Thunderbirds on Global Warming and Terraforming Terra

Thunderbird Up Close

[This is from Robert Kline's excellent blog, Global Warming and Terraforming Terra]

Posted: 29 May 2013 12:00 AM PDT

In my efforts to gather conforming evidence for large unidentified flying creatures we have actually identified four completely different species, all nocturnal as are most carnivores.

They are:

1                    The thunderbird which may also be the European giant owl which bears a strong resemblance to the descriptions of the thunderbird.  This eyewitness is describing just such a bird.  Observe that it is able to lift of just like an owl.  It would be the natural hunter of the jack rabbit.

2                    The pterosaur has also given us a number of sightings in the north at least and the west.  This creature is able to easily enter a lake and hunt fish for its supper.

3                    Giant vampire bat likely by way of Honduras and the likely culprit in the Chupacabra story.  Certainly the model for the Medieval Gargoyle.  I suspect that it is also the best source for a natural explanation for cattle mutilations.

4                    We have also spotted examples of the South American Condor.

 

This report is certainly a thunderbird and the witness is an expert.  It has a twenty foot wingspan and was likely on the road to collect road kill.  Its take off is majestic and slow as has been reported elsewhere.  No ring collar is noted nor a large bill.  All conforms to the thunderbird.

This is one of our best by far and the witness is showing great presence of mind.

Huge Bird Sighting - New Kent Co., Virginia

MONDAY, MAY 27, 2013

http://naturalplane.blogspot.ca/2013/05/huge-bird-sighting-new-kent-co-virginia.html

I received the following witness account today (Monday):

On Weds the 22nd of May, this year (last week), I was driving west on New Kent Highway, just before rt 106, in Virginia, around 8:30AM, driving under the speed limit of 45 (yes, I'm one of THOSE people) and I came around a bend and slowed down more because about 30 yards ahead of the car a HUGE bird was in the center of the road, straddling the dotted line with it's back to me.

New Kent is basically a swamp with islands of high ground. Because of the terrain, housing properties are kind of jammed together on "high ground" with lots and lots of alternating hill/steep ravine wooded land of the swampy kind between. We have all kinds of big birds in our area: Bald Eagles, ospreys, herons, turkey vultures, all kinds of hawks, wild turkeys, several kinds of geese, etc. so SEEING a bird in the road~no real surprise.

What made me stop the car 12 ft away from it was the fact the dang thing's head was taller than my hood! I could feel myself starting to grin that grin we do when we just CAN NOT BELIEVE what we are seeing and suspect a joke~ when it opened it's wings. I won't tell you what I said, then (you just use yer imagination).

I was on a 2 lane country road with gravel shoulders. This thing's wingtips were TOUCHING gravel on both sides!!! With two slow motion swoops (my window was down, radio off, and I actually HEARD it's wings pushing the air~it DID make a slow "ssshhwooop" sound), it was up and blotting out EVERYTHING ELSE in my windshield, banked left on a wingtip (LITERALLY completely vertical with a full view with the whole back of it's body) and glided into the woods between the trees. I remember craning my head over the steering wheel and up to see all of it as it banked.

I have NO IDEA how long I sat there in the middle of the road with my mouth open, totally blank, mentally, feeling like I had been slapped silly. The only word that surfaced was "Thunderbird!" Now, like most American kids, I had HEARD of Thunderbirds, but honestly, I had never given a single thought as to what they would look like. But that was the word that surfaced. I supposed, if you had asked me before that day, I would have drawn a Micmac totem pole style thing. THIS was not THAT.

When I finally cruised past where it had cut through the woods, you can BELIEVE I was looking for it. No sign. I immediately called my Man, feeling silly and NOT mentioning what I thought it was, and asked what bird in VA had a 15 ft wingspan (I wasn't brave enough to tell him it was more like 20 ft). He said none. The CA condor, but none here. To his credit, he didn't try to tell me I hadn't seen what I was describing, merely suggested that it may have seemed bigger than it really was due to proximity.

But here's the thing....my Beloved Grandfather was a Mountain man, a lifelong hunter and naturalist. He would take us camping my whole childhood, teaching us about wildlife from up close. He taught me how to estimate an animal's size from surrounding markers. And you can't GET more specific than a road-span. So...what the HECK did I see????

It was dark colored, looked a dark charcoal color while on the road, but it's feathers were a rusty red-brown when it launched into the sunlight. It's tail was a long triangle (with a very slight point on the end/center), like a hawks, it's wings..............................it's wings. Let me just say, it's wings were just unbelievable. I had a hard time looking at both at the same time, I had to look from one to the other. They weren't shaped like a hawk's, more like a sea gulls, if you can picture it. It's body was torpedo shaped, no neck to speak of and a flat head. Due to the angle, I didn't see it's face or beak and when I could see it bank, I was honestly trying to take in the wings and couldn't tell you anything about the shape of the head in flight. Though, I think if it HAD a long neck and extended it in flight, I would've noticed. The impression I got of the legs were "short and stubby" I didn't see the feet.

It's been sitting there, in the back of my mind, bugging the Hell out of me. What was it?? I've been trying to talk myself out of having seen it. I didn't try to look it up, because that would make it "real"...does that make sense? Tonight, I finally decided to try a search on line. "Largest bird in VA", "Wing spans of VA birds"~kind of searches. Nothing to match. The Man, always direct and honest, finally said "Search Thunderbird". Feeling sheepish, I did. Every description of "modern" Thunderbird sightings sounds like what I saw. Go ahead. Laugh. I don't blame you. You weren't there. A week ago, I would have done the same.

Stacy

[I would agree to most of Robert Kline's categories but I would break them down into more species. This is largely due to personal preferences. I have no problems with any of his categories except for the Pterosaur one. That one I think is more likely to be a bird because among other thing, it is able to sit in trees and  perch in an upright position. Pterosaurs were incapable of perching and the other proportions are actually all wrong. However  there is separately evidence for a very large fish-eating seabird of "Prehistoric" appearance and I think that might be a better candidate for many "Pterosaur" sightings-DD]

Chupacabras Updates

From Global Warming and Terraforming Terra site:

El chupacabras, the gargoyle bat of R. Kline

Spanish Chupacabra Update

Posted: 12 Mar 2013 12:00 AM PDT

 

This is a translation from Spanish language sources. I must say that there is a lot of material from the Spanish language press that I do wish to access in my many areas of interest. In this update, Puerto Rican gargoyle from twenty years ago has reappeared which effectively suggests that there is a native population generally avoiding contact. Geographically, it is accessible to Central American comparables.

Otherwise other creatures are out there to sow confusion. These could be even other types of unidentified vampire bats. What is clear is that local reports and local populations do tend to meet the test of conforming evidence. Nocturnal predators are showing up globally who have generally maintained a low profile through sheer fear of humanity.

These are all large creatures with large areas of influence and thus a low population density. They have mostly been identified in the past through rare sightings which is why we always seem to have a prospective name.

Unfortunately, mankind has stopped significantly harvesting in the wild and the result is that these often very dangerous creatures are no longer receiving clear lessons on just how dangerous we are. There surely can be nothing more edifying that a pack of dogs sending either a black bear or a cougar up a tree and for a man to come along with a rifle or bow to finish the job.

Without the human hunting pressure, natural carnivores will want to exploit our farm animals. It is not a real crisis yet, but it will lead in time to active commercial harvesting in order to suppress the threat. Again that treat need not target the rare treat as to educate. These animals are not stupid.

Beast on the Move: The Chupacabras Returns

By Scott Corrales

http://inexplicata.blogspot.ca/2013/02/beast-on-move-chupacabras-returns.html

The Puerto Rican media approached the subject of the paranormal predator again in 2012, when reporter Yaritza Santiago wrote an article for El Nuevo Dia about the entity’s return to the scene, this time in the island municipality of Vieques. “A strange wild animal prowls the verdant fields and communities of this island municipality. This is the only way to explain the discovery of dead horses, hens and rabbits in situations that terrified Viequenses have ascribed to a panther that allegedly escaped from an American tourist’s possession. Others say it is a jaguar; still others speak of the return of the Chupacabras, whose existence they do not question for a second.”

Thirty chickens met an untimely demise on the property of José Martínez and his wife Jeami in Barrio La Hueca. The couple had gone off to a birthday party on the previous night, returning home an hour before midnight. They went to bed and Mr. Martínez woke up at half past five in the morning to feed the family animals. In cold glow of his flashlight, José was startled to find the roosters dead in their cages, with deep puncture marks on their backs, drained of blood. The couple told reporters that they had not heard any abnormal sounds in the night.

José, 26, and Jeami, 21, described the massacre of their animals as “a battlefield” where the unknown assailant had operated at leisure. She remained convinced that the perpetrator was none other than the mysterious being that spread fear throughout Puerto Rico during her childhood. “It wasn’t a dog. I think it could be the Chupacabras.”

Reporters from El Nuevo Dia found “sort of animal print” at the location as well as poultry carcasses and metal cages scattered around the premises. Mr. Martínez filed a complaint with the municipal police, which in turn referred the case to the Civil Defense and Emergency Management Bureau. Police chief José Belardo, however, was unmoved by the carnage at the Martínez household, citing a lack of specific evidence or physical proof. He did, however, manifest to El Nuevo Día’s reporters his awareness of a “radar image” of a strange creature taken by a U.S. Marines radar, and that fear among the island’s population was quite real. Unlike Mayor “Chemo” Soto’s gallant efforts to capture the Chupacabras in the mid-90s, law enforcement on Vieques was not planning any grand gestures.

On main island of Puerto Rico, news organizations were covering the “gargoyle”that supposedly haunted the vicinity of Guánica, the city with the magnificent bay on the Caribbean Sea. This nightmarish vision had attacked not only animals, but allegedly humans as well. Its patterns of attack resembled those of the Chupacabras, but not exactly the same entity. “Some identified it with the Chupacabras, but others believe it was a different creature, a sly and sinister one, using the ruins and tunnels of the [abandoned] Central Guánica sugar mill as its lair,” wrote Pedro Bosque in an article for El Nuevo Dia. It was in this warren of half-flooded, weed-choked tunnels that the skeletons of its victims were reportedly found.

Despite its predilection for lovely Guánica, the “gargoyle” had reportedly been seen in Lajas and San Germán, communities in southwestern Puerto Rico that acquired notoriety in the late ‘80s and throughout the 1990s as paranormal hotspots. And unlike those relatively distant years, eyewitnesses were reluctant to share their names with the media, particularly when it came to the attacks on humans.

These incidents were discussed in hushed tones. One witness interviewed by the press claimed seeing injuries on a man’s belly, produced by an“animal with large wings” whose claws had torn at his flesh “to the extent that his fat could be seen.” The unnamed witness spoke soberly of seeing the victim – nicknamed -lift his t-shirt to display the wounds received in his own backyard.

Police officer Miguel Negrón, on the other hand, admitted to hearing “a loud sound of flapping wings” while patrolling the abandoned sugar mill. Was an unknown avian taking off from the rusted cranes of the old mill? According to the officer, the “gargoyle” had been described by some as a very large bird reeking of sulfur or rot (hydrogen sulfide?), feeding on live animals such as dogs, cats and horses by exsanguination.

[ this is a renewal of earlier clearly observed gargoyles around twenty years ago from this island. ]

Four Thousand Miles Away

While the Chupacabras staged a return to Puerto Rico, its sinister kin were making news in Chile, where the national media latched on to a story that was as sensation as it was bizarre: while attacking a henhouse in Paine, on the outskirts of the city of Santiago, the predator had allegedly suffered what was described as a “miscarriage”.

Cristián Solís was sleeping peacefully when the frantic clucking of his hens woke him up at four o’clock in the morning. He ran outside to find fifty dead hens, arranged in circles, presenting no visible injuries, but without a drop of blood in their carcasses. Shocked and dismayed though he was, Solís was bowled over by what he found next.

He described the find as “embryos of something I had never seen before”. Describing them as miniature dinosaurs measuring some 30 centimeters long, they had hairy backs, thick, hard tails with sharp tips, arms shorter than their bodies, suggesting bipedal motion.“They were rather horrible,” he was quoted as saying. “I think the dead hens were attacked by the mother of these embryos, who must’ve had a miscarriage due to the strain of the attack.”

The specimens were turned over to SAG (the notorious Agriculture and Wildlife Service that hindered research into the Chilean mutilations wave of the year 2000). The ministry reported that it had been unable to determine the species to which the specimens belonged as they were“too dehydrated to be properly analyzed.”

Chupacabras activity had gone into abeyance for a number of years in these latitudes, with the most recent cases dating to 2007, when reports of attacks in world-famous Viña del Mar appeared in the press.

During the month of May of that year, the Ugalde family had its own close encounter with the unknown at four a.m., when a loud noise woke up the entire household – the sound of something very large and heavy suddenly landing on the roof, dragging its wings. The chickens behind the family property erupted in chaotic noises, extinguished one by one.

According to an article in the La Estrella newspaper, Mrs. Ugalde ran out into the darkness to save her poultry farm and face the unknown intruder. "I went to the backyard and I saw it. It was like a large bird, standing about a meter, with the bearing of a dwarf. It has feathers, wings and left footprints like those of a goat.It was looking for food, and I think it must've been hungry," she explained. The entity had already broken the henhouse door and helped itself to the farm animals. Upon being surprised by the woman, it flew off toward the hills.

Seven hens were lost that evening, and the family did not hesitate to place a call to the Carabineros (the Chilean state police) to report the attack. "They told us it was that (the Chupacabras) and that they had never seen anything like it. They were overwhelmed as well," Mrs. Ugalde added.

When the strange animal passed over the roof and reached the backyard, it broke the henhouse door and extracted the birds one by one, for a total of seven. When he was surprised by the homeowner, the Chupacabras took off, flying toward the hills.

Argentina, Chile’s neighbor on the opposite side of the towering Andes Cordillera, was not free from these strange attacks and sightings. In March 2007, El Ciudadano (www.elciudadano.net) reported on seven mutilated and exsanguinated bulls in Santiago del Estero, decrying the fact that farmers and ranchers had automatically leaped to ascribing responsibility for the killings to the Chupacabras. It is true, however, that there are significant differences between Chupacabras attacks and the “traditional” cattle mutilations, characterized by their fine incisions and the removal of certain internal organs, as was the case in the Santiago del Estero incidents.

A Mystery in Spain

On 23 February 2013 – as this article was being written – news arrived from Spain regarding a bizarre goat mutilation in the northwestern region of Galicia, specifically in the town of Fene. The story, which appeared in La Voz del Ferrol, described the mutilation and exsanguination of the goat as the work of “parties unknown”. The animals owners, understandably irate, ascribed responsibility to a“satanic cult”, stressing that “a number of people must have been needed to carry away all of the goat’s blood.”

No mention of involvement by the Chupacabras, of course, but a reminder of the long and silent history of encounters with the paranormal predator that have occurred in Spain since the ‘80s, resulting in the deaths of thousands of animals. Traditionalists blame wolves, especially in the Pyrenaic region between France and Spain, but reports and investigations carried out by the judicial system invariably mention the presence of aberrant entities, sometimes described as mandrills, baboons, or giant canids.

We must defer to the extensive work carried out by Ramón Nava Osorio and members of his Instituto de Investigaciones y Estudios Exobiológicos (IIEE) whose Chilean branch – spearheaded by Raúl Núñez – has become known to readers of INEXPLICATA over the years.

In March 1996, writes Nava Osorio, a shepherd in northern Spain by the name of Guillermo Miral Cordesa had an unexpected encounter with a strange animal as he led his flock from one mountain slope to another. “That day,” explained Miral, “I had left the flock on high and was headed downhill with two magnificent dogs. I descended quietly and normally and suddenly found myself confronted by an animal I had never seen before, and whose description I’d never heard from other shepherds. It was neither a wolf nor a dog. It looked like a huge dog, an unknown mixture, but it’s an unknown creature in the end. Neither a mastiff nor a wolf….I cannot describe its eyes, but I did focus on the enormous width of its muzzle (describing it as flat and nearly square), and for that reason I can tell you it wasn’t a wolf. It was an unknown animal with large flat ears; its fur was grey and spotted, with abundant short hair. A short tail, large paws and looking like a dog, yet not a dog. It didn’t run. It took two impressive leaps and vanished.”

While clearly a predator, the entity did not growl or bear its teeth. Miral’s own dogs followed the intruder, only turn back after traversing a brief ten meters’ distance.

In his study on the Iberian mutilations phenomenon, Chupacabras: Un Verdadero Expediente X, Miguel Aracil explores the strange simiots which have been a constant feature of Catalan legend since medieval times. The simiots are described as "strange, hairy creatures having semi-human features" and a group of woodsmen were attacked by one such entity a few decades ago: the hairy monster engaged in an orgy of destruction, smashing vehicles and forestry equipment, even hurling logs at the terrified tree-cutters (similar behavior has been reported in cases occurring in suburban Maryland during the 1970's). Although Spain's Guardia Civil looked into the matter, they conveniently "cannot remember", as Aracil notes rather dryly in his treatise. A number of armed posses were formed to explore the environs of Peña Montañesa (Huesca) where the events occurred, but "nothing was ever found, perhaps due to the large number of immense caves in the area, and the rough terrain." Medieval statues of the simiots depict them as devouring children or being trodden down by the Holy Mother: while he does not offer specifics, the author mentions that these supernatural entities were allegedly responsible for slaying entire herds of animals and on certain occasions were even responsible for some attacks on humans. Could the simiots have cousins across the ocean?

Navia Osorio contributes a “high strangeness” detail to the situation that raises the stakes: the possibility that the anomalous entity (or IEA, the Spanish acronym for “Spontaneous Aggressive Intruder”) had been brought along by a human or humanoid presence, unleashed at selected locations. Also in October 1996, José Miguel Trallero, a member of the IIEE, appeared on a local television program in the town of Barbastro to discuss the mutilation crisis. In the wake of the broadcast, a local woman approached him to tell him about a sighting near Barbastro’s shrine of Pueyo: she had seen two figures, described as “atypical”, with a very strange dog between them. The two figures had “greyish skin” and their arms were longer than usual.

Conclusion

If reality resembled the world of fiction more closely, monsters would be put down with the finality of Lieutenant Ripley purging the hideous alien xenomorph out of an airlock, consigning it to vacuum of space. The sense of finality and justice delivered by a wooden stake through the undead heart of a cinematic vampire imparts catharsis, but we find none of that with the monsters and visions that persistently manifest themselves in our reality. After eighteen months of depredations in West Virginia in 1966-67, the Mothman disappeared into legend and the uneasy dreams of those whose encounters changed the course of their lives. Hunters and scientists emerge from forays after the elusive Bigfoot with little to show for their efforts, save the tell-tale strands of hair and plaster casts that have become a trademark of their avocation.

The same can be said for the Chupacabras. The protean creature manifested for the first time in Puerto Rico in the mid-90s, followed by a rash of sightings throughout Latin America, each time described a little differently than before. Media burnout and the trivialization of the subject by popular culture – the cascade of t-shirts and bumper stickers, rap and ranchero songs, cheap plastic memorabilia sold in marketplaces – resulted in a loss of interest in the creature’s exploits in Brazil and Chile later that decade.

But the Chupacabras keeps coming back like a prize fighter, unmindful of the fatuous pronouncements of skeptics, efforts at fitting it into the UFO totem-pole by researchers bent on seducing the media once more, their prize a conference invitation or the lure of a television show. The demon is triumphant.

["Simiot" means "Monkey-like" and at one time seems to have been a different concept of the same Wildmen common elsewhere including the Basque Basajaun. However, the quadruped that slays whole herds of livestock is much more like the "Phantom Puma" category and suspicion falls on illegally introdued foreign big cats, initially as pets but eventually released into the wild.

And yes, we know from the onset that we are dealing with more than one species of vampire bats: the known fossil vampire bats are only a few inches long with wingspans of only a foot or two in life.]

Some Post-Thanksgiving Leftovers

As mentioned in the recent posting on Burrunjor, some monitor lizards are capable of rearing up on their hind legs. Here is a komodo dragon reaching for a bait goat stuck up in a tree.

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011/11/burunjor-aboriginal-tyrannosaurus.html

Winged Chupacabras sketch from "The Cryptozoologist"

Some of the Chupacabras reports have been insisting all along that they were describing giant vampire bats, some of the mid-1970s "Vampire" reports from Puerto Rico that were the foreunners of the 1990s reports were supposed to have been bats. Recently, news has come out of both Nicaragua and northern Chile of "Mutant giant Vampire bats" The largest of these Chupa-bat creatures are the size of a child or small human being (dwarf or midget) and they stand upright, on their hind legs. They have typical bat wings, which must be in the process of unfurling in this illustration. Also in comparison to the other illustration above, the area taken to be "eyes" before seem to be markings on the forehead here, and the actual eyes much smaller. This type would not actually be a vampire but would be blamed for the acts of wild dogs.

The medium-sized giant bat walks on all fours and looks like the much smaller vampire bat, and there are reports which state it is quite at home and agile on the ground. It is the size of a small dog with the wings folded up and many people also say it is an actual vampire like the similar but smaller true vampire bat,  however, it seems to be an opportunistic hunter and scavenger instead, although apparantly they can be seen to mob small prey animals such as sheep or goats. It seems they are instead giant (outsized) FALSE Vampire bats.

BOTH types of giant bats are reported over much the same area in both of the Americas and roughly the area between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The larger bat is the same as the American Ahool or Kamazotz, and it is evidently actually a fishing bat like its Old World counterpart.

Genyornis, Pleistocene dromornithid.


It is thought by some that not only is there good evidence for the survival of the Genyornis as Muhurungs or Thunder Birds of Aboriginal legend, some of the more troublesome evidence might enen indicate an even larger species. The Genyornis is thought to have stood in the vicinity of 7-9 feet tall, but some of the reports and tracks are of "Moa" sizes and indicating birds 10-15 feet tall, possibly more inclined to be predatory as well: giant Diatrymas. Part of this evidence has been used to support the notion of Burrunjor as being Tyrannosaurs, in particular some truly enormous 3-toed footprints. However, it is not known how old things like the eggs and footprints are for certain. The stories of biped predators carrying off calves might refer to such birds, for example. As was mentioned before, some of their eggs are still being found: they are reported as large as Aepyornis eggs and sometimes allegedly quite fresh. (Ivan T. Sanderson in Investigating the Unexplained.)

http://australianmuseum.net.au/Genyornis-newtoni

Here is the standard, alternative explanation for such eggs:
http://beachcombersalert.org/ElephantBirdEggs.html

“I wonder whether I could tax the thinking of your Alert membership on the subject of the Giant Elephantbird of Madagascar, whose eggs appear to have floated from Madagascar across the Indian Ocean to the west coast of Australia,” writes John Hawkins of J.B. Hawkins Antiques, New South Wales, Australia.
Across the 500-mile-wide Mozambique Channel, Madagascar stretches 1,000 miles along Africa’s southeast coast facing the Indian Ocean. Earth’s fourth largest island, Madagascar after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo, once was home to the Giant Elephantbird, the largest ever to tread Earth.



Elephantbird (Illustration adapted
 from“Vanished Species” by David Day,
Gallery Books, 1989 revision.)



Aepyornis maximus(Greek for greatest tall bird) males stood 10 feet tall, weighed up to one ton — two to four times the weight of a present-day ostrich — and laid watermelon-sized eggs, larger than any of known dinosaurs.

As Madagascans say, the Elephantine birds laid Atodim bobombe. One of 43 known complete bobombes, John’s holds six liters and measures a foot long by eight inches wide. A larger one measuring three feet around, contained 9-plus liters (2.4 gallons). Another, more than foot long, originally weighed 20-plus pounds, equal to eight ostrich eggs. The average ostrich egg weighs 3.63 to 3.88 pounds, measures 6 to 8 inches long and 4 to 6 inches wide, and can support the weight of a 252- pound person, according to the 1977 Guinness Book of World Records Elephantbirds buried their eggs in beach, dune and river sands. “ There is a fairly extensive literature on eggs floating out of nests in marshes or on beaches when high water comes up,” writes bird authority John Dennis. In southern Madagascar, torrential rains washed out a whole egg and laid it to rest intact beneath a bush on a grassy plain (see National Geographic, October 1967).

[National Geographic is the source article for this theory-DD]
As John Dennis alludes, river floods and ocean tides may have floated bobombes out to sea. Rains fall heavily in Madagascar December to April, the likely time eggs began drifting. Though fossilized calcium carbonate shells appear heavy, hollow foot-long eggs like John’s — sherds crack with the sound of porcelain — would float high in sea water like empty pottery jars.
Other possibilities exist for flotation. In the time humans hunted Aepyornis to extinction, tribes probably discovered uses for the great eggs.

Drift of Elephantbird Eggs, Map by Jim Ingraham)

... Along the southwestern Australian coast within a hundred miles of Perth, John Hawkins confirms that two elephantine bird eggs were discovered, one presently in the Perth Museum...

[Other eggs of Elephant bird dimensions are found on the Canary Islands: since there is no way to account for them by way of oceanic currents, it is hypothesisized that the islands once had their own population of independantly-evolved Elephant birds. And indeed the same theory also works in this case-DD]

Sample Comparisons for Latin-American Cryptids

 This is my recent pasteup to indicate the size of the head in a Gigantic Boa (Sucuriju) Based on Titanoboa.
I had done this with the idea I was showing "The Black Boa" but I cannot be certain that the sightings I am using for scale did not belong to the more usual Sucuriju Gigante. In particular I wanted to illustrate how big and heavy the head is if it is as large as the reports say, and also the vey large size of the eye as reported ("The size of plates" or larger). If the snakes really are this big then about the only prey animals large enough to sustain them would have to be caimans

I also did a composite showing a basilisk lizard running in comparison to a repoted "Chupacabras" from a company that prints it as a logo onto t-shirts and such.This type of "Chupa" reports extend from Texas and the SW USA through Mexico and Central America, Colombia and Venezuela to Brazil, and to Northern Argentina and Chile. They not only correspond to descriptions given iin Conquistadore days and traditionally, they are similar to depictions made in Pre-Columbian Art where even some of the given names sound similar to "Chupacabras" : and Chupacabras (goat-sucker) is also the name given to certain large lizards (and snakes) in the belief that they drink the goat's milk. This legend is also verifiably traditional in Mexico and most of the rest of Latin America.


Just as a reminder, all of these points have been discussed on this blog before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History: "The first reported attacks occurred in March 1995 in Puerto Rico...In 1975, similar killings in the small town of Moca, were attributed to El Vampiro de Moca (The Vampire of Moca)..[At about that same time, mutilations of sheep and goats were being attributed to a creature described as a "Snake on its (hind) legs" with a sawtoothed ridge down its back, which was called by the Comanche name Timbo (Hairless) as well as other names of other traditional figures from Native Folklore according to region, the Navajo name Kleesto also being used, but probably improperly-DD] ...Puerto Rican comedian and entrepreneur Silverio Pérez is credited with coining the term chupacabras soon after the first incidents were reported in the press. Shortly after the first reported incidents in Puerto Rico, [similar reported creatures and] other animal deaths were reported in other countries, such as the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Brazil, United States, and Mexico.^[5]
5^ ^{a b c d} Stephen Wagner. "On the trail of the Chupacabras". http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm. Retrieved October 5, 2007
[Silviero Perez at best only recycled the pre-existing name for the Folkloric "Milk Snake/Lizard" which otherwise has been the subject of legends running as far back as Roman times, at least-DD]

Appearance: The most common description of chupacabras is a reptile-like being, appearing to have leathery or scaly greenish-gray skin and sharp spines or quills running down its back.^[40] This form stands approximately 3 to 4 feet (1 to 1.2 m) high, and stands and [runs on its hind legs or] hops in a similar fashion to a kangaroo.^[41] In at least one sighting, the creature was reported to hop[jump] 20 feet (6 m). This variety is said to have a dog or lizard-like nose and face, a forked tongue, and large fangs. It is said to hiss and screech when alarmed, as well as leave behind a sulfuric stench.^[41] ...Some reports assert that the chupacabras' eyes are coloured an unusual red [and the stench from the bowels] gives the witnesses nausea.
[This form is also said to climb rocks and trees well and to leap down out of trees when disturbed. it also dives into water where it can swim away rapidly and it is sometimes referred to under traditional names for water-monsters as well. Its total legth including the tail usually ranges from 6 to 10 or 12 feet long-DD]
41^ ^{a b c} Stephen Wagner. "The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of Modern Times". http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa010101b.htm. Retrieved October 5, 2007.

....Another description of chupacabras, although not as common, describes a strange breed of wild dog.^[41] This form is mostly hairless and has a pronounced spinal ridge, unusually pronounced eye sockets, fangs, and claws. It is claimed that this breed might be an example of a dog-like reptile...
[This latter kind is most definitely based on feral dogs and sometimes foxes or coyotes, diseased with scabies and the mange, and generally in a bad way when they are found. several examples of the type have been killed or produced as corpses: they are invariably hairless canids or canids with the hair reduced to a ridge along the spine. Almost all of the supposed "Animal Mutilation" cases can also be attributed to them]
[The Wikipedia article also says the Chilean Peuchen are analogous to Chupacabras, but that creature is more definitely a giant vampire bat. There are several other creatures in Chilean lore that are better fits and much more like the modern Chupacabras reports: Currently the term Chupacabras is used anyway-DD]

Precolumbian statue showing giant iguanid lizard with characteristic boss at angle of jaw, dewlap under chin and spiny crest down back: similar to other such depictions from Mexico to Peru, all depictions varying a great deal in artistic quality of course. The scale represented in such depictions is consistent with the recent reports. From the Larousse Mythology  reference encyclopedia. [DD Personal Files]

Chart comparing the various known apes and man at the top, from appendix to Time-Life Nature Library book Evolution.
Bottom row shows reported size range for both Mono Grande and Mono Rey in different parts of South America. Males only shown. The Mono Rey comes in sizes from about the size of a standard siamang to the size of a small and slender chimpanzee: the Mono Rey comes from chimpanzee to gorilla sizes basically, although the larger sizes might be much exaggerated (perhaps doubled).

Both Mono Grande and Mono Rey appear to be variations on recognisable types of ASIATIC apes.Colours are very diverse but smaller ones tend to be dark or black and larger ones more reddish brown. I suspect that the standard "Yeti" sizes are much like the Mono Rey.

CFZ REPRINT:
http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/11/dale-drinnon-looking-at-chupacabra-part.html

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

DALE DRINNON: Looking at the Chupacabra (Part One)

Knowing of our involvement with things apertaining to the Puerto Rican goatsuckers, Dale sent us several of his musings on the nature of the chupacabra, which we read with great interest. We have condensed them into a two-part article.

Early on in the Frontiers of Zoology group I had posted a link to a site that said that chupacabras depradations were being caused by giant vampire bats. All well and good; Shuker had mentioned reports of these giant vampire bats, and the website specified that they ranged from a wingspan of a foot to a few feet, walked on all fours on the ground and the largest ones were the size of a small dog on the ground. This is generally comparable with reports and traditions elsewhere in Latin America.

But there is a complication; there are different types of giant bats in the New World being reported and their characteristics are quite different.

While I was working for the Anthropology department at IUPUI I came across some photographs of some stone statues from Colombia, illustrating something that reminded me strikingly of Ivan Sanderson's Ahool drawing from Investigating the Unexplained. These reference photos were on file at the department and the captions stated that such 'Bat-effigies' were found occasionally from the American southwest to northern Argentina. Later I realised that these same figures were well known in Mesoamerica and related to the Mayan Kamazotz (Camazotz): in some of the UFO books, Kamazotz stories are ascribed to the Ikhals. They were said to stand on their hind legs as tall as a small child (2-3 feet or so) but were still regular bats, and ordinarily fish-eaters. And they are still being reported as chupacabras in some regions (notable examples from the southwest and illustrated on Cryptomundo, but known in 'Big Bird' lore from Texas in the mid-1970s, as bat-winged and monkey-faced, differing from the usual 'Big Bird' reports)

Moreover, the typical vampires of South American lore are chonchons, said to be a human head flying on ears transformed into batwings a fathom wide. Eberhart's Mysterious Creatures has entries on all of these giant bats, and the usual explanation given is they are all giant vampre bats.



pajaro-batchupa-chile
est 1 meter tall, wingspan at least 3.5m


It is not that simple: you have a small, medium-sized and a very large giant bat species emerging from these reports, and the medium-sized one is on a scale comparable to an Old-World flying fox (fruit-eating mega-bat) The largest is pretty much exactly comparable to an Ahool. The smallest reported unknown bat would be the giant vampire bat, the medium-sized one would be a giant false vampire bat, the chonchon. It is the size of a flying fox and the body of a flying fox is about the apparant size of a human's head.
 

So the smallest one is the bat with a wingspan of a foot or two, but it is the blood-drinker. The others are innocent but get the blame; however, false vampire bats are still predatory and one that size might give a human a bad mauling if it was very frightened or rabid. And while the biggest one gets blamed for such things as haunting graveyards and kidnapping children, it would much rather keep to itself. The big one is at least comparable in size to a big owl or a big eagle, unless stories are very much exaggerated



Cryptid Bat Photo, 2003 in Brazil; estimated as Eagle-sized



Best Wishes, Dale D.