Cryptomundo
for Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and More

Eutropis tammanna (Scincomorpha: Scincidae) Birder, herper, evolutionary biologist, naturalist Nicholas Sly of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, asked himself a question many of us here often ask ourselves. How many new animals have been discovered recently? The only new bird described, to date, in 2008? Zosterops somadikartai (Passeriformes: Zosteropidae) Nick Sly set out to do […]

Read: Jan-May 2008: 130 New Vertebrates! »

Bigfoot? Please click on the trail cam photograph taken on April 30, 2006, in the Mt. Hood National Forest, near The Dalles, Oregon, for a larger image. (Credit to Klindt Kendall and Dianna Martin.) What is it? Sasquatch? Bear? A person? How important are trail cams? They are having more and more impact in discovering […]

Read: Bushnell: $1,000,000 For Bigfoot Trail Cam Photo »

Rhopalurus laticauda The Scorpion Files today has alerted me that there is a recently discovered species from the genus Rhopalurus, newly described on 28 May 2008, from northeastern Colombia, from a holotype collected by C. A. Roncallo on 18 December 2006: Rhopalurus caribensis Teruel & Roncallo, 2008. It is closely related to Rhopalurus laticauda (pictured […]

Read: New Scorpion Discovered in Columbia »

It is Tuesday, May 27, 2008, and the History Channel, on behalf of “Monster Quest II,” is here in Portland, Maine, with a film producer and crew today to digitally film interviews with me about cryptozoology, in the context of a five hour tour of the International Cryptozoology Museum. Their snippets of the interviews, b-roll, […]

Read: Monster Quest II »

The above is a new species with the common name of the “shocking pink dragon millipede” and the scientific Latin name of Desmoxytes purpurosea. It was first found on 28 August 2006, and first described in Zootaxa 1563: 31–36, 2007. It’s May. The end of May 2008. But apparently there is one more “top ten […]

Read: Top 10 New Species of Old and Recent Discoveries »

Joined by her husband, Jack (left), and brother-in-law Quentin Young is Adelaide “Su-Lin” Young. Photo courtesy of her family. Forget about the fictional “Indiana Jones,” or even the real “Zoology Jones,” for a minute. Recall, please, that women were part of the early exploration adventures too! Ruth Harkness is often remembered as the first woman […]

Read: First Panda Lady Has Died »

An encounter between a large jellyfish and a human diver off the coast of New Zealand makes for an interesting souvenir. But one woman with a gift for discoveries only had to go as far as her neighborhood aquarium to find a new species of jellyfish. Marine scientists in north Queensland have discovered a new […]

Read: New Jellyfish Species Discovered In Aquarium »

Photos above of an earlier new species (Phrynopus adenopleurus) discovered in the genus. Frogs of the genus Phrynopus were believed to inhabit the Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, between 1000 and 4400 meters above sea level. However, the genus proved to be polyphyletic and recent molecular data indicate that it is restricted only […]

Read: Two New Phrynopus Frogs Discovered »

Roy Snelling (1934-2008). Cryptozoologically, insects are not really in the realm of animals that Bernard Heuvelmans, myself and others strictly defined as of interest to the field, but nevertheless, we must admire those toiling to make the new discoveries of all those little animals out there that remain to be described. One such giant in […]

Read: Dynamic Discoverer of Ants Dies »

His name is Bond, Jason Bond. Names are important, and Eastern Carolina University professor of biology Jason Bond has decided to name a new spider he discovered after his favorite musician. You may have already heard the story. It made me wonder after whom various Cryptomundians would name cryptids found to be new species? Heuvelmans? […]

Read: Celebrity Naming of Cryptids »

Photo by Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal Allan Mueller of The Nature Conservancy trolls through Bayou DeView in east Arkansas, where there were several ivory-billed woodpeckers sighted in 2004. The continuing search has been fruitless — and expensive — with development projects delayed. “We’ve got to get a picture,” he says. The Commercial Appeal of Memphis […]

Read: As Elusive As Bigfoot »

On May 2nd, I ran the story here about George Yatskievych, the scientist with the Missouri Botanical Garden who has rediscovered and identified a rare parasitic plant (above). A single specimen of the plant was found in Mexico in 1985. The plant wasn’t seen again until St. Louis botanist George Yatskievych and a colleague found […]

Read: Exclusive: New Parasitic Plant’s Scientific Name »

A team of Filipino and American scientists have rediscovered a highly distinctive mammal — a greater dwarf cloud rat — that was last seen 112 years ago. Furthermore, it has never before been discovered in its natural habitat and was thought by some to be extinct. The greater dwarf cloud rat (Carpomys melanurus) has dense, […]

Read: 112 Years Later: Dwarf Cloud Rat Rediscovered »

Photograph of the new species, Hemidactylus aaronbaueri, Ashok Captain. A new species of a rock-dwelling lizard has been discovered by the Bombay Natural History Society from Junnar taluka in Pune district, India. The species belongs to genus Hemidactylus. This distinctive gecko species is mostly found on the rock cliffs in the north western ghats, an […]

Read: New Gecko Discovered »

A rare river dolphin has been officially classified as a new species. The Bolivian river dolphin has been acknowledged as a separate species to the more widely-known Amazon River dolphin. The formal announcement was made at a conservation workshop in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia. The Bolivian dolphin (Inia boliviensis) was immediately adopted […]

Read: New River Dolphin Species »