Cryptozoology

07-04-2010

it is some kind of viverrid with mange. In the photo on this link Oriental Yeti Discovered In China | Two Minute News the animal is in a better position and is obviously a civet. Despite the comparison to a "bear" you can also see from the cage that it is not a large animal at all.

07-04-2010

Wow, this second picture makes it much clearer, I am in no doubt that you are right about it being a civet. Apparently, several civet species, and one species of linsang occur in Sichuan province.

With things like this it amazes me that it can get all round the world on the news without this being pointed out at any stage? I'm sure there are plenty of people, who like you, spotted straight away what the animal is; it's just not as good a story that way.

07-04-2010

After seeing that second photo I have to agree that it does look more like a civet in that image. A rather deformed civet at that.



Hix

Blackduiker
13-04-2010

Just to throw a wrench into the machinery, I've been reading everything on cryptozoology I could get my hands on since I was in the 8Th grade. Especially Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Just about anything written by John Green, Loren Coleman or Rene Dahinden has consumed much of my reading interest, along with so many others like Ivan Sanderson, Dr. Grover Krantz and Dr. Jeff Meldrum. And if you think that's oddball, I'm in the same company as Jane Goodall herself. I've read literally thousands of eyewitness accounts, and am convinced there is something out there. Just to get a general background though, I recommend the following excellent website:

Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization

15-04-2010

But it doesn't come in a small wire cage looking remarkably like a Civet Cat or similar sized animal with mange.

I cannot understand how an obvious fabrication like this can make News when it is so obvious from the photo that this particular creature is a known animal. Are they really, really stupid people who put this out, or do they really believe it might be something 'new' to science?

15-04-2010

I would highly recommend anything written by Ben Radford, especially his podcast - Monster Talk. Skeptic Podcasts MonsterTalk About MonsterTalk

15-04-2010

The creature in the photo is definitely some poor, known to science, victim of mange or another illness. But I still am very much an advocate of cryptids and the continued investigation of hidden animals. The Okapi, Komodo Dragon, Mountain Gorilla, Mountain Tapir, Chacoan Peccary, Megamouth Shark, Coelocanth, and Saola. Just to name a few, were all considered "unknown" until the 20th century. And some of them the much latter part of that century. (Chacoan Peccary, Megamouth, Saola, et.).

15-04-2010

This oriental Yeti is clearly a linsang or other civet species from the Sichuan/Yunnan region. Its medical condition resembling mange is probably due to the time period of inadequate captivity management of this particular individual.

IMO it should be rehomed to one of the reputable Chinese zoos like Beijing or Shanghai (not even Chengdu presently has state-of-the-art mustelid or small felid housing). It should be quarantained first, medically treated and raised back to health. That wire-netted cage is a sign of animal welfare concern ...

It is to be applauded that lately animal welfare and exotic wild animal management has come under closer scrutiny and is warranting Parliamentary resolve to introduce more robust animal welfare legislation for native and exotic species. Both timely and needed.

15-04-2010

On general cryptology matters: the science is valuable.

I do think that in the case of hominids like the Yeti/Sasquatch, there is relevance to the frequency of reports (despite pseud-scientists on the bandwagon).

I would say similar relevance exists for e.g. Tassie wolf (and a host of other thought off as extinct species ... et cetera cum et cetera). Every one of these species just needs a champion determined enough to get to the bottom of the real truth (which in the case of the Tassie wolf is ... despite the difficulty of terrain in that particular corner of NE-Tasmania).

15-04-2010

Apart from the many hoaxes, grainy photos and videos, innumerable sightings of varying credibility, the Tasmanian Tiger has had a number of serious champions trying to prove its continued existence. Some of them, like Eric Guiler spent decades searching for evidence but still no-one has come up with any irrefutable proof- now nearly 80 years since the last one was seen in the wild. I cannot see how it could have survived so long with no tangible evidence it still exists, coming to light.

15-04-2010

But all the species that you mention come from deep rainforest, mountains, difficult to reach islands, the deep ocean or a combination therein. On the contrary, the Rockies is an area which has been reasonably populated for over a hundred years. Not only that, but it is criss-crossed by roads, has suffered large amounts of habitat degradation and is crawling with hunters. Finally, if apes did cross into the americas then they would have done it from africa and up through south america but, despite it being far more typical habitat than the Rockies, there are none in the amazon!

15-04-2010

Agreed. I'm much more willing to believe in the yeti than bigfoot for these reasons:

- Location: Living in the Himalayas is both difficult to explore and dangerous for natural and sometimes political reasons. We only know about the snow leopard from very few wild sightings, look how long wildlife filmakers have spent up there just trying to catch a glimpse of one. An environment significantly tougher to explore than the mountains in which the mountain gorilla wasn't discovered till the 20th century.
- Locals: They treat just as they would any other animal of the mountains, and have come to fear and respect it over the generations. There are many stories of their sightings amongst those who spend much of their time in the mountains.
- Paleontological: Countries surrounding the Himalayas, such as Nepal, China and India, was once home to Gigantopithecus blacki, an immense ape that would've been ten feet at standing height, believed to have fed mainly on bamboo, fruit and invertabrates. When Homo erectus moved into Asia they would've lived alongside such beasts, though rather than all go extinct within the Pleistocene, perhaps populations of the apes were driven further into the mountains by our ancestors, who would've then learn't to feed on anything they could get, such as vegetation, berries in the cloud forests and the hunting of animal prey like chimps.

Of course I'm not 100% on the yeti, you can't be until you've got a real specimen. But, added with the various footprints and sightings over the last few centuries, it has a good chance of being there, and many zoological academics such as Sir David Attenborough would agree with this.

16-04-2010

Oh @Blackduiker, please spare me the stale news by constantly citing okapi, komodo dragons, giant forest hog, mountain nyala, saola etc. as the one and only examples of newly discovered animals. Tme has gone by (in the case of the okapi more than 100 years..), and plenty of other equally interesting animals have been "discovered" since, also in the more recent past (Giant peccary, Australian snubfin dolphin, Upemba Lechwe, Bornean Clouded Leopard, Arunachal macaque...to name just some charismatic larger mammals) .
What has changed, however, is that in the current "age of molecular biology" many "new" species discoveries have not been made outdoors on an Indiana Jones-like adventure trip, but within the security of the labratory, by splitting up formerly singular species into many new ones(like Asian hog-badger(s), West African Dwarf crocodile(s), Burmese python(s)(?!?), etc, etc.).
Don't get me wrong: I'm really fond of serious(!) cryptozoology. However, a lot people seem to equal this subject with escapist pseudo-factual paranormal "monster hunting". The latter is no surprise, as most "believers"(sic!) of this mindset appear to favour the "crypto superstars" like Nessie, Yeti, Sasquatch, Giant Anacondas and El Chupa. Reports of smaller, less harmful & less spectacular creatures appear to be less attractive-even though the chance to discover them one day is usually way more plausible...

None of the reasons mentioned above to explain Yeti & Co. do really have a solid base. All that is left of Gigantopithecus sp. are a few teeth and some mandibula fragments. To assume based on these fragmentary fossils that the animal was bipedal or had any correlation to the popular yeti sightings is highly speculative.

One should not be too hasty when it comes to ruling out potential "habitats": in fact, some areas of the Pacific Northwest are pretty remote and scarely inhabitated.

16-04-2010

'I believe that yellow books armed with cocktail umberella's live inside my head' - you cannot prove this is ture, but neither can you prove that it doesn't exist.

it's is hard to imagine life in areas of boiling chemical envrionments of underground volcano's - but they do. Whislt it may seem that mythical beasts like the yeti and big foot do not exist I am totally open to the possibility just as I am to the possibilty that there are yellow books armed with cockatil umberella's living inside my head.

Plus sometimes it is nicer to beleive in something totally abstract and unrealistic then be stuck still in reality.

16-04-2010

That does not mean that they haven't been thoroughly explored and certainly doesn't mean (in my eyes at least) that there is an undiscovered hominid roaming around them being caught in occasional, blurred photographs.