Cryptomundo
for Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and More

This is an illustration of different species of endemic mouse lemurs (Microcebus) occurring in the western half of Madagascar. Microcebus are the world’s smallest living primates and some species are limited to small geographic areas, which is known as micro-endemism. (Illustration by Peggy Macnamara, Courtesy of The Field Museum) New Primate Species Discovered on Madagascar […]

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Could a bunch of large, hairy, near-human ape-men, or hirsute giants, be living unfound in America? A parallel story from just fifty years ago, suggests that this is a very real possibility. The largest land animal in Canada, the wood bison [shown above], had been disappearing from all over North America for centuries when the […]

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In 2005, a new species of crayfish, Cambarus (Tubericambarus) polychromatus (the painted-hand mudbug) was described by Roger Thoma, Raymond Jezerinac and Thomas Simon in volume 118 issue 2 of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Specifically, the cited journal article is: Thoma R.F., Jezerinac, R.F., and Simon, T. P. 2005. “Cambarus (Tubericambarus) polychromatus […]

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Only the fourth specimen of a giant squid, genus Architeuthis, to be found off the coast of California, near Santa Cruz, was discovered on Thursday, June 26, 2008.

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Above: The newly described Limnonectes megastomais McLeod, 2008. Photographed at SERS in central east Thailand. John C. Murphy. On the right the fang-like odontoid processes are clearly visible in the lower jaw. A new species of dicroglossid frog in the genus Limnonectes has been described from three forested locations in eastern Thailand by D. S. […]

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Ventastega curonica would have looked similar to a small alligator. Scientists unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in history, said a study in the June 26, 2008 issue of the journal Nature. The well-preserved remains, discovered from 370-million-year-old rocks in the country of Latvia, has features of both water (fish) and land […]

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What is one of the world’s rarest carnivores? It’s the linsang. But what’s a linsang? Of the figurine collection above, can you pick out the linsang? (The answer is below, as I share images of almost a dozen of these animal replicas for this discussion, in the last third of this posting.) During my trek […]

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Fishermen in the eastern province of Anhui (near Hefei) have found a wild Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis), which is being called a living fossil, and tracks of another, local authorities said on Monday, June 23, 2008. The Chinese or Yangtze alligator is native only to China. It is smaller than the other alligator species, the […]

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As part of an EPSRC funded public understanding of science project, the University of St. Andrews has teamed up with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) to produce a website dedicated to the statistics/biology behind whale surveys. Visitors (aged 16 -21) can play a computer game which takes them on a whale survey and […]

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The Chinese news source Xinhua is announcing on Thursday, June 19, 2008, the confirmed discovery of a new species of bird, the Nonggang babbler or Stachyris nonggangensis. It has a white crescent-shaped patch behind the ear and some grayish-brown spots on the white throat. Apart from that, it’s dark brown all over. It prefers to […]

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The following is the uncropped version of the photograph, via the BBC: A lost bird returns. The Caatinga Woodpecker (Celeus obrieni) had not been seen since its discovery in 1926 when Advaldo do Prado came across this one in eastern central Brazil. The country has more globally threatened species than any other. (Image: Guilherme R […]

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Caatinga Woodpecker, Celeus obrieni , the first sighting since 1926. Photo by Guilherme R C Silva. One of Brazil’s long lost birds, known only from a single specimen collected in 1926, has been rediscovered after an absence of 80 years. The rediscovery of the Caatinga Woodpecker (Celeus obrieni) has delighted conservationists worldwide and gives hope […]

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Chad Arment, noting this is not really a separate species, despite what the media is reporting, passes along this breaking news from Bhutan’s daily Kuensel Newspaper for June 11, 2008: A rare morph of the Asiatic golden cat (the ocelot morph) has been sighted in the high altitude mountains of the Jigme Singye Wangchuck national […]

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Andrea Thompson, a senior writer at Live Science has written an interesting article on a new subspecies discovery regarding woolly mammoths. Two genetically distinct groups of woolly mammoths once roamed northern Siberia, a new study suggests, with one group dying out long before humans showed up. The finding suggests humans were not the only reason […]

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It’s party time on Solomons Island. A new species of extinct dolphin is to be named in Calvert this week. The Solomons Island region is on the western shores of the Chesapeake Bay, in Maryland. Solomons Island, specifically, is on the north side of the mouth of Patuxent River, where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. […]

Read: Solomons Island: New Fossil Dolphin »