled –

Held as a child hostage of the sultan at the Ottoman court, he later turned against his former captors.

In several hard-fought campaigns against the Turks, he struck fear into his enemies by impaling thousands of Turkish prisoners.

This gruesomely slow death was also used against his internal rivals, like “the German merchants from neighbouring Transylvanian towns,” historian Dan Ioan Muresan told AFP.

Tepes was often depicted amidst a “forest” of impaled bodies.

Yet despite his gory reputation, Vlad was a handsome devil and something of a ladykiller, according to Muresan.

He was a “very handsome man with an imposing build”, with long hair flowing over his Turkish-style kaftans adorned with diamonds.

By marrying a cousin of the Hungarian king, he “gave rise to a branch from which the British royal family descends,” the historian added.

Indeed Britain’s King Charles III has repeatedly boasted of their shared blood ties, saying that Transylvania runs through his veins.

– Communist marketing –

The gothic novel by Stoker published in 1897 helped kickstart the modern vampire genre.

Dozens of films later, the fictional Dracula had transformed into a pop culture icon.

“Until the 1960s, Romanians didn’t associate the character imagined by Stoker with Vlad Tepes,” said Bogdan Popovici, head of the national archives in the Transylvanian city of Brasov, home to some of the prince’s manuscripts.

“It was the Communists who started to commercialise it for the Western market to attract tourists,” he said.

While cashing in on selling the vampire myth to visitors, the regime of Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu sought to resurrect Vlad as a national hero.

Paradoxically, the Communist regime was careful in differentiating the real Dracula from its fictitious counterpart as it pursued its mission to wipe out pagan traditions.

– Tears of blood –

“Romanians have never recognised themselves in the character, which was born out of a foreign imagination and planted into an exotic reality,” said Muresan.

“It is being exploited as a kind of tourist trap,” he said.

The real Vlad never set foot in Romania’s Bran Castle — widely taken as the inspiration for the lair of Dracula — but it hasn’t stopped it drawing visitors in their droves.

Murdered by his own people in 1476 in the wake of a conspiracy, experts dispute the whereabouts of his remains to this day, with some claiming that his head was sent to the sultan in Constantinople to confirm his death.

A recent Italian scientific study based on the analysis of the prince’s handwritten letters found that Vlad probably suffered from haemolacria, indicating that he could shed tears of blood.

The creepy detail is undoubtedly enough to keep the Dracula myth alive for some time yet.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for VLAD THE IMPALER 

The Real Dracula?

“Dracula”, published in 1897 by the Irish Author Bram Stoker, introduced audiences to the infamous Count and his dark world of sired vampiric minions.

Stokers’ work would go onto influence a cultural fascination and establish the conventions of vampire fantasy that we’ve come to popularise across various media.

Before the story of “Dracula” was concocted, the concept of a blood-sucking spirit or demon consuming human flesh was told in the mythology and folktales of almost every civilisation through the centuries. Stoker would spend several years researching Central and East European folklore for mythological stories on the supernatural.

One of the earliest vampiric depictions he would have uncovered stems from cuneiform texts by the Akkadians, Summarians, Assyrians and Babylonians where they referred to demonic figures such as the Lilu and Lilitu.

This myth became synonymous in Jewish folklore in the Babylonian Talmud, giving rise to the demon “Lilith” (translated as “night creature”) around 300-500AD. She would often be depicted as a sexually wanton demon who steals babies in the night to feast on their blood. Lilith would also appear as Adam’s first wife in the Alphabet of Sirach written between 700-100AD.

It wasn’t until the late 17th and 18th century that the folklore for vampires as we imagine, began to be told in the verbal traditions and lore of many European ethnic groups. They were described as the revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, witches, corpses possessed by a malevolent spirit or the victim of a vampiric attack that has resulted in their own viral ascension to vampirism.

During the 18th century, vampire sightings across Eastern Europe had reached its peak, with frequent exhumations and the practice of staking to kill potential revenants. This period was commonly referred to as the “18th-Century Vampire Controversy”.


18th century poetry and literature reflect the public hysteria of the time with poems like The Vampire (1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder and stories such as John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” (1819), featuring the vampire Lord Ruthven that culminated in Stokers pre-eminent vampire novel.

The catalyst for Stoker’s work is argued to stem from the tales regaled by Ármin Vámbéry, a Hungarian-Jewish writer, whilst another arguable source is the book “The Land Beyond the Forest (1890)” and essay “Transylvania Superstitions” by Emily Gerard which certainly introduced Stoker to the term “Nosferatu”.

According to the 1972 book “In Search of Dracula”, Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally championed the theory (that was originally proposed by Basil Kirtley), that Stoker’s research culminated in him basing Dracula on the Voivode of Wallachia, Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Tepes.

The scholars had connected the two figures through a matching biographical namesake. Both Count Dracula and Vlad III Dracula also shared similarities in their personal clashes with the neighbouring Ottomans, highlighted during a conversation in Chapter 3 of the book.

In the conversation, Dracula refers to the Voivode of the Dracula race who fought against the Turks after the defeat in the Battle of Kosovo.

“Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! (Chapter 3, pp. 19)”

This is reinforced in chapter 18 when the stories character, Professor Van Helsing referred to a letter from his friend Arminius: “He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. (Chapter 18, pp. 145)”

These speeches show elements that Stoker directly copied from “An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Relating to Them” by William Wilkinson.

Vlad III Dracula

Vlad III Dracula was the Voivode of Wallachia, having lived between 1428-1431. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania to this day.

The second son of Vlad Dracul, (a member of the Order of the Dragons called the Drăculești), Vlad III and his brother were known as “Dracula”, translated as “son of Dracul”.Wallachia

Vlad Dracul was supplanted and murdered by Vladislav II in 1447 which led to a series of successive wars by Vlad III to retake the throne of Wallachia. In 1456, Vlad III defeated Vladislav II and started to strengthen his hold of the region. He begun by purging the Wallachian Boyers (nobility of the Danubian Principalities) who he believed played a role in the death of his Father and Brother.

Laonikos Chalkokondyles’s chronicles stated that Vlad “quickly effected a great change and utterly revolutionised the affairs of Wallachia” through granting the “money, property, and other goods” of his victims to his retainers.

He then turned his attentions to the Transylvanian Saxons who supported his enemies and plundered the villages around Brașov and Sibiu. German propaganda tell stories of Vlad ordering all the inhabitants to Wallachia and had them impaled or burnt alive.

The real threat to Vlad and his nation was the neighboring Ottoman Empire. Vlad had failed to pay the jizya (tax on non-Muslims) to Sultan Mehmed II for the past three years which culminated in Vlad taking the offensive. He campaigned across the Danube by attacking villages and stormed the fortress of Giurgiu, resulting in the death of over 23,000 Turks and Bulgarians.

Having learned of Vlad’s invasion, Mehmed II raised an army of more than 150,000 strong with the objective to conquer Wallachia and annex it to his empire.

The two leaders fought a series of skirmishes, culminating in a failed night attack near the city of Târgoviște by Vlad III in an attempt to kill Mehmed. Mehmed proceeded to march on the city finding little resistance, but after leaving Târgoviște he discovered the horrific remains of 23,844 impaled Turkish prisoners arranged in concentric circles.

The Battle with Torches, a painting by Theodor Aman about Vlad’s Night Attack at Târgoviște – Theodor Aman

During his reign, Vlad is said to have also killed from 40,000 to 100,000 European civilians (political rivals, criminals, and anyone that he considered “useless to humanity”), mainly by impaling.

As convincing as the Vlad III theory suggests, this was always contested by Stoker’s son, Irving Stoke who claimed that the creation of Dracula was due to a nightmarish dream his father had after eating dressed crab.

Further footnotes copied from Wilkinson’s book by Stoker state that “DRACULA in Wallachian language means DEVIL.” This footnote further explained that “Wallachians gave the name “Dracula” to people who were especially courageous, cruel, or cunning”. They never mention the name of Vlad III, the connection to the order of the dragons, nor that Vlad III’s life was a direct source of inspiration for Stoker despite previous assumptions.

Another theory by Barbara Belford argues that Stoker’s close friend and employer, the actor Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) was actually Stokers inspiration for the character traits of Dracula. In “Bram Stoker: A Biography of the Author of Dracula,” Barbara Belford connects the venerated actor to the fictional vampire, describing Irving as an egotist, a striking, mesmerising figure, and a demanding employer.

Belford notes, “Somewhere in the creative process, Dracula became a sinister caricature of Irving as mesmerist and depleter, an artist draining those about him to feed his ego. It was a stunning but avenging tribute.”

So, who is really the real Dracula? We have no definitive evidence, but most scholars generally agree that the idea of Dracula stems from the stories of Vlad III, or at least from the history of the Voivodes of Wallachia where Stoker borrowed scraps of miscellaneous information in his research.

For the character concept and appearance of Dracula, Stoker would have drawn on his real-life experiences and acquaintances for inspiration. Stoker was a deeply private man, but his intense adoration of actors Walt Whitman, Henry Irving and Hall Caine, and shared interests with Oscar Wilde, as well as the homoerotic aspects of Dracula have led to scholarly speculation that he was a repressed homosexual who used his fiction as an outlet for his sexual frustrations.

This is certainly emphasised in the book, “From the Shadow of ‘Dracula'” by Paul Murray who describes ‘The powerful sexual charge which runs through Dracula has caught the attention of modern commentators, who see in it deviant and taboo forms of sexuality, including rape, incest, adultery, oral sex, group sex, sex during menstruation, bestiality, pedophilia, venereal disease, and voyeurism, among other things.

As for Irving, the role of Count Dracula in a failed stage play reading was not one that Henry Irving wanted. When Stoker asked him if he liked the reading, Irving’s response was “Dreadful.”

Six years later, Irving died, but Stoker would describe his admiration as “So great was the magnetism of his genius, so profound was the sense of his dominancy, that I sat spellbound” for which parallels to the magical, dominating character of Count Dracula can certainly be compared.

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/02/the-real-dracula/125690

Prince Charles is a descendant of Dracula and owns properties in Transylvania

The Prince of Wales is the heir to Vlad the Impaler's bloodline

By Charlotte Becquart

Senior reporter
 2 MAY 2021

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (Image: Chris Jackson - WPA Pool / Getty Images)

The Royal Family has links to several countries across Europe, including Romania, and it turns out that Prince Charles is the descendant of the real-life Dracula.

The Prince of Wales, who actually owns several properties in Transylvania, is the heir to Vlad the Impaler's bloodline.

The ruthless prince, also known as Vlad Tepes and Vlad III Dracula, is known for his cruelty towards his enemies and impaling them on stakes. He lived in the 15th century and is said to have inspired Bram Stoker for his famous Count Dracula.

In 1462, following a battle, Vlad left a field filled with thousands of impaled victims.

More than 530 years later, in 1998, Prince Charles found out about his links to the Romanian ruler.

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He is, in fact, his great-grandson 16 times removed, through the consort of George V, Queen Mary, Romania Tour Store reports.

A genealogical tree in The British Chronicles written by David Hughes supports this claim.

The website adds: "It’s also no secret that Prince Charles is very fond of Romania, especially of the Transylvania region. It was after his first visit to Transylvania in 1998 that he found out about his connection to Vlad the Impaler, a connection that he is apparently very proud of.

"Through the Prince of Wales Foundation, Prince Charles has done plenty of charity work in Transylvania, especially in the fields of sustainable development, conservation, and farming systems. Because of his strong involvement in the region, the mayor of the city of Alba Iulia has proposed to grant Prince Charles the title of Prince of Transylvania as recognition for being a prominent ambassador of the Transylvania region all over the world."

A great-great grandmother of Prince Charles' mother Queen Elizabeth II, Hungarian Countess Klaudia Rhedey, was also born and raised in Transylvania in the 19th century.

(Image: Romain Chassagne / Getty Images)

Prince Charles now owns several properties in the Romanian region - in Viscri, in the Zalanului Valley, in Malancrav and in Breb.

These villages have now become popular with tourists.

Viscri is known for its pastel-coloured houses and its UNESCO World Heritage fortified church.

It is said that Zalán Valley used to belong to one of Charles' ancestors.

"The tiny hamlet of Zalán Valley (Zalánpatak in Hungarian, Valea Zălanului in Romanian) was first documented in the 16th century as belonging to Bálint (Valentin) Kálnoky of Kőröspatak, one of the Transylvanian ancestors of H.R.H. The Prince of Wales.


"The family had originally founded a glass factory in this part of the hills, which has since ceased to exist. Today, around 120 inhabitants live in the village.

"Prince Charles owns the property that had been built for the former ‘judge’ who was overseeing the glassworks and the village. It is composed of several buildings, and has a patch of forest and extensive flower meadows, with mineral springs and small brooks belonging to it."

The properties are now holiday cottages and can be booked by tourists.

OPINION

LITERARY SCANDALS: WHO WAS THE REAL-LIFE DRACULA?

Tika Viteri Nov 30, 2021

My friends, let us begin drawing up some lines of conspiracy and scandal. From the outset, I am absolving myself of journalistic integrity and the usual need to provide evidence of my claims, or — more importantly in many cases — evidence that outweighs my claims. Everyone involved in this scandal is long-dead, and real, actual scholars have written about and studied this subject. In the sense of a person dedicated to finding truth, I am neither a journalist nor a scholar in this moment, but merely a literary gossip, and I dearly love a good scandal.

Let’s get something out of the way immediately: vampires — the blood-sucking, immortal, turning-into-bats, sparkling-in-the-sunlight, “I-vant-to-saaaahck-your-blooood” vampires, are not real. At least, not on our plane of reality. That I know of. And to be honest, I’d rather not know if they’re really real. But if you happen to come across one, please ask him (it’s always a “him”) why his kind seem drawn to young, impressionable women who haven’t yet formed their sense of autonomous self. On second thought, scratch that. I think I just answered my own question.

ANYWAY. We are here, denizens of the grapevine, to discuss that most infamous of literary characters: Dracula.

Any quick internet search will tell you that Bram Stoker’s character Dracula was based on Vlad Dracula, Vlad III of Romania, Vlad the Impaler. However, Stoker’s depiction of Vlad Dracula is entirely fantastical, barely based on the broad outlines of his life. It is obvious to any internet armchair historian — such as I — that someone else must have served as a much more immediate and personal reference for such an iconic villain.

I present to you, fellow scuttlebutt enthusiasts, the one and only Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, famous author, playwright, and aesthete.

Oscar Wilde, age 28 (1882)

“What?” you may be thinking. “What on earth has a vampire to do with Oscar Wilde, author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest?” I’m getting there. It turns out that one Abraham Stoker, Irishman, and one Oscar Wilde, also an Irishman, were part of the same circle growing up. Their parents were friends, and they were at Trinity College at the same time, where they were friends.

 Very close friends.

That is, until they both met Florence Balcombe, celebrated beauty. Wilde courted her first, and she accepted his suit, although the pairing was eventually broken off and Florence took the name of Mrs. Bram Stoker. Stoker’s proposal was something of a scandal in and of itself, considering that Wilde was still her foremost suitor. And, rumor has it that while Stoker was the eventual victor of the young Miss Balcombe’s heart, he never quite recovered from the discrepancy of Florence’s love for Wilde’s flamboyant, outsized dandy character. His character, in contrast, was more solid and determined, with a steady job as theater manager for Henry Irving.

In 1897, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labor for “gross indecency” regarding acts of sodomy, and Bram Stoker began what was to be his masterwork. In it, he describes the titular villain using the same words that the contemporary press used to describe Wilde: as an “overfed leech” and a living personification of all that is dilettante and wrong with late Victorian society.

Stoker’s revenge was entirely Pyrrhic. Journals discovered in his attic (how is it that this kind of discovery is still happening??), printed in 2012 as The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker, talk in coded language about Stoker’s own sexual preferences and predilections. What is less coded is the text of his letter to Walt Whitman:

I would like to call YOU Comrade and to talk to you as men who are not poets do not often talk. I think that at first a man would be ashamed, for a man cannot in a moment break the habit of comparative reticence that has become second nature to him; but I know I would not long be ashamed to be natural before you. You are a true man, and I would like to be one myself, and so I would be towards you as a brother and as a pupil to his master.

Bram Stoker to Walt Whitman.

This letter is printed in full, for the first time, in Something in the Blood by David J. Skal. In Victorian times, admiration for Whitman was akin to a declaration of homosexuality, almost as damning as a relationship with Oscar Wilde himself.

Stoker famously kept to himself, editing his public image ruthlessly. In contrast to Wilde, and perhaps in reaction to what he perceived to be Wilde’s recklessness regarding his sexual exploits, he retreated farther and farther into the closet, going so far as to say in 1912 that all homosexuals should be locked up — a group that definitely, in retrospect, included himself.

In the end, this literary scandal ends up being less lascivious and more a tale to tug at the heart. Two friends, rivals, lovers, and authors; Stoker put them at odds in Dracula, casting Mina as the love interest, but in the end, it is the tension between the steady, dependable Harker and the deadly, mesmerizing Dracula that compels us.

'Ghost ship' washes up on Irish coast after storm

A "ghost" cargo ship has washed up off the coast of County Cork, Ireland, brought in by the bad weather that lashed Europe in Storm Dennis.

The abandoned boat was spotted on the rocks of fishing village Ballycotton by a passerby.



The vessel appears to have drifted thousands of miles over more than a year, from the south-east of Bermuda in 2018, across the Atlantic Ocean.© Irish Coast Guard/PA The 80-metre cargo ship Alta was last seen thousands of miles away in 2019

"This is one in a million," said local lifeboat chief John Tattan.

The head of Ballycotton's Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) told the Irish Examiner newspaper he had "never, ever seen anything abandoned like that before."

So what's the story behind this mysterious ship without a crew?

Rescue 117 was tasked earlier today to a vessel aground near Ballycotton, Cork. There was nobody on board. Previously the @USCG had rescued the 10 crew members from the vessel back in September 2018. The vessel has been drifting since and today came ashore on the Cork coastline. pic.twitter.com/NbvlZ89KSY— Irish Coast Guard (@IrishCoastGuard) February 16, 2020



An abandoned ship washed up on the rocky shore of southern Ireland after having drifted across the Atlantic Ocean for more than a year, the Irish Coast Guard said Monday.
Wind of up to 110 kilometers (70 miles) per hour from Storm Dennishad pushed the "ghost ship" towards the Irish coast. It was first sighted on Sunday.
The coast guard identified the 77-meter (250-feet) cargo ship as the MV Alta, which broke down while sailing from Greece to Haiti in September 2018.
The US Coast Guard rescued 10 people from the broken down vessel 1,380 miles (2,220 kilometers) southeast of the Atlantic archipelago Bermuda.
The crew had spent 20 days onboard the ship, having been supplied with food by the coast guard before they were rescAn abandoned ship washed up on the rocky shore of southern Ireland after having drifted across the Atlantic Ocean ued.
The ship was last spotted drifting crewless in the mid-Atlantic by a British patrol ship in August 2019.
Cork county officials said Monday that there was no sign of pollution from the 44-year-old ship, and a contractor would board the vessel at low tide on Tuesday for further assessment of what to do with the wreck.


WHICH OF COURSE WILL REMIND THE PERCEPTIVE READER OF IRISH GOTHIC FICTION OF THIS 

Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, published in May 1897, is one of the outstanding works of Gothic literature. The story, told in the form of letters and journal entries, tapped into the fears that haunted the Victorian fin de siècle. In Dracula, modern, progressive Britain is menaced by decayed, aristocratic Europe. Superstition is pitted against science, and wanton female sexuality, in the guise of Lucy Westenra, is contrasted with the traditional respectability of Mina Murray. The book is an imaginative tour de force, full of terrifying and dream-like imagery, but its roots lie deep in the anxieties of late-Victorian Britain.

DRACULA

Summary and Analysis Chapters 7-8

Summary

Utilizing the narrative device of a newspaper clipping (dated August 8th), the story of the landing of Count Dracula's ship is presented. The report indicates that the recent storm, one of the worst storms on record, was responsible for the shipwreck of a strange Russian vessel. The article also mentions several observations which indicate the vessel's strange method of navigation; we learn that observers feel that the captain had to be mad because in the midst of the storm the ship's sails were wholly unfurled.

Many people who witnessed the approach of the strange vessel were gathered on one of Whitby's piers to await the ship's arrival. By the light of a spotlight, witnesses noticed that "lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro" as the ship rocked. As the vessel violently ran aground, "an immense dog sprang up on deck from below," jumped from the ship, and ran off. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the man lashed to the wheel (the helm) had a crucifix clutched in his hand. According to a local doctor, the man had been dead for at least two days. Coast Guard officials discovered a bottle in the dead man's pocket, carefully sealed, which contained a roll of paper.

Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies 15 (Autumn 2016)4 
Dracula’s Gothic Ship
 Emily Alder 
The narrative of Dracula (1897) is extensively informed by Bram Stoker’s research into travel, science, literature, and folklore.1 However, one feature of the novel that has never been examined in any detail is its gothic ship, the Demeter, which transports the vampire to Whitby. The Demeter is a capstone to a long tradition of nautical and maritime gothicity in literature and legend. Gothic representations of storms, shipwrecks, and traumatic journeys were shaped and inspired by the natural power of the sea and its weather, and by the reports and experiences of those who braved the dangers of ocean travel and witnessed its sublime marvels, or stood watching on the shore. The ships of Victorian fiction, more specifically, also belong to a maritime context that was distinct to the nineteenth century and that would soon change irrevocably as the Age of Sail finally drew to a close in the early 1900s.

DRACULA

CHAPTER 7

CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH", 8 AUGUST

(PASTED IN MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL)

From a correspondent.

Whitby.

One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighborhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of `tripping' both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from the commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of `mares tails' high in the sky to the northwest. The wind was then blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked `No. 2, light breeze.'

The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly coloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset colour, flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold, with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the sketches of the `Prelude to the Great Storm' will grace the R. A and R. I. walls in May next.

More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his `cobble' or his `mule', as they term the different classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed. The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature.

There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, which usually hug the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishing boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in the face of her danger. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea.

"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean."

D R A C U L A

by
Bram   Stoker





NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers

Copyright, 1897, in the United States of America, according
to Act of Congress, by Bram Stoker

[All rights reserved.]


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.

How American vampires wrecked a Russian ghost ship
Maybe

Last week I dealt with the strange tale of the vampire sailor, James Brown, who’s death sentence was commuted by President Andrew Johnson.

James Brown, you may remember from my earlier blog, murdered a crew mate in 1866, perhaps in self defense, perhaps not. Nearly twenty years later, he became a vampire-in-retrospect when the story grew from a single murder with a knife to several murders wherein blood was drained from his victims. This embellished version of James Brown may have originated with newspapers or it may have been the work of his prison warden, done with the intent of attracting tourists (yes, really).

Scoring some political points probably didn’t hurt.

It’s not bad journalism, it’s just balanced

The tale seems, on it’s surface, to be a free-standing bit of American vampire lore, disconnected from the large body of European Victorian literature that gave us the popular images we now immediately recognize as vampire. It might as well be Seinfeld for as much as it resembles gothic horror.

But maybe not. Maybe there’s a Dracula connection.

The same, vampirically-enhanced version of the James Brown story reemerged in newspapers in 1892. That’s shortly before a certain Bram Stoker toured America, and he’s known to have clipped articles from several papers concerning vampires. Is it possible he caught wind of the “improved” James Brown story before he wrote his masterpiece, Dracula?

Just the facts, Bram

“So what?” you ask, not trusting me and moving on. “We know Bram Stoker researched Dracula meticulously, so what difference does it make if he noticed this story too? What bearing does this one story have?”
Wellllllll,

It just so happens that James Brown’s vessel, The Atlantic, suffered a massive shipwreck in 1887, “one of the most melancholy and disastrous wrecks of the year”, killing most of the crew.

“Surrounded by the impenetrable fog and darkness, with the spars and rigging tumbling about their heads, the stout timbers crunching and splitting like matchwood, and the ceaseless roar and turmoil of the surf as it swept the wreck from one end to the other, the situation was appallingly dreadful, and many of the crew were doubtless killed outright…”

Quick, was that description from the wreck of The Atlantic… or was it Bram Stoker’s description of the wreck of The Demeter, the schooner that crashed into Whitby, delivering Dracula to England?

On the left, The Demeter. On the right, a barque similar to 

The Atlantic. Or is it the other way around?

Author Robert Damon Schneck draws the line between a tragic wreck of a ship upon the shore, a ship that once carried a “vampire” aboard who feasted on the crew, and Dracula’s preying upon the crew of the Demeter, leaving it lifeless as it wrecked upon the rocks of Whitby. It’s a tantalizing possibility, even without corroborating notes.

Perhaps there’s a line to be drawn from American mythology and fake news to the ultimate gothic horror novel. Or perhaps it’s an astonishing coincidence. But how does anyone see the similarities and not marvel at the world we live in, full of fiction, fact, and fantastic hybrids of the two?

Toothpickings
Sep 28, 2018 

Things We Saw Today: We’re Getting a New Spin on Dracula With The Last Voyage of the Demeter

By Kate Gardner Oct 1st, 2019



Fans of Bram Stoker’s original novel Dracula will recognize this title. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark director André Øvredal is in negotiations to captain The Last Voyage of the Demeter, a project inspired by the classic vampire novel. The film will follow the ship that transports Dracula from Transylvania to England, and the murderous havoc he wreaks on the crew. The project has been stuck in development hell for a while, but now has found new life.

The section on the Demeter’s fateful journey, told via the captain’s log, is one of the creepiest parts of Stoker’s novel. The slow burn of tension and the lack of places to escape—after all, where do you run on the open ocean—all build towards a horrifying climax. By focusing on this part of the tale rather than trying to spin Dracula as a romantic hero or just adapting the novel in full, the story can stay fresh and deliver a one setting horror film. Think Alien but on an old timey ship.


This news is perfectly timed to catapult the Halloween season. Vampires need a good comeback, and this could be a chance to make a really scary Dracula project. I can’t wait to see how it develops, and if this time the film makes it past the troubled waters of development hell into the hopefully smoother sailing of production and release.


(via The Hollywood Reporter, image: Universal)

HOW DRACULA CAME TO WHITBY

How Bram Stoker’s visit to the harbour town of Whitby on the Yorkshire coast in 1890 provided him with atmospheric locations for a Gothic novel – and a name for his famous vampire.


The dramatic ruins of Whitby Abbey, on the headland overlooking the town

A GOTHIC SETTING

Bram Stoker arrived at Mrs Veazey’s guesthouse at 6 Royal Crescent, Whitby, at the end of July 1890. As the business manager of actor Henry Irving, Stoker had just completed a gruelling theatrical tour of Scotland. It was Irving who recommended Whitby, where he’d once run a circus, as a place to stay. Stoker, having written two novels with characters and settings drawn from his native Ireland, was working on a new story, set in Styria in Austria, with a central character called Count Wampyr.

Stoker had a week on his own to explore before being joined by his wife and baby son. Mrs Veazey liked to clean his room each morning, so he’d stroll from the genteel heights of Royal Crescent down into the town. On the way, he took in the kind of views that had been exciting writers, artists and Romantic-minded visitors for the past century.

The favoured Gothic literature of the period was set in foreign lands full of eerie castles, convents and caves. Whitby’s windswept headland, the dramatic abbey ruins, a church surrounded by swooping bats, and a long association with jet – a semi-precious stone used in mourning jewellery – gave a homegrown taste of such thrilling horrors.

Today, every summer season there is a thrilling and popular performance of the story of Dracula at the abbey.

Bram Stoker photographed in about 1906

ABBEY AND CHURCH

High above Whitby, and dominating the whole town, stands Whitby Abbey, the ruin of a once-great Benedictine monastery, founded in the 11th century. The medieval abbey stands on the site of a much earlier monastery, founded in 657 by an Anglian princess, Hild, who became its first abbess. In Dracula, Stoker has Mina Murray – whose experiences form the thread of the novel – record in her diary:


Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes … It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows.

Below the abbey stands the ancient parish church of St Mary, perched on East Cliff, which is reached by a climb of 199 steps. Stoker would have seen how time and the weather had gnawed at the graves, some of them teetering precariously on the eroding cliff edge. Some headstones stood over empty graves, marking seafaring occupants whose bodies had been lost on distant voyages. He noted down inscriptions and names for later use, including ‘Swales’, the name he used for Dracula’s first victim in Whitby.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT WHITBY ABBEY’S HISTORY

Graves in St Mary’s churchyard, Whitby, with the abbey ruins in the background

AN ENCOUNTER WITH DRACULA

On 8 August 1890, Stoker walked down to what was known as the Coffee House End of the Quay and entered the public library. It was there that he found a book published in 1820, recording the experiences of a British consul in Bucharest, William Wilkinson, in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (now in Romania). Wilkinson’s history mentioned a 15th-century prince called Vlad Tepes who was said to have impaled his enemies on wooden stakes. He was known as Dracula – the ‘son of the dragon’. The author had added in a footnote:

Dracula in the Wallachian language means Devil. The Wallachians at that time … used to give this as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning.

Stoker made a note of this name, along with the date.

Anonymous 16th-century painting of Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Walachia 1456–62

THE BIRTH OF A LEGEND

While staying in Whitby, Stoker would have heard of the shipwreck five years earlier of a Russian vessel called the Dmitry, from Narva. This ran aground on Tate Hill Sands below East Cliff, carrying a cargo of silver sand. With a slightly rearranged name, this became the Demeter from Varna that carries Dracula to Whitby with a cargo of silver sand and boxes of earth.

So, although Stoker was to spend six more years on his novel before it was published, researching the landscapes and customs of Transylvania, the name of his villain and some of the novel’s most dramatic scenes were inspired by his holiday in Whitby. The innocent tourists, the picturesque harbour, the abbey ruins, the windswept churchyard and the salty tales he heard from Whitby seafarers all became ingredients in the novel.

In 1897 Dracula was published. It had an unpromising start as a play called The Undead, in which Stoker hoped Henry Irving would take the lead role. But after a test performance, Irving said he never wanted to see it again. For the character of Dracula, Stoker retained Irving’s aristocratic bearing and histrionic acting style, but he redrafted the play as a novel told in the form of letters, diaries, newspaper cuttings and entries in the ship’s log of the Demeter.

The log charts the gradual disappearance of the entire crew during the journey to Whitby, until only the captain is left, tied to the wheel, as the ship runs aground below East Cliff on 8 August – the date that marked Stoker’s discovery of the name ‘Dracula’ in Whitby library. A ‘large dog’ bounds from the wreck and runs up the 199 steps to the church, and from this moment, things begin to go horribly wrong. Dracula has arrived.

HISTORY 
OPINION
BRAM STOKER CLAIMED THAT PARTS OF DRACULA WERE REAL. HERE'S WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE STORY BEHIND THE NOVEL

Abraham Stoker (1845 - 1912) the Irish writer who 

wrote the classic horror story 'Dracula' in 1897.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

BY DACRE STOKER AND J.D. BARKER 
UPDATED: OCTOBER 3, 2018

“There are mysteries that man can only guess at which age by age may only solve in part.” — Bram Stoker

In the summer of 1890, a 45-year-old Bram Stoker entered the Subscription Library in Whitby, England, and requested a specific title — The Accounts of Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia by William Wilkinson. This wasn’t a title found readily on the shelves or typically made available to the general public. The library didn’t even make it known they possessed the rare book. Access was only granted to those who asked for it. Patrons handled the title only under the watchful eye of the librarian, and it was returned to its resting place the moment business concluded. Upon receipt of the book, Stoker didn’t read it cover to cover or browse the text — he opened the pages to a specific section, made notes in his journal, and returned the tome to the librarian.

He stopped next at the Whitby Museum, where he reviewed a series of maps and pieced together a route beginning in the heart of London and ending upon a mountaintop deep within the wilds of Romania — a latitude and longitude previously noted in his journal and confirmed again this very day.

From the museum, Bram then made his way to Whitby Harbor where he spoke to several members of the Royal Coast Guard. They provided details of a sailing vessel, the Dmitri, that ran aground a few years earlier on the beach inside the protective harbor with only a handful of the remaining crew alive. The ship, which originated in Varna, an eastern European port, was carrying a mysterious cargo — crates of earth. While investigating the damaged ship, rescue workers reported seeing a large black dog, consistent with a Yorkshire myth of a beast known as Barghest, escape from the hull of the ship and run up the 199 steps from Tate Sands beach into the graveyard of St. Mary’s Church.

Stoker looked up at the church, at Whitby Abbey looming beside it on the cliff. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the dark chamber at the top of the central tower.

Opening his journal, he turned to the information he’d written down back at the library —

Four months earlier, at a dinner at the Beefsteak Club of the Lyceum Theater in London, Bram Stoker’s friend Arminius Vambery told him of the book, told him what to look for. Told him to visit the library in Whitby. The final piece of a decades-old puzzle, a story, slowly taking shape. On another page of his notes, the name Count Wampyr had recently been crossed out, replaced with Count Dracula and to Bram, it all made sense now.

For fans of the novel Dracula, the information above takes on a familiar note. We all know the name. There’s the graveyard, the Abbey, the dog, and of course, the ship — but it was called The Demeter, right? Not Dmitri… In the book, yes, but in real life it was Dmitri. And there was a “real life.” Bram had found a blurry place between fact and fiction and that surely put a smile on the Irishman’s face.

When Bram Stoker wrote his iconic novel, the original preface, which was published in Makt Myrkanna, the Icelandic version of the story, included this passage: I am quite convinced that there is no doubt whatever that the events here described really took place, however unbelievable and incomprehensible they might appear at first sight. And I am further convinced that they must always remain to some extent incomprehensible.

He went on to claim that many of the characters in his novel were real people: All the people who have willingly — or unwillingly — played a part in this remarkable story are known generally and well respected. Both Jonathan Harker and his wife (who is a woman of character) and Dr. Seward are my friends and have been so for many years, and I have never doubted that they were telling the truth…

Bram Stoker did not intend for Dracula to serve as fiction, but as a warning of a very real evil, a childhood nightmare all too real.

Worried of the impact of presenting such a story as true, his editor, Otto Kyllman, of Archibald Constable & Company, returned the manuscript with a single word of his own: No.

He went on to explain that London was still recovering from a spate of horrible murders in Whitechapel — and with the killer still on the loose, they couldn’t publish such a story without running the risk of generating mass panic. Changes would need to be made. Factual elements would need to come out, and it would be published as fiction or not at all.

When the novel was finally released on May 26, 1897, the first 101 pages had been cut, numerous alterations had been made to the text, and the epilogue had been shortened, changing Dracula’s ultimate fate as well as that of his castle. Tens of thousands of words had vanished. Bram’s message, once concise and clear, had blurred between the remaining lines.

In the 1980s, the original Dracula manuscript was discovered in a barn in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. Nobody knows how it made its way across the Atlantic. That manuscript, now owned by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, begins on page 102. Jonathan Harker’s journey on a train, once thought to be the beginning of the story, was actually in the thick of it.

This raises a question: what was on the first 101 pages? What was considered too real, too frightening, for publication?

Bram Stoker left breadcrumbs; you need only know where to look. Some of those clues were discovered in a recently translated first edition of Dracula from Iceland titled Makt Myrkranna, or Power of Darkness. Within that first edition, Bram left not only his original preface intact, but parts of his original story — outside the reach of his U.K. publisher. More can be found within the short story Dracula’s Guest, now known to have been excised from the original text. Then there were his notes, his journals, other first editions worldwide. Unable to tell his story as a whole, he spread it out where, much like his famous vampire, it never died, only slept, waited.

Penguin Random House

J.D. Barker is the international bestselling author of Forsaken, The Fourth Monkey, and The Fifth to Die. Dacre Stoker is the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker and the international bestselling co-author of Dracula: The Undead. He manages the Bram Stoker Estate. Together, they are the authors of the novel Dracul, available now, the research for which informed this piece.

The original version of this article mistakenly described the Whitby Abbey tower as destroyed at the time of Bram Stoker’s visit in 1890. The tower was not destroyed until 1914.

---30---

Dracula's Castle in Romania Is Now Offering Free Vaccinations to Visitors

It's not quite the kind of bite that visitors to Bran Castle — better known as Dracula's castle — in Romania might expect, but it does come with a profound effect. On Friday, the castle announced that it's kicking off a COVID-19 vaccination marathon, offering visitors free doses every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in May without an appointment.

© Jeremy Woodhouse/Getty Images 

Admission to the castle is not required to receive the vaccine.

The castle, located in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania, hopes to lure more travelers with shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, calling it "another kind of sting." Admission to the castle is not required to receive a shot, and those who get it will earn a "diploma" saying that they were vaccinated at Bran Castle. Visitors who do also pay for castle admission will gain free access to the special exhibit on medieval torture tools, the attraction described on its Facebook page.

Further leaning into the location's theme, the campaign's imagery features a photo of fangs replaced by needles and a nurse with fangs ready to inject a dose. Plus, the on-site medics administering the shots have fang stickers on their scrubs, according to the BBC.

Video: Dracula's Castle in Romania Is Now Offering Free Vaccinations to Visitors (Travel + Leisure)

Visitors are required to follow all coronavirus safety measures, including using hand sanitizer, wearing a mask, and keeping a distance of two meters (about six and a half feet) from others, according to the castle's site.

The medieval castle, which was completed in 1388, is thought to be the inspiration for Irish author Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula," though Stoker never actually visited the Romanian landmark himself. The fictional title character is often mixed up with the real Vlad Tepes — better known as Vlad the Impaler — who ruled in the 1400s and is often depicted as a "blood-thirsty ruthless despot."

The vaccines are being doled out in the Medieval Custom building on Fridays from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m, Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sundays from 10 a.m to 6 p.m. this month. It's all part of the government's effort to get more Romanians vaccinated, since it's one of the nations with the highest rates of hesitancy in Central and Eastern Europe, according to a study by Globsec. As of today, 2,314,812 people — or 11.96% of the country's population — is fully vaccinated, with 5,891,855 doses having been administered, per data from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

The CDC currently has Romania at a Level 4 "Very High Level of COVID-19" advisory, with the nation having had 1,066,111 cases and 28,966 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

New study sheds light on evolution of hell ants from 100 million years ago

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

IMAGE: PHYLOGENY AND CEPHALIC HOMOLOGY OF HELL ANTS AND MODERN LINEAGES. view more 

CREDIT: NIGPAS

Ants are the most successful social insects and play an important role in modern terrestrial ecosystems. The origin and early evolution of ants have attracted lots of attention.

Among the earliest fossil ants known, haidomyrmecine "hell ants" from Cretaceous amber reveal an ancient and dramatic early burst radiation of adaptive forms.

Hell ants possessed bizarre scythe-like mouthparts along with a striking array of horn-like cephalic projections. But how did this type of ant evolve? This question was long a mystery.

Now, however, an international research team co-led by Prof. WANG Bo from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (NIGPAS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has confirmed the special trap-jaw predation mechanism of hell ants, providing new insights into their evolution.

The study was published in Current Biology on August 6.

The research team conducted morphological and anatomical analysis of the heads of all hell ants in the amber specimens, in combination with a special predator specimen, and confirmed the "trap-jaw" predation mechanism adopted by hell ants from their morphological and functional aspects.

The scientists reported an instance of fossilized predation that provides direct evidence for the function of dorsoventrally expanded mandibles and elaborate horns.

Their findings confirmed the hypothesis that hell ants captured other arthropods between mandible and horn in a manner that could only be achieved by articulating their mouthparts in an axial plane perpendicular to that of modern ants.

The head capsule and mandibles of hell ants are uniquely integrated as a consequence of this predatory mode and covary across species, while no evidence has been found of such modular integration in extant ant groups.

The results of this study suggest an extinct early burst adaptive radiation into morphospace that was unoccupied by any living taxon. This radiation was triggered by an innovation in mouthpart movement and subsequent modular covariation between mandible and horn.

The new results also suggest that hell ant cephalic integration - analogous to the vertebrate skull - triggered a pathway for an ancient adaptive radiation and expansion into morphospace unoccupied by any living taxon.

New fossil discovery shows how ancient 'hell ants' hunted with headgear

In a 99-million-year-old preserved amber fossil, researchers get a detailed glimpse into how 'Hell Ants' hunted with scythe-like mandibles and horn appendages

NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS DISCOVER A WORKER OF THE HELL ANT CERATOMYRMEX ELLENBERGERI GRASPING A NYMPH OF CAPUTORAPTOR ELEGANS (ALIENOPTERA) PRESERVED IN AMBER DATED TO ~99 MA. view more 

CREDIT: NJIT, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND UNIVERSITY OF RENNES, FRANCE

In findings published Aug. 6 in the journal Current Biology, researchers from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Rennes in France have unveiled a stunning 99-million-year-old fossil pristinely preserving an enigmatic insect predator from the Cretaceous Period -- a 'hell ant' (haidomyrmecine) -- as it embraced its unsuspecting final victim, an extinct relative of the cockroach known as Caputoraptor elegans.

The ancient encounter, locked in amber recovered from Myanmar, offers a detailed glimpse at a newly identified prehistoric ant species Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri, and presents some of the first direct evidence showing how it and other hell ants once used their killer features -- snapping their bizarre, but deadly, scythe-like mandibles in a vertical motion to pin prey against their horn-like appendages.

Researchers say the rare fossil demonstrating the hell ant's feeding mode offers a possible evolutionary explanation for its unusual morphology and highlights a key difference between some of the earliest ant relatives and their modern counterparts, which today uniformly feature mouthparts that grasp by moving together laterally. The hell ant lineage, along with their striking predatory traits, are suspected to have vanished along with many other early ant groups during periods of ecological change around the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 65 million years ago.

"Fossilized behavior is exceedingly rare, predation especially so. As paleontologists, we speculate about the function of ancient adaptations using available evidence, but to see an extinct predator caught in the act of capturing its prey is invaluable," said Phillip Barden, assistant professor at NJIT's Department of Biological Sciences and lead author of the study. "This fossilized predation confirms our hypothesis for how hell ant mouthparts worked ... The only way for prey to be captured in such an arrangement is for the ant mouthparts to move up and downward in a direction unlike that of all living ants and nearly all insects."

"Since the first hell ant was unearthed about a hundred years ago, it's been a mystery as to why these extinct animals are so distinct from the ants we have today," Barden added. "This fossil reveals the mechanism behind what we might call an 'evolutionary experiment,' and although we see numerous such experiments in the fossil record, we often don't have a clear picture of the evolutionary pathway that led to them."

Driving Diversity of Hell Ants & Their Headgear

Barden's team suggests that adaptations for prey-capture likely explain the rich diversity of mandibles and horns observed in the 16 species of hell ants identified to date. Some taxa with unarmed, elongate horns such as Ceratomyrmex apparently grasped prey externally, while other hell ants such as Linguamyrmex vladi, or "Vlad the Impaler" discovered by Barden and colleagues in 2017, was thought to have used a metal-reinforced horn on its head to impale prey -- a trait potentially used to feed on the internal liquid (hemolymph) of insects.

Barden says the earliest hell ant ancestors would have first gained the ability to move their mouthparts vertically. This, in turn, would functionally integrate the mouthparts and head in a way that was unique to this extinct lineage.

"Integration is a powerful shaping force in evolutionary biology ... when anatomical parts function together for the first time, this opens up new evolutionary trajectories as the two features evolve in concert," explained Barden. "The consequences of this innovation in mouthpart movement with the hell ants are remarkable. While no modern ants have horns of any kind, some species of hell ant possess horns coated with serrated teeth, and others like Vlad are suspected to have reinforced its horn with metal to prevent its own bite from impaling itself."

To explore further, the researchers compared the head and mouthpart morphology of Ceratomyrmex and several other hell ant species (such as head, horn and mandible size) with similar datasets of living and fossil ant species. The team also conducted a phylogenetic analysis to reconstruct evolutionary relationships among both Cretaceous and modern ants. The team's analyses confirmed that hell ants belong to one of the earliest branches of the ant evolutionary tree and are each other's closest relatives. Moreover, the relationship between mandible and head morphology is unique in hell ants compared to living lineages as a result of their specialized prey-capture behavior. The analyses also demonstrated that elongated horns evolved twice in hell ants.

While the fossil has finally provided Barden's lab with firmer answers as to how this long-lost class of ant predators functioned and found success for nearly 20 million years, questions persist such as what led these and other lineages to go extinct while modern ants flourished into the ubiquitous insects we know today. Barden's team is now seeking to describe species from new fossil deposits to learn more about how extinction impacts groups differentially.

"Over 99% of all species that have ever lived have gone extinct," said Barden. "As our planet undergoes its sixth mass extinction event, it's important that we work to understand extinct diversity and what might allow certain lineages to persist while others drop out. I think fossil insects are a reminder that even something as ubiquitous and familiar as ants have undergone extinction."

###

Barden et al., Specialized Predation Drives Aberrant Morphological Integration and Diversity in the Earliest Ants, Current Biology (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.106