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The Top Ten Cryptozoology Stories of 2006

by Loren Coleman, Cryptozoology A to Z

1. Darlings of Cryptozoology Videotaped: Coelacanth and Giant Squid
2. Lost Worlds Revealed
3. New European Mammal and Others Discovered
4. Discoveries Debated: Ivory-billed Woodpecker and Kouprey
5. Africa Explored: Mokele-mbembe Quest, Gambia Expedition, and SEALs’ Secret Mission
6. Lake Monsters Photographed: Champ and Nahuelito
7. Canid Capered: Maine Mutant, Montana Creature, and Nebraska Cryptid
8. Cryptids Televised: Mothman, Monsters, and More
9. Thylacine Remembered: Steve Irwin’s Search, New Photo, and National Thylacine Day
10. Cryptozoology and Art Exhibited: A First

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1. Darlings of Cryptozoology Videotaped: Coelacanth and Giant Squid

The "darlings of cryptozoology" are those new species that have become the success stories of cryptid discoveries – from the mountain gorilla to the okapi, from the pygmy hippo to the megamounth shark. In 2006, big news was made with the live filming of two such species – the Indonesian coelacanth and the giant squid.

The 1998 newly-discovered Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis) was filmed alive at the depth of 170 m, 17, at 8:30 am on May 30, 2006, off shore Buol, about 350 km west from Manado, Sulawesi Island, with a ROV operated by the Aquamarine Fukushima Survey team. More.

On December 4, 2004, over 160 years after their discovery in the 1840s, the giant squid (Architeuthis) was finally filmed live. The National Science Museum of Japan videotaped a specimen off the Ogasawara Islands, near the remote island of Chichijima, southeast of Tokyo, Japan. More.

Both groups of these Japanese scientists are to be congratulated for their continued successes in pursuing the wonders that we know do exist out there.

2. Lost Worlds Revealed

Photographs of two rare but not "new" species, per se – the long-beaked echidna and the golden-mantled tree kangeroo; Conservation International.

"Lost Worlds" are real. New animals are being discovered in them. But is there a chance the media hype is beginning to drown out the reality?

During 2006, the label for an untouched area of new species of animals – a "lost world" – was a bit overused. First the Foya or Foja Mountains, Irian Jaya, also known as Indonesian New Guinea, were said to have given forth "hundreds" of new animals. It turned out to be one new bird species and two rediscoveries, plus more than 20 new species of frogs, four new butterflies, five new species of palm trees and many other plants yet to be classified. Not hundreds and the two mammals said to be discovered there in the last twelve months were found years earlier. Similar things were beginning to be said about the the Laos-Vietnam’s "Lost World."

Nevertheless, at the end of 2006, announcements were made that "Borneo’s Lost World had revealed 52 new species" and the "Yeti Crab" (below) and "Jurassic Shrimp" had been found in the many "lost marine worlds." These are exciting new finds, but perhaps the notion of "lost worlds" is also being skeptically reassessed. Especially, as a new species was found in Europe, hardly a "lost world" (see #3).

Courtesy © Ifremer / A. Fifis Press Release; click on image for larger view.

3. New European Mammal and Others Discovered

The grey mouse, found in Cyprus by French scientist Thomas Cucchi, was announced in October 2006, to be an entirely new species and, according to the media, overturns the widespread assumption that Europe had no mammals left to be discovered. The species, named Mus cypriacus, or the Cypriot mouse, has a larger head, ears, eyes and teeth than previously known examples. Again, the media said that it is “the first new mammal found in Europe in a 100 years.” Of course, this is poppycock as Darren Naish points out in his blog, for this mouse is the 33rd mammal found in Europe in the last 100 years!

In September 2006, Conservation International biologists found a new species of tree rat in the Amapa region of the Brazilian rainforest, along with other new amphibians, lizards and fish. In May 2006, primate specialists confirmed that a monkey named the kipunji, found in Tanzania in 2005, is the first new primate to be discovered for 83 years in Africa, and indeed, is more than a new species; it is a new genus. Africa’s least-known and probably rarest carnivore was announced in 2006, Jackson’s mongoose, from the Udzungwa Mountains, (according to late December media accounts), a veritable "lost world" of rare and unique wildlife.

Color illustrations of a new parrot and a new mouse from the Philippines were released in 2006.

A new mouse (Apomys camiguinensis, Philippine forest mouse) and a new parrot (Loriculus camiguinensis, Camiguin hanging-parrot, or Colasisi) were formally announced as newly discovered on the island of Camiguin, in the Philippines, in April 2006, even though they had been collected years earlier. They are what are know as "hidden treasures," in cryptozoology. For example, the parrot is based on previously unstudied specimens in The Field Museum and the Delaware Museum of Natural History collected in the 1960s. The locals have known about the bird for years because it is important in the pet trade.

A further surprise was revealed when it was noted in 2006 that a bizarre rodent that was first spotted in 2005, in a bushmeat market in Laos, has turned out to be a member of a family of mammals that was thought to have become extinct more than 11 million years ago. The kha-nyou, or Laonastes aenigmamus is more like an extinct family of Asian mammals called the Diatomyidae than closed related to any modern rodent.

4. Discoveries Debated: Ivory-billed Woodpecker and Kouprey

Some naturalists have been challenging whether or not the ivory-billed woodpecker has actually been found. The Year 2006 saw a growing debate between those who do not believe there is enough evidence to say
the ivory-billed is back and those who are saying sightings are happening nearly weekly – across the southern USA.

Meanwhile, the active search for the Imperial Woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis) – pictured above – the world’s largest species of woodpecker – continues in Mexico.

First found in 1937, the kouprey (Bos sauveli), a wild forest-dwelling ox and Asia’s last largest mammal discovered, was declared extinct a few years later, and then was rediscovered in the 1990s. Now, first in a paper released in July 2006, and renewed via press releases in December 2006, three biologists from Northwestern University and the Cambodian Forestry Administration have proposed a taxonomic demotion – the kouprey does not exist they have declared. In a paper published online by The Journal of Zoology, they have written the kouprey is probably a domestic hybrid that became feral, a zoological poseur, not a valid species. But wait a minute, there’s been a debate going on all year, as two French scientists of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris also wrote a paper saying that they have DNA proof the kouprey is a separate species. The kouprey debate continues.

5. Africa Explored: Mokele-mbembe Quest, Gambia Expedition, SEALs Secret Mission

Mokele-mbembe: Bill Rebsamen, used with permission.

In search for Mokele-mbembe, the exploratory Milt Marcy Mokele-mbembe Expedition in January 2006, collected several recent native eyewitnesses. Also it was learned that missionary Paul Ohlin saw a Mokele-mbembe on the Sangha River on January 10, 2006.

Later during the year, the Center for Fortean Zoology’s Gambia Expedition 2006 – a six-person team went to the Gambia, West Africa, in search of a dragon-like creature, known to the locals as Ninki Nanka. The cryptid was said to have killed people as recently as the 1990s. The expedition members also went to dig up part of a beach where an amateur naturalist claims to have buried the carcass of a mysterious fifteen foot sea monster named Gambo, and they sought to find the Armitage’s Skink (Chalcides armitagei) – a tiny lizard first described in 1922 and only rediscovered in 1989.

In the only item on both the top "Bigfoot stories of 2006" list and this list, is the report of a SEAL unit’s videotaping of an unknown cryptid in Africa.

Harry Trumbore’s drawing of Africa’s kalanoro illustrates what became the most viewed single Cryptomundo story of 2006. This was especially true after it was picked up and distributed widely by cryptoinsider David Pescovitz at Boing Boing. In January 2006, it was learned that a covert U.S. Navy SEAL unit involved in operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1997 and 2002, apparently saw and videotaped some strange creatures. According to the former member’s account, his team observed a group of thirteen "chimpanzee-like" cryptids between 4.5 to 5 feet tall, uniformly gray all over their bodies, with rows of seemingly porcupine-like quills running the length of their backs. The video is still classified. The announcement caused a high-level of interest in the cryptozoology community.

Expeditions by the CryptoSafari group are planned in 2007 and 2008 to track down more on the Kalanoro and Mokele-mbembe accounts.

6. Lake Monsters Photographed: Champ and Nahuelito

Lake monster activity was low-key, with a handful of sightings at Loch Ness, but a couple Lake Monsters may have been photographed during the year. The footage from Vermont was seen as more credible than the pictures dropped by an unknown individual at a newspaper editor’s office in Argentina.

Was this one of the Lake Champlain Monsters, Champ, shown in the videotape finally released on ABC’s "Good Morning America" on February 13, 2006?

The new photographs (see one below), taken around August 15, 2006, at Lake Nahuel Huap, were published by a local newspaper of the Argentinan Lake Monster, Nahuelito.

7. Canid Capered: Maine Mutant, Montana Creature, and Nebraska Cryptid

Despite the fact it was clear from the beginning the "Maine Mutant" photographed by Michelle O’Donnell in Turner, Maine, in August 2006, was a dog, and DNA samples collected confirmed that, the story was one of the biggest of the summer. It allowed reporters to talk about the real mystery animal that has been killing dogs and livestock in central Maine for a decade, and served the media’s needs to have an actual series of photos of a dead "mystery animal" (before it was positively identified). For more on the Maine Mutant, see here and here.

Other doggy stories included a Montana mystery beast – still unidentified – shot by wildlife officials after it killed 120 head of livestock, and a Nebraska strange doglike creature photographed (see below).

8. Cryptids Televised: Mothman, Monsters, and More

The Real Lost World was the longest cryptozoologically-themed documentary broadcast on television in 2006, in a year that saw many programs follow expeditions in search of cryptids – on National Geographic, Travel, and Sci-Fi channels. "Sci-Fi Investigates" premiered with shows on Mothman, as well as Bigfoot.

Even the televised ads went cryptozoological, the most notable examples being the Toyota ones starring Adrian Shine, and the "Messin’ With Sasquatch" award-winners. Perhaps even those ads showing a series of "Cavemen-are-still-here" scenarios, from Geico, are cryptozoological too. All of these – Nessie, Sasquatch, and Cavemen – have been very funny, that’s for sure.

9. Thylacine Remembered: Steve Irwin’s Search, New Photo, and National Thylacine Day

On September 4, 2006, Steve Irwin, 44, the Crocodile Hunter died in a freak accident involving a stringray off the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The media attention to his death was phenomenal. It was quickly a topic of conversation within cryptozoology circles that Irwin had searched for the Thylacine, in western Australia, as part of his televised series’ quests. For more about Irwin and his link to the hunt for the possibly surviving Thylacines, see here, here, here, and here. Click here for more on the deaths of 25 cryptozoologically-related individuals.

New interest in the hunt for the Thylacine was stimulated by new photographic evidence and more than usual talk of National Thylacine Day, on the 70th anniversary of the species’ (supposed) extinction.

10. Cryptozoology and Art Exhibited: A First

Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale was the world’s first traveling art exhibition that combined world-class artists who shared their creations inspired by cryptozoology and real cryptozoology exhibits of the evidence for cryptids. The exhibition that was held at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and the H. & R. Block Artspace in Kansas City, Missouri, lasted from June 24 through December 20, 2006. It opened with a symposium during the fall of 2005, and also produced a book.

The exhibition contained the art of these exhibitors: Rachel Berwick, Sarina Brewer, Walmor Correa, Mark Dion, Sean Foley, Joan Fontcuberta and Pere Formiguera, Ellen Lesperance, Robert Marbury, Jill Miller, Vik Muniz, Jeanine Oleson, Rosamond Purcell, Alexis Rockman, Marc Swanson, Jeffrey Vallance, Jamie Wyeth and Loren Coleman, curated by Bates’ Mark H. C. Bessire, Kansas City Artspace’s Raechell Smith, and Bates’ Liz Sheehan. Bates’ related that more people attended this cryptozoology exhibition than had attended any other art exhibit held at their Museum of Art.

© Loren Coleman 2006

Published December 23, 2006.

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To find the master list of all links to every 2006 lists created at Cryptomundo about the top cryptozoology stories, the top Bigfoot stories, top mystery photographs, best cryptozoology books, best cryptofiction books, top creepy fossil discoveries, gifts, passings, top cryptids, and more, please click here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 23rd, 2006 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Breaking News, Cryptomundo Exclusive, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Expedition Reports, Extinct, Eyewitness Accounts, Forensic Science, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Lake Monsters, Living Dinosaurs, Loch Ness Monster, Media Appearances, Mothman, Movie Monsters, Museums, New Species, Pop Culture, Swamp Monsters, Television, Thylacine, Year In Review. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.