Tuesday 30 May 2017

Claims that the The Yacumama are real.

Claims that giant anaconda are real- here are extracts from the  article :

The Yacumama are real. They may even be a previously undiscovered species.
 (CHICAGO) - The world is filled with secrets. Many of them it does not give up easily. Empires have risen and empires have fallen in the midst of mysteries-riddles that remained unsolved through the centuries.One such mystery has haunted the darker, steamier regions of the fabled land of the Amazon. The Amazon, that dark, forbidding river sluggishly twisting its way through Brazil and eight other South American countries. It is a river second in size only to the mighty Nile and it's so wide that no bridge passes over it. According to the indigenous peoples other giant snakes inhabit the Amazon's shadowy realm too: the Sachamama and the Minhocão, a snake that some Amazon natives believe can alter the land as they pass through.Despite the herpetologists' belief, the natives were not speaking of big anaconda by different names. They spoke of true monsters-leviathans so huge that the anaconda would be small in comparison. The snakes the natives sometimes spoke of in fear and awe-over village campfires and the safety of their homes—measured 120, sometimes 160 feet long. The heads of these mammoth creatures were said to reach 6 feet wide. They could shoot down prey with explosive jets of water, topple trees in their passage and change the course of minor tributaries.
Over the years, many sightings of Yacumama have included descriptions of the snake as sprouting horns on its head. This peculiar feature, mentioned in so many reports coming from independent observers up and down the Amazon, has led Warner to his hypothesis that the Yacumama could be a prehistoric version of the modern day caecilian. Most of the 50 or so species of caecilian that are cataloged do have a groove running along either side of the head that contains retractable tentacles. To untrained observers, they may appear as horns.According to Mike Warner, "The exact species of this creature is unknown but we believe that the physical characteristics and behavior are that of a snake [or amphibian] with behavior similar to a caecilian." [An amphibian creature similar to a snake.] Most of the witnesses who have sighted a Yacumama did not spend too much time studying the creature-they usually happened upon it by chance and then turned tail and ran for their lives.Warner's research led him to discover that the Yacumama seeks its prey near regions where two rivers merge into one, called a "confluence."
Are the Yacumama real?Yes, they are real. They may even be a previously undiscovered species. They are also, without a doubt, some of the most dangerous and terrifying predators in the animal kingdom.In the links below you will find the first documented photograph of one of the world's largest snakes. Known by the names of Yacumama, Sachamama and the Black Boa by the indigenous Peruvian cultures of the Amazon. The snake in the photograph is estimated to be more than 130 feet long with a head wider than 6 feet across.

Read the full article here:
Aug-16-2010 History Mysteries: The Legendary Yacumama, Mysterious Monster of the Amazon Terrence Aym Salem-News.com.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august162010/monster-amazon-ta.php

Lake Monsters of South America



There appear to be many tales of lake beasties in South America especially in Patagonia.
An American prospector working in the Andean Foot Hills in 1922 came across a trail of large tracks leading into a lake and wrote “I saw in the middle of the lake an animal with a huge neck like a swan, and the movements made me to suppose the beast to have a body like that of a crocodile.” At White Lake, locals talk of a strange creature with a long reptile neck swimming in the darkness of night. And say strange noises can be heard and the sounds of something sliding on the beach in the night.
In 1907, a member of the Boundary Demarcation Commission named Vaag,was was said to have found carcass of a plesiosaur-like animal and some tracks along the River Tamago which borders Chile and Argentina..
The most famous lake monster though is Nahuelito found in lake Nahuel Huapi.
Nahuel Huapi Lake is located at the foot of the Patagonian Mountains in the Nahuel Huapi National Park and has a surface area of approximately 342 miles and is said to be 1350 feet. On the shores of Nahuel Huapi isone of the most popular holiday resorts, Bariloche. Many tourists have reported sightings of an unknown creature in the lake . The earliest known encounters with Nahuelito can be traced back to the Nahuel Huapi Lake’s native population, who for centuries told of gigantic creature living in the lake. The first official reports came from zoologist Clementi Onelli. He wrote that a Chilean farmer in 1897 was in Patagonia and reported hearing the sounds of something heavy being dragged along the pebble beach near White Lake. He also thought Vaag had found the remains of peliosaur.Then an American gold prospector named Martin Sheffield in 1922 , saw "an animal with a huge neck like a swan, and the movements made me suppose the beast to have a body like that of a crocodile."Onelli was convinced this was a genuine sighting and set off on an expedition after waiting for permits but came back empty handed.
One of the more detailed reports of a meeting with Nahuelito was in the Toronto Globe on April 6, 1922, 12 years after the sighting originally occurred in 1910. The article tells the details of a story by a man named George Garrett, a manager of a company based near Nahuel Huapi Lake. The article states that Garrett and some other mean were making their way windward, up a 5 mile long inlet called Pass Coytrue, which was roughly a mile in width and an unknown depth. Just as the men neared the rocky shore of the peninsula which created the inlet, Garret looked astern, and to his surprise about a quarter of a mile to leeward he saw an object which appeared to be 15 to 20 feet in diameter and that came roughly 6 feet out of the water, after a few minutes the object submerged into the lake.
In 1994, two young women, Paula Jacarbe and Jessica Campbell, reported that while sunbathing on the shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake, in an area known as the Peninsula de San Pedro, they had witnessed what they described as a headless whale with a humped back and small fins along its side frolicking in the water. Shortly after the creature submerged back into the lake, Campbell sat down on a rocky outcropping overlooking the lake in order to collect her thoughts and calm her nerves. Approximately 45 minutes after the initial sighting the creature resurfaced and began surging through the water. Fearing for her life she ran away.
Some have wondered if Nahuelito could be the result of nuclear experiments done by German scientists during the Peron regime in the 1950’s, causing a mutation of a known creature,although sightings of the creature began long before this date.
In 2006 A series of photos were produced anonymously. Full story here:
And for more information about this Patagonian nessie:
Another familiar tale ,many lake monster sightings have similarities. Unless Nessie goes on holiday regularly there must be more than one monster about!

Friday 12 May 2017

Theories about the Loch Ness Monster

What is the loch ness monster?
Since the “monster”s first sightings theories have abounded to what it is. I thought I would examine a few in a brief fashion.
1)Plesiosaur- much as I would love Nessie to be a prehistoric creature, the fact the loch only formed about 10000 years ago rather puts the dampers on that idea. However always the open minded I looked at the possibilities. The first one is that as plesiosaurs appeared to be air breathers they would surface a lot more and therefore would be seen more regularly. It is not impossible that a water breathing plesiosaur has evolved (evolution rocks don’t you think!), but unlikely. There are good fish stocks in the Loch including migratory salmon, so I find claims there is not enough fish in the loch not really substantial enough as a reason for there not being a colony of creatures in the Loch. The amount of activity on the Loch would mean someone would have been eaten by now if it was a plesiosaur, either a swimmer or a fisherman would have been washed ashore all chewed. (Sorry if you are eating right now, but you shouldn’t eat over the keyboard anyway) I know from time I have spent at the Loch there are local people who will not venture out on the loch at night so something keeps them home on shore and it’s not the TV. The loch has constant temperature and doesn’t freeze but some say it would be too cold for a plesiosaur. However research in the last few years has shown that many prehistoric creatures continued on in the Antarctic after they had died out elsewhere, including plesiosaurs, and the water would have been a lot colder than they were used to. Still the peaty black waters of the loch would not have been inviting I don’t think, they were used to clear waters .So unless a very shy underwater possibly vegetarian plesiosaur has evolved in the Loch, I find I have to put this theory to one side.
2) Elephant- this was a rather fanciful notion put forward that it was an elephant swimming in the loch. This is where not doing your research properly shows up, how many elephants have been living around Loch Ness since the first reports in the 1500’s. ? Not a lot I imagine and elephants from visiting circuses would not have been around that often. Nice try but poorly thought out and researched by someone who doesn’t know the history of the Loch.
3) Seismic activity- well there is seismic activity that happens in the Loch and shocks from Inverness could travel down the river causing waves in the Loch. However it wouldn’t have a long neck. It would show strange wave formations and maybe blow a bit of debris from the bottom that could be mistaken for an animal. The problem here is the movement would not be animate like an animal swimming, but certainly would be an explanation for some sightings.
4) Psychological/ optical illusion- well yes, if you think you will see something, there is a chance you will. I have seen people in cubicles in a lab subject to atmosphere changes that means they think they see UFO’s and by bouncing sounds waves off the walls, too low for the human ear to hear, they see ghosts. But the Loch is not a lab and not everyone sees something. Again some sightings may be down to the desire to see something or an optical illusion from the reflections of the hills in the loch, but people tend to be not looking for something when they do see Nessie.
5)Media hysteria - There was a BBC programme that put forward the theory that mass or media hysteria after the King Kong film was shown in 1933 caused the rash of sightings .However there was no cinema, no King Kong film and no road present when sightings were recorded from 1527 to 1932.Once again lack of research marred what otherwise was a good programme. Like most people the programme researchers assumed that sightings only started in 1933.
6) Eel- a large sterile eel is a real possibly. It would have to be very large though to cause the sightings. However there would also have to have been a) more than one b) it would have to be long lived. The loop of a large eel would look like the ‘hump’ people say they have seen. It may be there is a colony of very large eels living in the bottom of the loch.
7) Seal- there are seals and otters seen on and around the loch. A line of them swimming could look like a monster‘s coils, but local people see this all the time and are not likely to be fooled by it. It brings us back to the long neck people say they have seen. The only way that could be possible is if it were either a long necked pinniped or a very large long necked otter. Most people will have seen the excellent article, Michael A. Woodley, Darren Naish and Hugh P. Shanahan wrote , in the March 2009 edition of Historical Biology , a groundbreaking paper, “How many extant pinniped species remain to be described?”
8) Hoax- there has been many hoaxes around Loch Ness. Even if every photo and film were a hoax, which I doubt knowing Tim Dinsdale and others who took films and photos, it cannot explain every sighting.
9) Primitive whale – again could be likely, but how did it get there? I always thought the loch was only accessed via the River Ness and therefore would be difficult for anything large to have travelled up it unseen as it would have had to be a pair to set up a breeding colony. Then I found this :
British and U.S. scientists claim they have evidence that the sea extended into Loch Ness at two points in history: after the Ice Age in Europe (125,000 years ago) and 12,800 years ago. A geologist working with a research team in 2001 noticed the clay on the anchor of their boat looked different from other deposits found in the same part of the Loch. Carbon dating and amino-acid testing on the clay indicated that it contained clams and sea urchin spines from both 12,800 and 125,000 years ago. This discovery would tend to lend credence to the theory that large animals could have become trapped in the Loch as the water receded back to the sea. Source: The Press and Journal (North Scotland) .
So it could be likely that some creatures got into the loch and adapted and stayed. After all eels live in both saltwater and fresh water at various times in their lives.


So where does that leave us? Well of the thousands of the sightings reported of something in the loch, only something like a couple of hundred stand up to real scrutiny. That is not to say the others are false or hoaxes but using scientific rigour cuts down the numbers a lot. That still leaves us with some unexplained sightings. I saw something myself in the loch, but what it was, that lump in the water I don’t know. It was too brief and I was too stunned and when I looked again it was gone. I am happy to believe it was an optical illusion, that makes me feel better, but in reality I think something stirs in the bottom of Loch Ness and has done for a long time. Dan Scott Taylor told me something spun his 5000 lb submarine around in the water at the bottom of the loch, that is some optical illusion!

Wednesday 10 May 2017

fossil named 'Chinese baby dragon'

Identity of famous baby dinosaur fossil revealed
By Helen Briggs BBC News
The fossil of a baby dinosaur discovered in China more than 25 years ago has formally been identified as a new species of feathered dinosaur.The hatchling, dubbed Baby Louie, was found within a nest of dinosaur eggs.
Palaeontologists have called it Beibeilong sinensis, which translates to "Chinese baby dragon".They say it is the first known specimen of a gigantic bird-like dinosaur belonging to the group known as oviraptorosaurs.Although the fossil of the infant dinosaur is small, it would have grown into an adult weighing more than 1,000kg.
The discovery of dinosaur eggs in China, South Korea, Mongolia and North America suggests Beibeilong may have been common around 100 million years ago, say the researchers.
''The geographical distribution and abundant occurrences of Macroelongatoolithus egg remains reveal that giant oviraptosaurs were relatively widespread and perhaps even common in the early part of the Late Cretaceous, even though their skeletal remains are scarce and have yet to be identified in many regions,'' they write in Nature Communications.


Read rest, see pics here :http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39857696