October 2009

ChupacabraI just ran across some video which CNN aired last month, of a supposed chupacabra found in Texas.  You can watch the video here and make your own decisions - personally, I am 110 percent sure that this is a coyote with mange.

We have seen this problem before, with coyotes, bears, foxes, and raccoons.  Although most cases of mange result merely in a patchy (or "mangy" if you will) coat, some cases can be so extreme that the animal loses every single hair on its body.  These poor suffering animals - who look quite alien by this point - are then driven to unusual lengths in order to get a meal.  Like raiding a rancher's barn, as happened with this Texas incident.


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Ninki Nanka Drawn By A ChildThere have been two Destination Truth episodes recently in which the cryptid was basically revealed to be a plain old animal.  A dangerous animal, but not a cryptozoological one by any stretch of the imagination!

Last night I watched the Destination Truth team travel to the remote Amazonian rainforest of Peru tracking down reports of the chullacahqui.  According to the description, I thought the chullacahqui was going to be related to the chupacabra, except that the chullacahqui is only reported to attack humans (while the chupacabra usually limits itself to livestock).  

Destination Truth described the chullacahqui as a short bipedal somewhat anthropomorphic forest menace.  It was said to have lept out of the brush and attacked its victims, with fists and sharp teeth.  Sort of like a really mean orangutan, with a cat face.


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They’re not winged, they don’t sparkle, and they don’t have their own straight-to-DVD Disney specials. But Pink Fairy Armadillos, also known as Pichiciego or Chlamyphorus truncatus, are the smallest of their family. If you’re the shortest person in your family, you’ve probably been called a fairy or worse.

But seriously, they get their names from their pinkish color. They’re actually about 3 to 5 inches long without their tails included. If you’ve ever seen an armadillo (and we’ve seen a few dead on the side of the road in these here parts), you know that’s pretty freaking small.

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Sugar GliderSugar gliders are another exotic, nocturnal pet that are among the more commonly kept, (when it comes to exotic pets). They are small marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, and Tasmania. Their small size, big eyes and cute, cuddly features make them very appealing, and they can fly!

While they are typically impossible to potty train, you can train them to fly to your hand and get along with other pets in your household. They are very lovable and affectionate animals who need the company of other sugar gliders and lots of love attention from their owners to be happy and fulfilled.

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Really big birds are an interesting category in cryptozoology.  Most people consider these to be nothing but fictional legends, the simple up-scaling of existing large birds like bald eagles and condors.  It certainly doesn't take much imagination to invent "something just like that bird over there, only bigger."

However, there are also vexing reports of really big birds which occasionally surface every few years.  Cryptozoologists speculate that some of these reports could be sightings of surviving pterodactyls (which went extinct X million years ago), or of teratorns (which went extinct only 6,000 years ago).  Teratorns were larger relatives of the condor, and lived in North America.  Many excellent examples of teratorns have been recovered from the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles.


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Is it just me, or is England positively infested with random bizarre animals?  Most of the "beast" sightings are presumed by many people to be escaped or released exotic cats like leopards and panthers.  Do these animals get released more often in England?  Is it just that England is so much more crowded than the United States, so these animals are more likely to be seen?

At any rate, Cryptomundo is reporting on a new mystery animal being spotted in England.  A number of spotters believe that it is a capybara, the world's largest rodent.  However, a local naturalist believes that the sightings are in fact of muntjac, the world's smallest deer.

What the what?


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The file clam is electrifying, to say the least. Watch this documentary snippet to see this amazing clam "show its stuff".

Cryptomundo has a really interesting article about "Walking Sam," a cryptid or paranormal phenomenon I hadn't previously heard of.  The article quotes Mike Crowley, a man who was attending a Tribal Council meeting of the Sioux in South Dakota.

An elderly woman stood up at the meeting and asked for official help with Walking Sam.  She described Walking Sam as "a big man in a tall hat."  His appearance is connected to teen suicides; according to the woman, he causes them.  She asked for additional police foot patrols in the area.

Bigfoot has been sighted in the Dakotas, so there is that legacy to keep in mind.  But as Crowley himself points out, the story of Walking Sam could also be "a plea for help with teen suicides - a plea that needs to be translated through a cultural filter."


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