CryptoTruology

Sixgill Shark

It's Shark Week at CryptoTruology! Not really...but I am bringing you this. It's a vid of the mysterious -- and ancient -- Sixgill Shark. The Seattle Aquarium has set up a feeding station in Puget Sound to attract and study the creature, and its family. Because what's most interesting about this guy is that scientists have found the sharks associate with their brothers and sisters long after they were pups, and are wondering whether other species of sharks do the same. 

So as you dive into your holiday festivities with family and friends this week, think of Sixgill and his siblings. Elusive marine animals might have more in common with us than we think. 

Cryptids or Cryptoids?

...tomatoes or toma-toes? I'll go with the former on both counts, thank you very much. Been hearing the term "cryptoid" bandied about a lot lately, particularly on TV. It's the term You-Know-Who preferred to use before he landed himself in jail, and we all know he's as evil as any villain Harry Potter had to face.

In any case, from where I stand cryptid is the original term coined by John E. Wall in 1983 in a letter to the original ISC, and cryptoid seems to be some bastard child born of confusion about whether flying humanoids and the Domino's Pizza mascot qualify for cryptozoological study. 

So the next time you open your mouth to wax philosophical about hidden creatures, remember to read your Wikipedia.  

Plenty of Fish in the Sea

Twenty thousand new ones, to be exact. The first Census of Marine Life, a 10-year long endeavor to catalogue and better understand the inhabitants of the world's oceans, has been completed and it confirms that about 20,000 marine species have been added to the existing list (now at 250,000, up from 230,000). With some 130 new species of fish discovered annually and more than 6,000 potentially new ones identified as a result of the census, it's clear we still know little about what's going on Under The Sea (thanks anyway, Sebastian). 

The most notable thing in the entire report was a single, loaded line: "It found that rare species are common." Common. Here's one more thought for you to chew on. 

"After all its work, the Census still could not reliably estimate the total number of species, the kinds of life, known and unknown, in the ocean."

Report highlights can be viewed here. 

Beast of Dartmoor on Fact or Faked

Caught a rerun of Syfy's Fact or Faked: Paranormal files last night on the Beast of Dartmoor (YouTube video here). Wouldn't my good friend and Scot Mr. Kerr love this one! What do you think, Lyn, should we add this one to our list? Bloody fascinating stuff.

The theory of the black lion intrigues me, but it's unlikely to say the least. I did a little post-program digging on the forums and did find an interesting notion. Dartmoor is home to a number of washed-up celebrities and CEOs (so says Rick Steves); what if one of these eccentrics kept a tigron or other animal hybrid as a pet and was too embarrassed to report its escape? Could the Beast be an exotic household pet let loose in the wild? For the sake of the sheep, let's hope not. 

Science Pon Ya Case Man - New Species of Lemur in Madagascar

Won't King Julien XIII and his cronies be pleased. My colleagues in Montreal point me to this article indicating scientists have discovered a new species of lemur in Madagascar. The "fork-marked" lemur with, you guessed it, fork-like markings on its face (which to me look more like knife marks but hey, whatever)  was tracked down and sedated before blood samples were used to identify it.

The world's fourth largest island, Madagascar is incredibly biologically diverse -- the ideal hiding place for species that continue to elude us, those tricky devils. Watch this place; this isn't the last of its secrets by a long shot.