The belief in unknown and new animals has existed for a very long time, as evidenced by mankind's fascination with dragons, unicorns, and dinosaurs. The serious study of the fauna of earth, "Zoology" as it came to be known, was first established in the 1500's, and has since catalogued all familiar -- and quite a few unfamiliar -- animals on our planet. ...
This past February newspapers throughout the Southeast caused a supernatural frenzy when they ran stories about the appearance of a smelly ape nearly seven feet tall in a backyard east of I-75 in Sarasota. Some writers quickly dismissed the idea of Florida's answer to Bigfoot. Others used the opportunity to tell a few jokes, and some suggested, mockingly, organizing a search (i.e. hunting) party to find the animal that resembles an orangutan. ...
Predatory animals inspire a sense of awe, respect and fear among humans. On land, big cats, wolves, and bears are some of the quintessential predators. Dip beneath the waves, however, and sharks take the stage, alongside orcas, sperm whales, and large squids and fishes. Although there are many marine predators, it is the sharks that have been most stereotyped as the "killers from the deep"....
In 1996, a meteorite found in Antarctica made headlines upon the announcement that fossilized microbes from Mars had fallen to Earth. Now further research from the desolate South Pole continent is providing more news of a fantastic nature, doing for the field of cryptozoology what it did for ufologists before. Scientists studying icebergs on the Antarctic seabed have discovered a variety of never-before-seen species of such immense size and peculiarity that they could rightly be called monsters. ...
In September, 1939, the West African Review contained an article "Living Monster or Fabulous.Animal?" Readers will recollect that some years earlier there had been a type of "Challenger Expedition" into Central Africa to search the Iruwuni forests of the Belgian Congo for a huge, mysterious, antedeluvian monster. "Is the Brontosauros still alive in the morasses of the Congo?" were the headlines in some of the London papers. No report of the traces of any such monsters ever appeared, and I was not surprised. ...
The Nandi Bear is often described as being like a large hyena about the size of a lion. It is said to have a brownish red to a dark color coat. It is a nocturnal animal and is said to attack humans only on dark moonless nights. It has been said to prey upon the children and natives from the villages. ...
In the Age of Dinosaurs there existed flying reptiles called Pterosaurs. The fossil record suggests that they appeared in the Jurassic and lived into the Cretaceous, about 65 million years ago. Nearly all the fossils found have been in marine deposits, which means they probably were fish eaters and spent most of their time over coastal waters. These flying reptiles apparently managed to fly with no feathers, their main aerodynamic feature being wings of membrane supported by an enormously elongated fourth finger. ...
"Then the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there was plenty of black left on his new skin still) and pressed them all over the Leopard, and wherever the five fingers touched they left five little black marks, all close together. You can see them on any Leopard's skin you like, Best Beloved. Sometimes the fingers slipped and the marks got a little blurred; but if you look closely at any Leopard now you will see that there are always five spots -- off five fat black finger-tips." From Rudyard Kipling's "How the Leopard Got His Spots" ...
The Aborigines Dreamtime stories of creation were full of fantastic and magical beasts; the Bunyip was one of the beasts. In Dreamtime the Bunyip was a spirit, which inhabited river, lakes, swamps, and billabongs (former parts of rivers that were left behind when the course of the river was altered). Like other beasts in Dreamtime, the Bunyip was malevolent towards human beings. ...
Since Thursday, residents of Pillanlelbun, a town some 15 km from this city, have been shutting down henhouses, mangers and pigpens under lock and key and using crosses made of "palqui" after news of the mysterious deaths of 15 animals at the Ty Koyam Mini-Zoo became known......
The provincial government, through the Ministry of Production, coordinated the sending of veterinarians to the Cuchillo Có area to examine the bovine found mutilated in recent hours in a rural estate of the Luhuel Calel dpartment. ...
Field researchers specializing in the subject of animal mutilations--Raul Chaves and Ester Urban, pointed out that "so far this year we have accounted for some 60 mutilations in La Pampa and Buenos Aires....
New testimony regarding the presence of a strange hairy biped, sporting long claws and of an unusual ferocity, were added to the long list of accounts that the police have gathered in this city, after the judge of the court of instruction, Mario Dilascio, mandated a formal investigation on the subject this month. ...
