Giant Beaver in Boston lake?

Blog tracks 'sightings' of Jessie, a mysterious monster beneath Jamaica Pond

May 09, 2012|By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent, Globe Staff

Could there be a monster living beneath the serene waters of Jamaica Pond?

State officials released some 1,150 fish into Jamaica Pond last month, saying the bounty would feed the imaginations of local anglers as winter gives way to spring.However, some speculate that the annual hefty stock of trout and salmon could feed a different hunger: a mysterious monster that lurks beneath Boston's largest body of freshwater.
Read rest here: http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-09/yourtown/31643332_1_loch-ness-monster-bloggers-nessie

mini mammoth found

Smallest mammoths found on Crete

he smallest mammoth ever known to have existed roamed the island of Crete millions of years ago, researchers say.Adults were roughly the size of a modern baby elephant, standing over a metre tall at the shoulders.Remains were discovered more than a century ago, but scientists had debated whether the animal was a mammoth or an ancient elephant.A new analysis of the animal's teeth suggests it falls closer to the mammoth lineage.Palaeontologists Victoria Herridge and Adrian Lister, from London's Natural History Museum, report their findings in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B."Dwarfism is a well-known evolutionary response of large mammals to island environments," said Dr Herridge.This evolutionary phenomenon is thought to be driven by the relative scarcity of food sources or by the absence of predators."Our findings show that on Crete, island dwarfism occurred to an extreme degree, producing the smallest mammoth known so far," she added.

Read rest here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18003093

saving a prehistoric predator

Everglades scientists play risky game of tag with near-extinct predator

Susan Cocking Miami Herald

The boat captain and the scientist wielded their lasso like seasoned cowboys instead of fishermen. A good thing, since their lives literally depended on it: roping an upset, 13-foot-long, prehistoric creature waving a double-toothed saw in the water is just as dangerous as grabbing a bull by the horns."There's a swing," Captain Jim Willcox warned as the saw slashed the air. "Careful, it's pretty green."But Willcox and Yannis Papastamatiou, a University of Florida scientist, managed to secure the line around both the saw and the tail of their quarry: an endangered smalltooth sawfish, the rarest marine species in U.S. waters. Now the huge brown creature lay quietly alongside their skiff near East Cape Sable in Everglades National Park, enabling them to safely complete their research mission.
Read rest here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/sns-mct-everglades-scientists-play-risky-game-of-tag-with-20120508,0,964142.story

strange fish caught

Man catches fish with duck beak from Hau River

Tuoi Tre

Nguyen Thanh Nhan in Binh Minh district, the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long last Friday caught a 2 kilo fish that has a jaw looking like a duck beak.
According to Nhan, he was sitting on a boat on Hau River when he saw two strange fish rising up from the water.He used a net to catch one.Hearing about Nhan with the strange fish, locals throng his house to watch but no one could tell what kind of fish it is.Although having a body of a fresh water fish, it has a head looking like an alligator and its skin is like that of a snake.

Read rest see pic here: http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/fun/man-catches-fish-with-duck-beak-from-hau-river-1.70903

Could it be an alligator gar perhaps? I am not an expert on fish but perhaps a fisherman seeing this might know.

Scientists Uncover Ancient Killer Coelacanth

Canadian Scientists Uncover Ancient Killer Coelacanth; 'Overturns The Age Old Image Of Coelacanths'

by Underwatertimes.com News Service

DEERFIELD, Illinois -- Coelacanths are iconic fishes, well-known as 'living fossils.' The group was thought to have died out with the dinosaurs until a living one was caught in 1938 off the coast of South Africa, sending shock waves through the scientific world. More than 70 years later, a new extinct coelacanth is causing more waves in the scientific community because it had a tuna-like forked tail and was probably a fast-moving, shark-like predator. This contrasts with living coelacanths, which are slow-moving fishes with peculiar broad tails bearing 3 lobes. The most complete fossils of this stunning 240 million-year-old species were found by collectors from the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, and are described by two University of Alberta scientists in the most recent issue of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The new form, named Rebellatrix, meaning the 'rebel coelacanth' was a 3-foot long fish with a massive symmetrical forked tail quite unlike the tails of any other living or fossil coelacanths. The structure of this new fish is so unusual that it has been put in its own family. The fossils were discovered on rocky slopes in the Hart Ranges of Wapiti Lake Provincial Park, British Columbia, which at the time the fish was alive was off the western coast of the supercontinent Pangaea.

Read more see pics here: http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=54097161082

news of the "nessie" of Alaska

Nessie of the North: Is Alaska's Iliamna Lake monster a huge sleeper shark?

Bruce Wright | May 01, 2012

For years, legendary tales from Scotland and Western Alaska described large animals or monsters thought to live in Loch Ness and Lake Iliamna. But evidence has been mounting that the Loch Ness and Lake Iliamna monsters may, in fact, be sleeper sharks. Two exceptionally large Arctic sharks ply northern waters -- Greenland sharks and the Pacific sleeper sharks. During the last few years, scientists have documented Greenland sharks using the St. Lawrence Seaway, lending further credence to the hypothesis that some sharks can survive in freshwater. Bull sharks are also known to swim in fresh water, but this species needs warmer waters.The idea of sharks possibly using Loch Ness is not new; that's long been one of the hypotheses explaining the Loch Ness Monster. But until now, nobody has suggested sleeper sharks, perhaps because they're secretive and so rarely seen.

Read rest here: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/nessie-north-alaskas-iliamna-lake-monster-huge-sleeper-shark

new bigfoot video.

Video: Another Turkey Hunter Sees Bigfoot This Season

See video here: http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/strut-zone/2012/04/video-maryland-turkey-hunter-sees-bigfoot-season