The Beasts that Hide from Man (38 page)

Likelihood that at least one species of the West Indies’ large, supposedly long-extinct family of nesophontid insectivores still survived as lately as the 1920s (and perhaps persisting even today); based upon discovery of seemingly fresh skeletal remains extracted from recent owl pellets on Hispaniola (Miller, 1930; MacFadden, 1980; Shuker, 1993b).

Unusually large vampire bats allegedly attacking cattle and horses, reported by locals from southeastern Brazil’s Ribeira Valley— which is also a source of Pleistocene remains from an unusually large, officially extinct species of vampire bat,
Desmodus draculae
. Coincidence, or evidence for Recent survival of D.
draculae?
(Trajano & Vivo, 1991; Shuker, 1995f).

Chimpanzee-sized arboreal monkey with a baboon-like face and a very short tail, called the
isnachi
and other local names by Indians sharing its mountainous cloud-forest home in Peru. Said to be rare, but extremely fierce, and is avoided by Indians whenever possible. One of its most characteristic activities is to rip apart the tops of chonta palm trees to obtain the tender vegetable matter inside—and as no other animal is strong enough to do this, its presence in a given locality can be confirmed by finding trees damaged in this way (Hocking, 1992).

Short-tailed Mexican mystery cat termed the ruffed cat, known from three reported skins, brown with wavy stripes on the flanks and upper limbs, one skin measuring just over seven and a half feet in total length, and all three skins characterized by a very conspicuous ruff of fur encircling the neck and covering the ears from above and behind. Two of these skins were supposedly purchased by Ivan T. Sanderson in 1940 from locals inhabiting a mountain settlement in the Mexican state of Nayarit’s Sierra mountains, but both were subsequently destroyed when the government jail in Belize, where Sanderson had stored them, was flooded out. Sanderson claimed that he later saw a third such skin for sale at a market in Colima, at the south end of Nayarit’s mountain block, but at a price above what he could afford to pay (Sanderson, 1973; Shuker, 1989).

Alleged new jaguar species spied but not caught by Dutch zoologist Dr. Marc van Roosmalen while spending over a year seeking new monkeys in Brazil during 1996 and 1997 (Anon., 1997d; Shuker, 2002b).

Jaguar-sized cat with tan fur and tigerine stripes, from Peru’s Ucayali and Pasco provinces. It may be conspecific with striped mystery cats reported from Colombia and Ecuador. In 1993 Peruvian zoologist Dr. Peter Hocking obtained the skull of a female specimen, which will be studied by felid specialist Dr. Steven C. Conkling (Hocking, 1992,1996; Shuker, 1996a).

Jaguar-sized cat, but with larger head, and grey fur covered by solid black speckles instead of the normal jaguar’s golden fur patterned with black ring-like rosettes. Dubbed the “speckled tiger” by Hocking, it is known to the Amuesha native hunters, and inhabits the lower Palcazu River valley in Peru’s Pasco province (Hocking, 1992; Shuker, 1996a). In 1993, Hocking obtained the skull from a strange cat whose body size and fur patterning seem similar to the speckled tiger’s, but its background color was said to be cinnamon-brown and white (instead of grey); its skull shows some differences from ordinary jaguar skulls. Hocking terms it an “anomalous jaguar” (Hocking, 1996). Another mystery cat reminiscent of the speckled tiger has been reported from Guyana and Brazil, and is called the
cunarid din
by the Wapishana Indians, who consider it to be an abnormal type of jaguar (Brock, 1963).

Mystery Peruvian cat resembling a giant black panther, entirely black and at least twice the size of the jaguar. Known to the Quechua Indians as the
yana puma
(“black puma”), it is said to be very aggressive at night, tracking hunters to their camps to kill them while they sleep (Hocking, 1992). Known melanistic pumas are extremely rare and are not uniformly black; their underparts are slaty grey. It could be an unusually large variety of melanistic jaguar, one whose cryptic coat markings are wholly concealed by its fur’s black background color.

Unidentified lion-sized “jungle lion” with long hair around its neck and reddish-brown fur, reported by rangers in the Yanachaga National Park, Pasco, Peru (Hocking, 1996).

Pygmy brown bear sighted by rangers in Peru’s Yanachaga National Park, and distinguished by them from the spectacled bear
Tremarctos ornatus
also existing here (Hocking, 1996).

Dog-like cat, or cat-like dog, called the
mitla
, reported from Bolivia by Lieut.-Col. Percy Fawcett and sought during 1960s by Jersey Zoo’s director, Jeremy Mallinson. It may be the bushdog
Speothos venaticus
, or the small-eared dog
Atelocynus microtis
—a notably feline canid of uncertain distribution range (Fawcett, 1953; Mackal, 1980; Shuker, 1989,1996a).

Alleged new tapir species seen but not captured by Dutch zoologist Dr. Marc van Roosmalen while spending over a year seeking new monkeys in Brazil during 1996 and 1997 (Anon., 1997d; Shuker, 2002b).

Apparently undescribed flamingo called the
jetete
in the Chilean Andes; distinguished by local inhabitants from this region’s three known species (Walters, 1980; Shuker, 1993b).

Unidentified black, wattle-lacking guan in Peru’s Yanachaga National Park (Hocking, 1996).

Small, mystifying sea-green macaws reported (even photographed) in various bird collections. Assumed to be freak Lear’s or hyacinth macaws, but suspected by some to be specimens of the glaucous macaw
Anodorhynchus glaucus
, deemed extinct since 1930s (Shuker, 1993b).

Medium-sized snakes adorned with cockscombs and wattles, and gifted with the ability to crow like a cockerel—thereby paralleling similar mystery snakes in Africa—reported from Hispaniola and Jamaica in the West Indies (Gosse, 1862; Shuker, 1991b).

Extremely large form of batrachian, known as the
sapo de lorna
(“toad of the hill”), reported from a number of Andean valleys in Chile and Peru. It is alleged to be very poisonous, and able to capture decent-sized birds (Shuker, 1997d).

Out-of-place Tasmanian devils
Sarcophilus harrisii
reported and even occasionally captured on mainland Australia, including Victoria and Western Australia, during the 20th century. These have most probably absconded from captivity (though none of the captured specimens has ever been traced back to such a source). Even so, as this or a closely related species still occurred as recently as 600 years ago in Victoria and a mere 400 years ago in southwestern Australia, there is also a remote chance that
Sarcophilus
survives on the Australian mainland even today, undetected by science (Troughton, 1965; Nowak, 1991; Shuker, 1998e).

Elusive dog-like cryptid with distinctly canine head, and stripes on its back and tail, greatly resembling thylacine
Thylacinus cynocephalus
. Recorded regularly from Tasmania, where the last confirmed thylacine specimen died in 1936; from mainland Australia, where the thylacine supposedly became extinct around 2,500 years ago; and from mountainous regions of Irian Jaya (western, Indonesian New Guinea), where natives refer to it as the
dobsegna
(the thylacine is known from New Guinea via Pleistocene fossils). The sheer quantity, and also the quality of so many, of the sightings on record is such that after disregarding dingos, foxes, domestic dogs, and other sources of misidentification, it is still reasonable to suppose that thylacine survival beyond its respective accepted extinction dates in all three regions has occurred. Its continuing survival in the more remote, inaccessible areas of Irian Jaya must be the likeliest prospect, but its persistence in the other two regions should not be ruled out (Shuker, 1993b; Healy & Cropper, 1994; Shuker, 1995f; Smith, 1996).

Australian feline cryptid, as large as a clouded leopard, very fierce, arboreal, with cat-like head, very prominent tusk-like teeth at the front of its mouth, and distinctive black (or dark grey) and white bands around its body. Mostly reported from forested regions of northern Queensland, it is known to the aboriginals as the
y arri
, to Westerners as the Queensland tiger, and can be readily delineated from reports of dog-headed thylacine-like beasts. Judging from eye-witness descriptions, it bears a striking resemblance to the predicted appearance in life (based upon reconstructions drawn from fossil evidence) of the marsupial lion
Thylacoleo carnifex
, which supposedly became extinct several millennia ago. Hence it has been suggested that the
y arri
is a surviving descendant (Heuvelmans, 1958; Shuker, 1989,1995f).

Nocturnal Australian cryptid, superficially ape-like but allegedly distinct from Australia’s famous man-beast, the
yowie
. Principally quadrupedal but can stand erect upon its hind legs and thus attain a height of five to six feet; it is equipped with very long muscular arms and elongated toes but lacks a tail. It is covered in dark fur upon much of its torso but lighter on its neck, limbs, and belly, and is known locally in New South Wales as the
yahoo
. Identities proposed include a surviving species of giant wombat, or a modern Australian representative of New Guinea’s mountain diprotodont
Hulitherium thomasettii
, a marsupial with unexpectedly ape-like characteristics, believed extinct since the Pleistocene (Greenwell, 1994a; Shuker, 1995f).

Undescribed speckled megapode called the
sasa
, formerly native to the Fijian islands of Viti Levu and Kandavu, but probably now extinct (Wood, 1926; Shuker, 1991a).

Possible persistence of the huia
Heteralocha acutirostris
in the Kaimanawa mountain range of New Zealand’s North Island. Presumed extinct since 1907, convincing sightings have continued to emerge of this very distinctive bird, famous for exhibiting marked sexual dimorphism in beak shape—short and pointed in the male, long and curved in the female (Phillipps, 1963; Shuker, 1991b; Greenwell, 1994b).

Six “lost” birds of paradise from New Guinea and outlying islands. Initially classed as valid species, they have been dismissed as hybrids since the 1920s, but recent research suggests that they may truly constitute genuine (albeit exceedingly rare) species, none of which has been reported for many years. Some or all of them may now therefore be extinct. As originally named, the six are: Elliot’s sicklebill
Epimachus ellioti
, Sharpe’s lobe-billed riflebird
Loborhamphus ptilorhis
, Rothschild’s lobe-billed bird of paradise L.
nobilis
, Duivenbode’s riflebird
Paryphephorus duivenbodei
, Bensbach’s bird of paradise
Janthothorax bensbachi
, and Ruys’s bird of paradise
Neoparadisea ruysi
(Fuller, 1979,1995).

Black-plumaged, long-tailed mystery bird whose call sounds like a short explosive rattle, reported (but never collected) during the 20th century by various scientific teams visiting Goodenough Island— largest of the three main islands comprising the D’Entrecasteaux Archipelago just north of New Guinea’s eastern tip. Suggested identities include a species of astrapia (long-tailed bird of paradise), a relative of the paradise crow
Lycocorax pyrrhopterus
, or a honeyeater (meliphagid) (Beehler, 1991; Shuker, 1999).

Unidentified winged beast with three-to-four-foot wingspan, long toothy beak, and lengthy tail terminating in a diamond-shaped flange, reported from island of Rambutyo (=Rambunzo) off the east coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and also from the isle of Umboi, between eastern PNG and New Britain. It is known locally as the
ropen
, and its morphology readily calls to mind that of
Rhamphorhynchus
, a small early prehistoric pterosaur (Shuker, 2002a).

A much larger winged mystery beast, often confused with the
ropen
by previous writers, reputedly inhabits mainland PNG, sporting huge leathery wings spanning up to 20 feet, a fairly long neck, and a bony crest. Known as the
duah
, it is seemingly reminiscent of
Pteranodon
, the mighty pterosaur of Mesozoic North America. Missionaries in the 1990s claim to have spied such creatures, and allege that they have glowing underparts (Shuker, 2002a).

Delcourt’s giant gecko
Hoplodactylus delcourti
is currently known from a single stuffed specimen that had resided in Marseilles Natural History Museum for over a century before its species was recognized during the early 1980s to be unknown to science, and was formally described in 1986. The specimen’s provenance is unknown, but was probably New Zealand, as its species’ closest relatives are mostly endemic to New Zealand. Also, Maori mythology refers to a two-foot-long forest-dwelling lizard called the
kaweau
or
kawekaweau
, as thick as a man’s wrist, and brown in color with red longitudinal stripes—a description very closely matching that of
H. delcourti
. In recent years, reports of lizards resembling this species have emerged from North Island, offering hope that this seemingly lost species may exist here (Hellaby 1984; Bauer & Russell, 1987; Shuker, 1993b; Heuvelmans, 1996).

Unidentified aquatic mystery snake, reputedly very venomous, reported from PNG. No more than six feet long, with smooth scales, enlarged ventrals, and a short tail, one of these snakes bit three children near the village of Wipim, in Papua’s Western Province, during 1972 and 1973; all three quickly died. It is said to favor small freshwater swamps and inland streams rather than rivers or open swampy grassland. English herpetologist Mark O’Shea has searched in vain for this snake during several visits to New Guinea, and cannot reconcile its description with that of any species known by science to exist here (O’Shea, 1996).

Heuvelmans’s longstanding classification of sea serpents into nine well-defined types (Heuvelmans, 1968,1986) has been challenged in a recent extensive critique (Magin, 1996). Its author concludes that none of Heuvelmans’s postulated sea serpents will be discovered, because they do not exist. Instead, he proposes that they are merely cultural stereotypes: “the different types of creatures are based on patterns of speech, traditional metaphors of the region, cultural patterning and expectation” (Magin, 1996). Some of Heuvelmans’s sea serpent types have also faced specific challenges from suggested alternative identities.