Mystery Animal, No Mystery
Posted by: Loren Coleman on November 23rd, 2012
Recent news of a bizarre animal killed in the Malaysian State of Sarawak caused a bit of a stir online. But as these recent trailcam photos of the following animal demonstrated, there was less a mystery and more of a puzzle to all of this.
The animal has been identified.
It is a Sunda Stink-badger, or Mydaus javanensis, one of only two members of the skunk family Mephitidae, outside the Americas.
There is strong DNA evidence that the genus Mydaus is not a member of the badger family at all, but are in fact Old World relatives of the skunks. It certainly is a strange-looking animal.
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.
Cool looking thing. I wonder if it eats bagels?