big cat news from Scotland

Appeal for Moray big cat sightings
A TEAM hoping to prove the existence of big cats in Moray next month is looking to hear from landowners who believe they have witnessed pumas and panthers prowling the area.The Big Cats In Britain group will be heading to Moray for a vigil towards the end of August, and members are hoping to hear from Moray residents who have spotted what they believe to be large non-native felines.
Read rest here: http://www.northern-scot.co.uk/News/Appeal-for-Moray-big-cat-sightings-26072011.htm

Cornhill wildcats caught on camera

By Graham Crawford

A BANFFSHIRE man may have captured extremely rare pictures of a Scottish wildcat and her kitten, just yards from his house.The crofter, who lives with his wife a few miles from Cornhill, is keeping their identities and location secret because the wildcat is a protected species.There could be fewer than 400 of them remaining in the Highlands, making them rarer than Bengal tigers and at risk of extinction.If the Cornhill sighting is verified, it would back up reports that the cats are extending out to agricultural areas of Aberdeenshire from their more common habitat around the Cairngorms.

Read rest see photo here :http://www.banffshire-journal.co.uk/News/Cornhill-wildcats-caught-on-camera-20072011.htm

Connecticut River monster?

Deen: The Big Conn, monster or myth?

by Opinion | July 29, 2011

Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Rep. David Deen, D-Westminster, river steward for the Connecticut River Watershed Council.
Loch Ness has her Nessie, Lake Champlain has her Champ, Lake Mephremegog has her Memphre and the Connecticut River, well the sting of it is that she has her monster, it just has not been named yet. The Connecticut River does have a monster or monsters, that is, if you can believe press stories from numerous historical sources, including The New York Times.One of the earliest reports comes from the History of Lordship in 1878 when an assistant engineer on the steamer State of New York said that he witnessed the head of a monster raised several feet above the waves. The head disappeared and a portion of the body formed an arc “under which it would have been easy to drive a team of oxen.”In 1881, soon after the Lordship incident, according to The Times, the yacht A.M. Bliss was returning from a fishing cruise when the passengers saw a veritable sea serpent moving slowly along the surface of the calm water.And an 1886 New York Times article from Middletown, Conn., reported that “all along the banks of the Connecticut River people eagerly watched for a glimpse of the great sea serpent.” According to the story: “Out of the froth rose a big black head as large as a flour barrel and with eyes as big as small plates. The head kept rising higher and higher until 10 feet of the neck appeared. The men didn’t stop to make a long or thorough examination, but they feel sure that the sea serpent must have been a clear hundred feet long.”

Read rest here : http://vtdigger.org/2011/07/29/deen-the-big-conn-monster-or-myth/

missing link or the first bird?

Feathers fly in first bird debate

By Matt McGrath Science reporter, BBC World Service

A chicken-sized dinosaur fossil found in China may have overturned a long-held theory about the origin of birds. For 150 years, a species called Archaeopteryx has been regarded as the first true bird, representing a major evolutionary step away from dinosaurs. But the new fossil suggests this creature was just another feathery dinosaur and not the significant link that palaeontologists had believed. The discovery of Xiaotingia, as it is known, is reported in Nature magazine. The authors of the report argue that three other species named in the past decade might now be serious contenders for the title of "the oldest bird".Archaeopteryx has a hallowed place in science, long hailed as not just the first bird but as one of the clearest examples of evolution in action.

Read rest here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14307985

loch ness creature could be real says scientist

Loch Ness monster is more fact than fiction claims palaeontologist
Paleontologist Dr Darren Naish reckons there have been too many sightings for 'Nessie' to be a hoax. Boffin Dr Naish, who lectures at the University of Portsmouth, said: "The huge number of 'sea monster' sightings now on record cant all be explained away as mistakes, sightings of known animals or hoaxes. "At least some of the better ones some of them made by trained naturalists and such probably are descriptions of encounters with real, unknown animals. "Because large marine animals continue to be discovered various new whale and shark species have been named in recent years the idea that such species might await discovery is, at the very least, plausible." Some experts reckon Nessie is a plesiosaur - a long-necked reptile that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.

Read rest here :http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8665861/Loch-Ness-monster-is-more-fact-than-fiction-claims-paleontologist.html

I have to say my impression was that Dr Naish said sea monsters could be real not the Loch Ness monster ,which is a lake creature ,but newspapers being what they are , they write  what they think will attract readers.

vampire eating russian livestock?

Vampire' stalks Siberian livestock

by Tom Washington at 26/07/2011 18:43

A blood-sucking creature is preying upon goats near Novosibirsk. As rational explanations run thin on the ground, the specter of the so-called chupacabra raises its demon head.

Horrified farmers and smallholders are confronted by the drained corpses of their livestock in the morning, bloodless and bearing puncture marks to the neck but otherwise largely in tact.

But local cops are reluctant to record apparent vampire attacks, as they await official recertification, leaving the locals up in arms.

“If this creature is not stopped it could make its way to Novosibirsk! Only our police force are doing jack-diddly about it,” complaining locals told Komsomolskaya Pravda. “They say that there is no Chupacabra. Come if you will journalists, have a look at what is happening to us.”

Read rest here: http://themoscownews.com/russia/20110726/188875163.html

mysterious behaviour of beaked Whales , is it relevant to cryptids?

Blainville's beaked whales, which are among the world's most enigmatic cetacea, go silent in shallow waters. Researchers have discovered that the whales refuse to communicate with each other near the surface.By becoming silent, the whales enter a stealth mode that prevents them being detected by predatory killer whales.The study, one of the first to record how beaked whales communicate, also recorded sounds made at the deepest recorded depth by any mammal.Beaked whales are deep-diving, toothed whales. Little is known about them, in part because they spend so much of their time in the ocean depths.Some species have been barely sighted, and scientists suspect there may be more species of beaked whale awaiting discovery.Also, very little is known about how beaked whales communicate or avoid predators. So Natacha Aguilar of La Laguna University in Tenerife, Spain and colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, US and Aarhus University, Denmark, conducted the first study into how beaked whales communicate when diving.

Read rest see pics hear: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14254582

Maybe aquatic cryptids do the same and that is why they are so hard to find? Certainly these Whales were thought to be a myth at one time. They are a known animal rarely seen so how more likely is it someone would see an unknown animal ? The odds are against seeing sea cryptids especially on busy trade routes so it may be a while for anyone gets a photo!

mythical cryptid stops road tunnel

Swamp monster' threatens Auckland rail project

    From: AAP    July 25, 2011

A MYTHICAL swamp monster "hiding" under Auckland is threatening to derail a project to improve the New Zealand city's traffic gridlock.
The North Island city is trying to move ahead with a multi-billion railway tunnel project to improve the minimal train network and free up its car-filled streets.But Horotiu, a mythical monster, put the NZ$2.6 billion ($2.1 billion) project in doubt after an indigenous Maori board protested that it will destroy grounds once patrolled by the make-believe taniwha, pronounced tani-fa.Glenn Wilcox, a member of the Maori Statutory Board, which protects Maori interests, complained that the plan did not take into account the monster, which "was here first".The taniwha is a mythical protector with a powerful role in Maori folklore, but get it angry and you're in trouble, Mr Wilcox said.

Read rest here : http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/swamp-monster-threatens-auckland-rail-project/story-e6frf7k6-1226101357010