FRONTIERS OF ZOOLOGY Dale A. Drinnon has been a researcher in the field of Cryptozoology for the past 30+ years and has corresponded with Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. He has a degree in Anthropology from Indiana University and is a freelance artist and writer. Motto: "I would rather be right and entirely alone than wrong in the company with all the rest of the world"--Ambroise Pare', "the father of modern surgery", in his refutation of fake unicorn horns.
Male specimen of Mesoplodon hotaula that washed up on Desroches Island in the Seychelles in 2009, whown with men formt eh siland. It was found by Wayne Thompson (far right in picture) and Lisa Thompson of the Island Conservation Society of the Seychelles. Credit: Lisa Thompson Researchers have identified a new species of mysterious beaked whale based on the study of seven animals stranded on remote tropical islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans over the past 50 years.
Beaked whales, a widespread but little-known family of toothed whales distantly related to sperm whales, are found in deep ocean waters beyond the edge of the continental shelf throughout the world's oceans.
"They are rarely seen at sea due to their elusive habits, long dive capacity and apparent low abundance for some species. Understandably, most people have never heard of them," says international team leader, Dr Merel Dalebout, a visiting research fellow at UNSW.
The study of the new species, Mesoplodon hotaula, is published in the journal Marine Mammal Science.
The first specimen was a female found on a Sri Lankan beach more than 50 years ago.
On 26 January 1963, a 4.5 metre-long, blue-grey beaked whale washed up at Ratmalana near Colombo. The then director of the National Museums of Ceylon, P.E.P (Paulus) Deraniyagala, described it as a new species, and named it Mesoplodon hotaula, after the local Singhala words for 'pointed beak'.
However, two years later, other researchers reclassified this specimen as an existing species, Mesoplodon ginkgodens, named for the tusk-like teeth of the adult males that are shaped like the leaves of a ginkgo tree.
"Now it turns out that Deraniyagala was right regarding the uniqueness of the whale he identified. While it is closely related to the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, it is definitely not the same species," says Dr Dalebout.
The researchers used a combination of DNA analysis and physical characteristics to identify the new species from seven specimens found stranded in Sri Lanka, the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), Palmyra Atoll in the Northern Line Islands near Hawai'i, the Maldives, and the Seychelles.
The new specimens are held by various institutions and groups, including the US Smithsonian National Museum in Washington DC, the Island Conservation Society in the Seychelles, and the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The genetic analyses were conducted as part of an international collaboration with the US NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center and Oregon State University
The researchers were able to get good quality DNA from tissue samples from only one specimen. For the others, they drilled the bones of the whales in order to analyse short fragments of 'ancient DNA' relying on techniques commonly used with old sub-fossil material from extinct species.
The researchers also studied all other known beaked whale species to confirm the distinctiveness of Deraniyagala's whale, including six specimens of the closely related, gingko-toothed beaked whale.
"A number of species in this group are known from only a handful of animals, and we are still finding new ones, so the situation with Deraniyagala's whale is not that unusual," Dr Dalebout says.
"For example, the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, first described in 1963, is only known from about 30 strandings and has never been seen alive at sea with any certainty. It's always incredible to me to realise how little we really do know about life in the oceans. There's so much out there to discover. "
Over the last 10 years or so, two other new beaked whales have come to light; both through research in which Dr Dalebout was involved. In 2002, Mesoplodon perrini or Perrin's beaked whale, was described from the eastern North Pacific, and in 2003, Mesoplodon traversii, the spade-toothed whale, was described from the Southern Ocean. Both species are known from only about five animals each.
With the re-discovery of Mesoplodon hotaula, there are now 22 recognised species of beaked whales. Explore further:Rare whale found dead in Southern California
New species of humpback dolphin spotted swimming off northern Australian coast
Photo
This new species of humpback dolphin, found in waters off the northern Australian coast, is yet to be named.
Guido Parra
A newly discovered species of dolphin has been found swimming off the northern Australian coast.
Scientists say the as yet unnamed dolphin is part of the humpback family, which already contains three other species.
The Atlantic humpback (Sousa teuzii) is found in the eastern Atlantic off western Africa, while there are two other Indo-Pacific humpbacks: the Sousa plumbea, found in the central to western Indian Ocean, and the Sousa chinensis, seen in the eastern Indian and western Pacific oceans.
Scientists say the new species is part of the Indo-Pacific variety.
They reached their conclusion after examining 180 skulls and 235 tissue samples from other humpback dolphins and analysing the DNA for variations, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said.
"Based on the findings of our combined morphological and genetic analyses, we can suggest that the humpback dolphin genus includes at least four member species," Martin Mendez of the WCS said in a statement.
"This discovery helps our understanding of the evolutionary history of this group and informs conservation policies to help safeguard each of the species."
Humpback dolphins, named for a hump below their dorsal fin, grow up to 2.5 metres in length and their colouring ranges from dark grey to pink or even white, the WCS said.
"New information about distinct species across the entire range of humpback dolphins will increase the number of recognised species, and provides the needed scientific evidence for management decisions aimed at protecting their unique genetic diversity and associated important habitats," WCS Ocean Giants program director Howard Rosenbaum was reported as saying.
The findings have been published in the journal Molecular Ecology. ABC/Reuters
I have not been keeping readers posted about events in the World of Bigfooters. I'd have to say that since I've become involved in Bigfoot themed events and posting them to this blog, Ive become both disenchanted and discouraged. Not about the creature(s) itself (themselves) but at the quality of what is advanced as evidence and bickering among Bigfooters. Any more I would rather not get involved. Still readers do deserve an update and so I have decided to reprint Robert Lindsay's Bigfoot News blog from this morning.
Dr. Bryan Sykes study may well prove that Bigfoots exist. From multiple sources, I have now received the news that not only will the Sykes DNA study publish soon, it will also prove that Bigfoots exist. None of the sources would tell me this in so many words, but they certainly implied that the findings would be positive. So I am looking forward to publication of the study. On the other hand, it is possible though not likely that the sources are all wrong and the study could be negative.
Rick Dyer dead Bigfoot video is taking orders now. Dyer’s video After the Shot is now on sale for $129. It is said to contain 45 minutes of HD footage of the dead Bigfoot, Hank, that Rick definitely shot and killed in San Antonio, Texas last year. Rick says that the film was shot soon after the shooting by a film crew from a film company that he is associated with in some way. Rick says he had to pay the film crew $20,000 for their efforts.
He is only selling 100 copies, so he should make $13,000 off this video. Therefore, he is not even making his money back. Dyer says that the crew did an excellent job, much better than Rick could do, in shooting the movie, and that it looks very nice and professional. They will get 100 orders and then ship the video. This is so they can make at least $13K before the video goes viral on the Internet as they fully expect it to do.
The videos have not yet started shipping, so Dyer has not yet received 100 orders.
Each copy has some sort of markers on it to distinguish it from all of the others. Therefore, if anything gets uploaded to the Net, Dyer says he will know who put it up there he will sue the pants off them. However, almost no one is ever sued for uploading copyrighted content to the Web. The DMCA was written to avoid the lawsuit abuse associated with pirating videos. In general, a DMCA takedown order is issued to the website or whoever put the video up there. Youtube will ban you if you get three DMCA orders. In addition, Youtube protects its uploaders and will not give out their name to any copyright holders to avoid lawsuit abuse.
There is an extremely stupid and evil law that was written a while back that actually makes it a federal offense to upload copyrighted material to the Internet. Two people have so far been prosecuted under this idiotic law. One fellow uploaded a copy of a new Star Wars movie to the Net and Lucasfilm went after him.
Curious incident when someone pretended to order a copy of Dyer’s new video. Someone pretended to order a copy of the new video After the Shot and the order came up After the Hoax instead of After the Shot. The person who faked the order says they think Dyer got the title mixed up because he was working on some other video about the 2008 Dyer Bigfoot hoax. Obviously the skeptics are going to have a great time with this news!
It is recommended that Dyer skeptics get their hands on the video. The skeptics insist that this video is a hoax using a dummy prop as a dead Bigfoot. Although Christopher Noel and I disagree with that and feel that there is probably a real dead Bigfoot in the video, the possibly yet exists that this video may be a gigantic hoax. As the movie has not yet shipped, there is no evidence one way or the other whether this video is real or faked.
However, if it is fake and the skeptics can prove it, Dyer is taking a huge risk. He would be risking interstate commerce fraud for promising a video of a real Bigfoot and delivering a clever hoax. In addition, to the criminal offenses, Rick would be civilly liable and could be sued for damages in civil court by anyone who bought the video. I would like to see the skeptics get their hands on some of this video or stills from it at the very least so they can try to debunk it.
[I was contacted by Rick Dyer early on in the current hoax affair and basically that was all I needed to hear. I have unfriended him on Facebook and I tell anybody that asks me that he had nothing before and this time around he has nothing again. He thinks anybody involved in looking for Bigfoot is a fool and all he wants to do is have a laugh at their expense. My opinion only of course and you are free to disbelieve me if you like-DD]
Real Bigfoot photo from a state park in Florida.
A screenshot from a recent video of a Bigfoot hunting deer at dusk in Florida.
I cannot remember the name of the video, but it was shot by a father and son who noticed cars pulled over by the side of the road in a state park in Florida (forget the name). In the video, you see a number of visitors pulled off the to the side of the road with their binoculars out looking at some odd events happening in a field about a mile away. Deer would pop up, run a bit, and then plunge down to the ground out of sight.The visitors were mostly tripping on the strange antics of the deer, and they did not seem to notice the other figure.
It was the strangest thing to see!
In the background, some sort of a bipedal creature seemed to be moving towards the deer. The deer appeared to be reacting to the bipedal creature. They seemed to fear that the creature was hunting them or trying to kill them and they were using strange eluding tactics to avoid the thing.
Whatever this is, I do not believe it is a hoax. You mean some guy, presumably in cahoots with the videographer, put on a Bigfoot suit a mile away from the road at dusk and moved his way towards some deer? No. Anyway, if it just a guy in a suit, the deer would figure it out and would not be acting so weird. They would just run away from the man or maybe just stand their ground since it is a state park and hunting is prohibited. There is no way that everyone who pulled over was in on some sort of a hoax, and it is extremely dubious that the man and his son were involved in a hoax with a man in a suit running around in the sawgrass at dusk.
So what else is it? Misidentification? Nope. It’s a bipedal creature and it looks large and hairy. What else could it be? It’s a Bigfoot or skunk ape.
Further, the rangers at the park acted very weird when the heard about this sighting, denying that it happened in the first place and even closing down the road where the sighting occurred. Furthermore, they tried to ticket the videographer apparently as a message to back off of his story.
In other words, just another government Bigfoot coverup!
My opinion: This is a real Bigfoot herding the deer, possibly towards another Bigfoot who is trying to hunt one. The quality of the screenshot and the video are not that great due to distance, but I do not see who this could be anything else. One thing I am sure it is not is a hoax. Notice the swaying motions of the arms and how much that looks like Patty from the Patterson film!
[Closeup by Dale D: note big round head of subject]
[The proportions are of course nothing like Patty and neither is the head shape. However "Being Authentic" does not necessarily mean "Like the Patterson Film". In this case the torso is impressively burly but the arms are shorter, and the proportions more human-like. It could still be a Skunk Ape, Eastern Bigfoot version but the best evidence is behavioral as Robert Lindsay states. The actions would be consistent with what I had heard about Eastern Bigfoot hunting deer up here in states further North.-DD]
Rocky Mountain Sasquatch Organization catches possible Bigfoot on video.
In this video shot in Rough Hollow, Utah by the RMSO, there are 38 seconds of a possible Bigfoot seen from 2:16 to 2:54. The Bigfoot goes from a crouching position to a kneeling position to all the way down on its stomach. The possible movements are very slow and deliberate so as not to cause notice. The possible creature is in dark black in the video and was not noticed until later on. Skeptics are saying it is a stump or a cave overhang or a shadow, but it appears to move. Do stumps, cave overhangs and shadows move while you are filming them? Overall, a good video.
Possible juvenile Bigfoot filmed in Havana, Florida on a game cam.
The video above just shows a still from the game cam. There is a very interesting shadow there that could well be a juvenile Bigfoot. It does somewhat resemble the Jacobs juvenile Bigfoot photo from a game cam in Pennsylvania. Those photos are definitely pictures of a juvenile Bigfoot. It can’t be anything else. This Havana photo may be a juvenile Bigfoot, and then again, it may just be a stump or a shadow.
Vladimir Putin believes that Yetis are real.Very interesting. Putin is the Prime Minister of Russia, and it is said that he believes that Yetis are real. We need more celebrity believers. I am quite certain that if Bigfoots are real then Yetis will be proven to be real someday too. A source close to the Ketchum Project told me that an initial male-female peaks study of a Yeti sample by Ketchum showed that they were related to Bigfoots but not the same species. The entire sample was used up by the quick and dirty test, and there was no more to test. Ketchum also stated herself that she believes that Yetis are real in addition to Bigfoots being real.
[There is a problem in that the Russians are abusing the term "Yeti", having appropriated the term from the Tibetan Plateau area where the term is native. It is now being used freely where the term "Almas" had been used in former decades. However since the term as it is used seems to apply to some of the same creatures also called Yetis in Tibet and Bigfoot in North America, the point may be moot. Please note that all terms are nonspecific, general-category references rather than specific references to specific creatures (They are regularly applied to more than one thing and more than one species, probably species from different families even.)-DD]
Let`s see if the videos really exist, get shipped to Dyer and if they then get send out to customers as soon as possible. You mentioned the legal implications. Is Dyer really this stupid or ignorant? I have the feeling: No. However, IF the videos really exist and they reach the general public, then it gets really interesting. Decision time. About the Sykes study: would just be fantastic if these rumours are really true.
To RL; Happened to see this about the Minnesota Iceman being put back on display again. I’m sure you are aware of the ‘Iceman’ story from the ’60′s. What got me is that this ‘exhibit’ is in Austin, Texas…..perhaps RD is selling his video of his visit there….he doesn’t claim that the ‘dead bigfoot’ in his video is the one he shot. anyway….I thought is was some what of a coincidence…site has a couple of pics also: Thanks for your time, J.Lucas http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/minnesota-iceman-photos_n_3517680.html
In the 1960s, the “Minnesota Iceman” was paraded from mall to fairground, leaving rumors of Bigfoot, missing links and government conspiracy in its wake.
Then, just as quickly as the 6-foot-tall frozen beast surfaced, it vanished — until now.
Earlier this year, Steve Busti — owner of the Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas — bought the ice man from the family of its original owner in Minnesota. He’s going to once again reveal the ape-like creature to the world starting July 3 at his museum.
Before his big purchase, Busti spent the last two years researching the Minnesota Iceman and trying to pin down its location. He found that the original exhibitor, Frank Hansen, had it in a freezer at his home for decades after its last showing. It’s still unclear why the big, hairy popsicle’s tour abruptly ended.
Somehow, Hansen managed to keep Mr. Freeze out of the public eye until he died about 10 years ago. Busti also learned that rumors of the Minnesota Iceman being discovered in Siberia were untrue.
“[Hansen] shot it in Wisconsin — its eyeball’s blown out and its arm is broken,” Busti told HuffPost Weird News. “I couldn’t believe it had been in Minnesota the entire time.”
Hansen froze the remains and put them on display. What’s not explained, however, is what the Minnesota Iceman really is. It’s big. Hair covers its entire body. And it doesn’t look too happy. It’s easy to see why many continue to think it’s proof of Bigfoot, and why others think it’s simply a primate. From Wisconsin.
Below are two never-before-seen photos from Hansen’s collection in the late 60s. Busti wouldn’t show us photos of the Minnesota Iceman in its current state. You’ll have to head to Texas to see for yourself.
[This story has also been covered on this blog before. It is interesting that Busti is quoting from Hansen's description which does not describe the model now on display in two key features-the broken arm and the popped-out eye-DD]
On the Sykes study: also the first “rumours” sound very promising (for believers like me), one has to be cautious. Remember the DNA brought back by a British TV expedition to Bhutan in 2001 or 2002? The hair samples from a place called Sakteng were handed over to Sykes. Sykes told the press after the first check that his team found DNA “never encountered before”? After that nothing was heard from Sykes anymore, but when a British “cryptozoologist” asked him about more conclusive results about one year later, Sykes told him that it was DNA from an Asiatic/Himalayan black bear! Black bear?!! One would think, DNA of such an obvious species would be identified easily during the very first examination. I also wrote an email to his laboratory and they given me the same answer. So, why did Sykes told the press there was “unknown DNA” in it? Just a comment to “advise caution” regarding Sykes – at least for those believers who expect too much from this study.
Possible fourth species of Killer whale identified
25/06/2013 15:26:49
Three different Antarctic killer whales: Top - Type A; Middle - Type B; Bottom - Type C were recognised in 2010, and now a 4th, Type D, has been identified (as designated by Pitman and Ensor, J. Cetacean Research and Management.
New technology supports evidence of multiple species June 2013. In April 2010, scientists reported finding strong genetic evidence supporting the theory that there are at least three species of killer whales (Orca) in the world's oceans. New evidence suggests that a fourth species, type D, has been identified.
Type D The first possible sighting of the new ‘Type D' was in 1955 when a pod of unusual-looking orca stranded on a beach in New Zealand. Recent photographs of similar orca from the southern Indian Ocean reveal that they have a very small white eye-patch and bulbous forehead. Analysis of a skeleton from the 1955 stranding, now in a museum in Wellington, indicates that ‘Type D' is highly divergent from all previously genetically sequenced killer whale forms. The estimated divergence was as long ago as 390,000 years, the second oldest split within the killer whale phylogeny. Very different behaviour patterns Scientists have suspected for some time that there was more than one species of killer whales because of differences in behaviour, feeding preferences and subtle physical features.
The following killer whales were recognised as separate species in 2010:
Type-B "pack ice killer whale" from the Antarctic. Note the large eye-patch and two-tone gray color pattern. This type specializes in hunting seals, which are often on the ice and need to be knocked off the ice by the whales before they can be caught.
Photo Credit: Bob Pitman, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
Type-C "Ross Sea killer whale" from the Antarctic. Note the narrow angled eye patch. These are the smallest of the 3 Antarctic types and they eat fish that are found primarily under the ice pack, so they follow leads deep into the ice as it breaks up in the summer months.
Photo Credit: Bob Pitman, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
Type-A killer whale from the Antarctic. Note the striking black and white colour pattern. This type is found in open water areas and feeds primarily on other cetaceans (whales and dolphins).
Photo Credit: John Durban, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
NE Pacific Transient killer whale in Alaska. Note the typical black and white colour pattern and eye-patch, similar to Antarctic Type A killer whales (left), but genetically distinct. The Transients are known to feed on all types of marine mammals, including other whales, dolphins, and seals and sea lions.
Photo Credit: Dave Ellifrit, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center
139 killer whale samples analyzed - Several species identified In all, tissue samples from 139 killer whales were analyzed. Samples came from killer whales found in the North Pacific, the North Atlantic and oceans surrounding Antarctica. As a result of the study, two types of killer whales in the Antarctic that eat fish and seals, respectively, are suggested as separate species, along with mammal-eating "transient" killer whales in the North Pacific. Several other types of killer whales may also be separate species or subspecies, but additional analysis is required.
These findings also highlight the value of natural history museum collections and new technologies to investigate the taxonomy of rare, cryptic or difficult to access species.
Read more information in the journal Polar Biology
I am keeping out of the discussion about the propriety/impropriety of publication for the paper. I DO know something about DNA and the statements made on the subject in the paper are not really cause for rejoycing. However in this case, I am acting as reporter and posting this video from Bigfoot Evidence as pertinent to the discussion.
When a company
announced last week that they had sequenced the Bigfoot genome, it seemed too
good to be true. And probably is.
For decades, people who believe that Bigfoot is a real animal that lives in
the hinterlands of North America have been waiting for proof of its existence.
So, when a DNA diagnostics company published a press release on their website
last week claiming to have sequenced the Bigfoot genome, it seemed too good to
be true.
In the press
release, DNA Diagnostics claimed that Texas veterinarian Melba Ketchum had
sequenced the DNA of Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch). The company stated that the
sequencing results confirm that Bigfoot exists and is a “novel hominin hybrid
species...a human relative that arose approximately 15,000 years ago as a hybrid
cross of modern Homo sapiens with an unknown primate species.”
So, do Bigfoot enthusiasts have reason to rejoice? Well, not just yet.
In response, the science blogosphere erupted with skepticism, and even
ridicule, of Ketchum and her team. The press release is short on details and
states that the study is still under peer review. So, no one can get a look at
the actual data. Without that, it’s impossible to evaluate Ketchum’s claims.
According to the press release, Ketchum’s team sequenced 20 whole
mitochondrial genomes and three whole nuclear genomes from “purported Sasquatch
samples.” Their analysis allegedly found that Sasquatch’s mitochondrial DNA was
identical to that of modern humans, but that the nuclear DNA was “a novel,
unknown hominin” resulting from males of “an unknown hominin species” that
contains “distinctly non-human, non-archaic hominin, and non-ape sequences.”
David Coltman, a geneticist with the University of Alberta, believes that
plenty of caution is needed before interpreting this press release as proof of
Bigfoot. “Until you see anything in peer review, there is nothing really to go
by. And even if it does appear in a peer-reviewed journal, that doesn’t mean
it’s true,” he said.
In 2006, Coltman and colleagues sequenced a supposed Bigfoot hair sample
collected in Teslin, Yukon (1). The results showed it was just bison hair.
His biggest question about the new press release is how the hypothesized
hybrid could possibly occur. “There’s a logical problem there, from a biology
perspective. If Sasquatch is a hybrid between a primate more distant from the
great apes and a human, their genomes would be incompatible. They wouldn’t be
able to reproduce.”
So, what exactly might Ketchum have sequenced? Coltman doesn’t know for sure,
but he said that it’s easy to pick up human mitochondrial DNA because of
contamination, and that the nuclear DNA could represent environmental noise,
more contamination of yeast, fungi, or other microorganisms–very common
occurrences with any forensic sample. “There are big piles of DNA sequence that
come out of any environmental sample that don’t line up to anything,” he said.
In the end, Coltman said that it’s next to impossible to prove that something
doesn’t exist. Just because Ketchum’s DNA sequencing study may eventually prove
to be bogus, an artifact of processing or contamination of the sample, doesn’t
mean that there can’t be a Bigfoot out there somewhere, just waiting to be
discovered–and its genome sequenced. References
Coltman, D., and C. Davis. 2006. Molecular cryptozoology meets the
sasquatch. Trends in ecology & evolution 21(2):60-61.
By OurAmazingPlanet Staff | LiveScience.com – 6 hrs ago
Spade-toothed Beaked Whale
The world's rarest whale has been spotted for the first time, in New Zealand, where two of the whales stranded themselves.
The two spade-toothed beaked whales, a mother and calf, stranded and died on Opape Beach on the North Island of New Zealand, in December 2010. The mother was 17 feet (5.3 meters) long and the calf was 11 feet (3.5 m) long.
A report describing the whales and the analysis of their DNA appears in the Nov. 6 issue of the journal Current Biology.
"Up until now, all we have known about the spade-toothed beaked whale was from three partial skulls collected from New Zealand and Chile over a 140-year period. It is remarkable that we know almost nothing about such a large mammal," Rochelle Constantine, a marine biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, said in a statement. "This is the first time this species has ever been seen as a complete specimen, and we were lucky enough to find two of them."
At first, the animals were thought to be much more common Gray's beaked whales. Their identity came to light following routine DNA analysis, which was done as part of a 20-year program to collect data on beaked whale species in New Zealand waters. New Zealand is a known hotspot for whale stranding, and it has the highest rates and greatest diversities of stranded whale species in the world, the researchers report.
The New Zealand Department of Conservation photographed the animals and collected tissue samples.
"When these specimens came to our lab, we extracted the DNA as we usually do for samples like these, and we were very surprised to find that they were spade-toothed beaked whales," Constantine said. "We ran the samples a few times to make sure before we told everyone."
The researchers said they have no idea why the whales have remained so elusive.
"It may be that they are simply an offshore species that lives and dies in the deep ocean waters and only rarely wash[es] ashore," Constantine said.
Published online 14 September 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.535
News
Nile crocodile is two species
Discovery has implications for conservation and management of the iconic species.
Ed Yong
Mummified crocodiles from ancient Egyptian tombs have helped to determine that the iconic Nile crocodile is actually two species.DEA / S. VANNINI/De Agostini/Getty Images
The iconic Nile crocodile actually comprises two different species — and they are only distantly related. The large east African Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) is in fact more closely related to four species of Caribbean crocodile than to its small west African neighbour, which has been named Crocodylus suchus.
Evon Hekkala of Fordham University in New York and her colleagues revealed evidence for the existence of the second species by sequencing the genes of 123 living Nile crocodiles and 57 museum specimens, including several 2,000-year-old crocodile mummies.
The results1 resolve a centuries-old debate about the classification of the Nile crocodile, and have important implications for the conservation of both species. "The paper has generated a great deal of interest and support," says Grahame Webb, head of the specialist crocodile group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Croc-infested waters
Hekkala's work began when she received a sample from herpetologist Michael Klemens of the Wildlife Conservation Society. In Chad, Klemens had stumbled across six crocodiles in a small oasis and, at his guide's recommendation, jumped in with them. Puzzled by their docile behaviour, Klemens took tissue from a dead one. He sent the sample to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where Hekkala and her co-workers sequenced it.
"I kept on sequencing it because I was convinced I was 100% wrong," says Hekkala. "It wasn't even remotely related to the Nile crocodile samples I had been working on."
Hekkala's group collected as many Nile crocodile samples as they could find, including several from ancient mummified animals. All of the mummies were of C. suchus, indicating that the ancient Egyptians had recognized the differences between the two reptiles. Indeed, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the Egyptians selectively used a smaller, tamer crocodile in ceremonies and regarded it as sacred.
The name C. suchus was coined in 1807 by the French naturalist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who singled it out as a subspecies of Nile crocodile. However, his ideas were not widely accepted. "He called it the sacred crocodile in one of his papers," says Hekkala. "We've talked about proposing that as a common name."
Hekkala is now working to formally describe the new species. "Crocodiles are generally very hard to tell apart from their exterior features," she says. Even so, unpublished preliminary work suggests that C. suchus and C. niloticus have distinct skulls, and research in the 1970s by the leather industry suggested that they have different scale patterns.
Hekkala says that her results refute the idea of crocodiles as "living fossils" that have remained unchanged for millions of years. "Our paper shows that the true Nile crocs in east Africa are as young as humans are. C. suchus is only slightly older."
Shrinking range
Analysis of the mummified DNA suggests that both species used to overlap throughout Africa. This is no longer the case. " C. suchus seems to have recently gone extinct from suitable habitats in the Nile, perhaps because C. niloticus grows bigger and is far more aggressive," says Dietrich Jelden at the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation in Bonn.
While C. suchus was retreating into the dry interior of western Africa, C. niloticus spread across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. From eastern Africa, the crocodiles could have ridden currents that flow around the cape and into the Caribbean. "Traders used these during the slave trade, so transoceanic dispersal isn't unrealistic," says Hekkala, "especially since crocodiles can store sperm and go without eating for up to 10 months."
The shrinking size of C. suchus ' range has immediate implications for conservation. The newly confirmed species is already declining and is under threat from industries such as oil extraction, as well as from unregulated trading of skin and bushmeat.
Meanwhile, the group's finding halves the range of the traditional Nile crocodile. "It's going to shake things up," says Hekkala. The Nile crocodile has long been viewed as a model for the sustainable use of wildlife and several nations had plans to increase their harvest of the species for its skin. Hekkala's discovery could put paid to that. "Some people are going to be very unhappy," she says.
-This subject has come up recently and some experts had said they could distinguish FOUR species from the original Nile Crocodile. I do not doubt it: as the article states, it often takes an expert to tell crocodylians apart and I have given an opnion before that the current number of crocodylian species could easily be DOUBLE what we recognise now.
The part about the Caribbean crocodile being an extension of the Nile crocodile's range also makes sense: far inland and deep in the upper parts of the Amazon and Orinoco river drainages, there is said to be a crocodile (not a caiman) at least equal in size and ferocity to the Nile Crocodile. Currently, this seems to be an unknown species. Thanks to this new DNA determination, its classification may no longer be uncertain, albeit its classification as a transoceanic population of Nile crocodiles would be something completely unexpected! Best Wishes, Dale D.
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Three different Antarctic killer whales: Top - Type A; Middle - Type B; Bottom - Type C were recognised in 2010, and now a 4th, Type D, has been identified (as designated by Pitman and Ensor, J. Cetacean Research and Management.
