Cryptomundo
for Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and More

I sometimes neglect the fact that few people know really what I have written, in total. Today, for example, a young man emailed me with this message: “How many books have you done Loren? I have only come across two.” Well, I can forget myself, often, for many reasons. It happens. Ha ha. Memory and […]

Read: A Life Explored In Words »

A Moa? Please note the darker front part of the body is in shadow and the rear portion – with apparent feathers visible – is to the right, in sunlight. Is the above a photograph of a living Moa? I interviewed the credible eyewitness and photographer, a former member of the British Army’s elite Special […]

Read: Mystery Moa Photo »

The only known colony in Southeast Asia of slender-billed vultures (Gyps tenuirostrishas) – shown above – have been discovered in Cambodia, along with other endangered bird species. The vulture colony was discovered in January 2007, in the rainforests east of the Mekong River in Cambodia’s Stung Treng Province, according to Michael Casey’s Associated Press Bangkok-based […]

Read: Extinct SE Asia Vulture Found »

Did a young girl from a pioneering Fiordland family have the last human encounter with a moa? It has gone down in history as one of the most puzzling rare-bird sightings and it happened in the remote south-west corner of New Zealand. What was the big blue bird that pioneer Alice McKenzie saw at Martins […]

Read: Once In A Blue Moa »

Thylacoleo carnifex The January 25, 2007, issue of Nature announced the first analysis of a treasure trove of fossils unearthed in southern Australian underground caves in the Nullarbor plains. Hundreds of fossils were extremely well preserved, from the the middle Pleistocene (200,000 and 800,000 years ago). They constitute a veritable Rosetta stone for ice age […]

Read: 1st Complete Thylacoleo Found »

This is a story about finding hidden treasures right before your eyes, in this case (pun intended), the beautiful Paradise Parrot of Australia. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The University of Aberdeen Zoology Museum (UK) has taken care of a case of mounted Australian birds, one of which is the spectacular but sadly extinct Paradise Parrot (Psephotus pulcherrimus). Nature-lover […]

Read: Extinct Parrot Found »

Chad Arment’s Coachwhip Publications has announced the release of The Great Auk, or Garefowl. Below is Arment’s overview of the contents. Grieve’s classic text on the Great Auk provides a wealth of information on early knowledge of this extinct bird: records of specimens (birds and eggs), lists of former breeding-grounds, and stories from sailors and […]

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One of the first dinosaur names that all dino-crazy kids (myself included) learns to pronounce and links to pictures of that tiny-headed, plates-on-the-back image is the “Stegosaurus.” This is the kind of chart presently found on Strategic Transitions learning software that will soon have to be revised. Ask any kid interested in dinosaurs: Where are […]

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Composite (left) and reconstructed (right) skeletons of Dryomomys szalayi, the oldest known ancestor of primates. (Credit: Bloch, et al./ PNAS) In the way of new fossil news, comes a press release from Yale, via Science Daily, discussing the origins of primates in Wyoming during the age of the dinosaurs. Well, that’s not exactly what it […]

Read: Earliest Dino-Era Primate Discovered »

This is the latest new mammal discovered in Europe, Mus cypriacus or the Cypriot mouse, which was described last year in the journal Zootaxa. How does one determine that a new species has been discovered? How is it that one location has one species of salamander and thirty years later there are said to be […]

Read: What Is A New Species? »

Extinct? Which one? In less detailed media reports you may hear today or over the weekend, the New Zealand Ko¯kako has been declared extinct. Sad news indeed, but let’s be specific. It is not an entire species that is being declared extinct. Once again, also, there are hints that this may be another subspecies, despite […]

Read: Kokako Becomes A Cryptid »

This mastodon (Mammut americanum) is the life-sized bronze representation at the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, the home of the “Mastodons.” As you will recall, on the 8th, you first read here about the “Mystery Tusk.” Now comes a “confirmed” answer. Or is it? Therein lies the tale behind the splash on the television screen. […]

Read: Mystery Tusk: Definitely Mastodon Not Mammoth – Perhaps »

Fisherman Tim Winchenbach poses outside his home in Cushing, Maine, with a mysterious prehistoric tusk that was pulled up with a load of scallop shells on a New Bedford vessel fishing off Georges Bank in December 2006. Photos by Joel Page. Does this tusk come from a ten-thousand-years or older, long gone mammoth or mastodon? […]

Read: Mystery Tusk: Not A Circus Elephant »

What is an eight-foot long crocodile (Crocodylus sp.) – a Mexican example is seen above – doing in the Cayman Islands? They have been extinct there for an undetermined number of years. It obviously is not someone’s escaped pet. “Mystery crocodile described as ‘very fast and aggressive’” Cayman News Thursday, January 4, 2007 The origin […]

Read: Mystery Cayman Croc Captured »

Perhaps I got it wrong? “New” Borneo Animal “Discovered” Back on December 5, 2005, I shared the news that apparently a new red-furred animal larger than a domestic cat had reportedly been discovered on Borneo, Indonesia. On December 5, 2005, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced that they had discovered the first new […]

Read: Not Palm Civet But Flying Squirrel, Scientists Say »