unusual creature off Scottish coast

10 June 2011

Leatherback turtle seen in The Minch off Western Isles

Crew members of the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust research vessel Silurian estimated it was about 1.5m (5ft) long.They saw the turtle in The Minch, a stretch of water between the Western Isles and mainland Scotland on Sunday.Leatherbacks nest in the tropics but have been spotted previously off the UK, with one sighting made near a beach at Cleveleys in Lancashire last June.Dave Hanna, skipper of the Silurian, said seeing the turtle was the most exciting moment of his life.

The cold

The leatherback is the world's biggest turtle and listed as Critically Endangered, largely because of poaching for eggs and snaring in fishing gear.Typically between 1m and 2m long, the animals weigh up to three-quarters of a tonne and can swim across entire oceans, returning to their ancestral nesting sites to breed every few years.In 2002, a rare green turtle was found dead off Loch Inver on the north west coast of Scotland.

Read rest see pic here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-13727829

wonder if anyone reported a sea monster? lol

bigfoot footprints?

Muddy prints bring Bigfoot researchers to Gibsonville

Roselee Papandrea / Times-News

GIBSONVILLE — At first, Bernadette and Leonard Braley didn’t pay much attention to the spots of mud on the road about 50 feet from their home on Quartz Court in Gibsonville last October.But then the Braleys began looking at the mud more closely and thought they looked a lot like footprints. Leonard grabbed the measuring tape and Bernadette a camera. They took photos of what they thought were 16-inch muddy footprints and then forgot about them for a few months.This past January, Bernadette began thinking about the photos again while she was going through shows on her digital video recorder. One was news footage of man who encountered Bigfoot trying to attack his dog.It got Bernadette thinking. She did a quick Internet search and found Bigfoot Lunch Club, a group that follows Bigfoot sightings, and there is one in North Carolina. Bernadette emailed her muddy footprint photos to the club. In February, the Braleys were invited to Troy to talk with a group from the Animal Planet television network that was doing some filming for a six-part series called “Finding Bigfoot” that started airing this month.

Read rest here: http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/gibsonville-44858-muddy-prints.html

Largest catfish caught

June 09, 2011

Welsh Angler Catches World Record Giant Mekong Catfish - 2

by Alex Robinson

David Kent, a 54-year-old Welsh angler, now holds the all-tackle record for the largest species of freshwater fish in the world. He earned his record by hauling in a 260-pound Giant Mekong catfish from a lake in Thailand last November. It is the largest freshwater fish to ever be caught on record. His catch was made official by the IGFA this week, according to WalesOnline. Even though Kent's catfish measures more than 7 feet long, it's by no means  the largest member of its species. Mekong catfish have been estimated to grow up to 660 pounds and 9 feet long.
 Read rest see pic here : http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/newshound/2011/06/welsh-angler-catches-world-record-giant-mekong-catfish

taniwha in the news

Look out, taniwha on the Auckland rail track

By Wayne Thompson

Plans for an Auckland city rail link tunnel could be spiked by a taniwha - a spiritual creature that Maori say is in the way of the project. The Auckland Council's Maori Statutory Board has warned transport planners of the taniwha, who lived in an ancient creek running past the Town Hall and down Queen St. Board member Glen Wilcox has asked Auckland's transport committee to give consideration to the taniwha - which the Ngati Whatua iwi call Horotiu - as it plans the $2.6 billion tunnel project. "What's being done about the taniwha Horotiu who lives just outside here, and that tunnel will be going through his rohe [area]?" asked Mr Wilcox. In 2002, the presence of a one-eyed taniwha called Karu Tahi stopped work on the Waikato Expressway, and part of the new road was rerouted. Another sacred guardian's presence resulted in an on-site protest during construction of the Ngawha Prison, near Kaikohe.

Read rest here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10731108

Does a Payette Lake monster exist?

 McCall locals say 'yes'

by Brian Holmes

McCALL -- Whether fact, or fish tale, legend or lore, there are stories in McCall that create mystery and intrigue. Stories that are best told by locals, who claim to be in the know.

How do locals feel about the alleged monster named Sharlie living in Payette Lake?  Watch the video above to find out.

See video here : http://www.ktvb.com/news/Locals-in-McCall-talk-about-the-mysterious-Payette-Lake-monster-121663544.html

See article here about the creature:
http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2009/10/lake-payette-monster.html

 

Deepest-living land creature discovered

Deepest-living land animal found

By Jennifer Carpenter Science reporter, BBC News

Worms have been found living at depths in the Earth where it was previously thought animals could not survive.Discovered in South African mines, the roundworms can survive in the stifling 48C (118F) water that seeps between cracks 1.3km beneath the Earth's crust.The find has surprised scientists who, until now, believed only single-celled bacteria thrived at these depths.Writing in the journal Nature, the team says this is the deepest-living "multi-cellular" organism known to science.The researchers found two species of worm. One is a new species to science, which the scientists have named Halicephalobus mephisto after Faust's Lord of the Underworld.The other is a previously known roundworm known as Plectus aquatilis.

Ends: Dr Borgonie believes that worms already have some of the "attributes necessary" to survive at these great depths. So it wasn't a surprise to him that the first multicellular organism to be found in the deep subsurface of the Earth was a worm. The authors of the study expect to find other multicellular animals far beneath our planet's surface, and are preparing to descend again to search for others.

Read full article here :http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13620701

Finds like this set me off thinking I wonder what else is surviving where it shouldn’t be ? Always  exciting when new species are discovered.