Cryptozoologist of 2009: Gabriele Gentile

Italian researcher Gabriele Gentile holds a Galápagos iguana, a newly-verified species that may provide evidence of species divergence five million years ago, far earlier than Charles Darwin’s famous finches. It was noted when announced in January 2009 that Darwin did not visit the volcano on his travels to the Ecuadorian island chains in the 1830s, so the creature remained “undiscovered” until 1986, when it was spotted by park rangers. Only after Gentile’s painstaking field research, based on the ethnoknown sightings and confirmed via DNA testing, was this iguana recognized as its own species, formally in 2009.

During the year, this new iguana species that is pink and black was announced as found on the island of Galapagos: the rosada land iguana. The discoverer was Gabriele Gentile of the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Gentile and his colleagues said that the pink iguana is distinct from the two recognized species of land iguana on the Galápagos. They are located on the Volcan Wolf volcano on the island of Isabela, the only place where the pink iguanas live.

“What’s surprising is that a new species of megafauna, like a large lizard, may still be [found] in a well-studied archipelago,” Gentile told National Geographic News.

Dr. Andrea Marshall is pictured above in the photo that accompanied her notice that she supports her work by conducting trips and tours related to manta research. Funding her work was critical to her discovery.

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Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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