Strange/Rare Fauna Reports
Strange/Rare Fauna Reports
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5/3/2006
Brendan O'Neill, The Christian Science Monitor
LONDON - "...Life in this Big Smoke isn't 2 bad. There R trees to swing in and lots a insects 2 eat. I have 11 friends 2 play with, so I'm never lonely. Gotta dash, feeding time! Luv and..."
What would a squirrel monkey want with a cellphone? It sounds like the setup to a Jay Leno line. But, in fact, serious scientists at the London Zoo have been wrestling with this zoological mystery for months.
Twelve of the tiny, agile monkeys that come from Latin America moved into the zoo a year ago, and immediately began to cast their beady eyes - and occasionally get their miniature mitts - on visitors' cellphones.
Maybe it's a case of the animal kingdom trying to tell humans that the technology revolution has gone too far. Or a message to teens that parents seem incapable of delivering: Get off the phone! More likely, say officials who get paid to think about these things, the reason is much less Machiavellian.
"We think they were attracted by the flashing lights and ring tones," says Jo Cook, a mammal expert at the zoo.
The mischievous monkeys live in a barrier-free enclosure that visitors can walk through. Amid imposing trees connected by ropes, they come face to face - and, it seems, hand to cell - with the humans who come to gawk at them. Forget monkey see, monkey do. This is a case of monkey see, monkey dial.
Though their exact reason for doing it may be unknown, Aoife Doyle has a theory. "It's obvious - they want to phone home, like ET," says the 12-year-old, who is visiting the zoo with her family. "They miss their friends back in Bolivia and might be worried that some have been poached to become pets." Aoife has clearly been paying attention to the information signs.
"No, they wanna send a text message," interjects her 10-year-old brother, Steven. "Look at their little hands, perfect for texting."
Overhead, one of the monkeys hangs from a branch by its tail and use its hands to grab a squirming grub. It is hanging hands-free. "Yeah, they can swing and SMS [short message service] at the same time," notes Steven.
"...We're settling in well. It's not 2 different from home - warm and leafy and bristling with juicy creepy crawlies. But there R strange uprite creatures who stare at us during the day and then disappear again at nite. Weird..."
Squirrel monkeys are cute and comical. They range in length from 10 to 14 inches, and their tails can grow to 16 inches. Fringed with orange-yellow fur, the creatures are spectacularly speedy, scuttling up tree trunks and leaping from one branch to another like, well, squirrels. Hence the name. They traverse treetops using all four limbs and can leap up to 23 feet.
They are the smallest and among the most curious of the primates. Only 3,500 of them remain in the wild, their numbers threatened by poachers seeking to sell them for use in biomedical research or as pets or bait.
The year-old enclosure at the London Zoo, spanning 4,900 square feet, is done up to look, feel, and smell like the rain forests of Bolivia, where these cheeky monkeys come from. It is surrounded by fencing, but it is open to the skies. The trees and plants were chosen for their scent and because they bear the sorts of fruit that squirrel monkeys like to snack on in between the serious business of making a meal of insects and grubs.
But there is, of course, one big difference between this corner of north-central London and Bolivia: the presence of people. What's more, the people carry around strange black and silver ringing objects. And, as we know, these objects tend to double as cameras these days, which means that many visitors were leaning down to photograph or film the monkeys, holding their cells up close to their faces.
"The monkeys must have thought it was a case of the 'phone's for you,' " says Ms. Cook.
To be sure, the squirrel monkeys seem comfortable living in an open enclosure with people milling around. They're bold and not easily spooked. Even the garish balloons and toy Komodo dragons kids carry around don't seem to unnerve them. Cellphones, however, are another matter. Whether it's curiosity or the possibility of free nighttime minutes, the monkeys would transform into furry thieves, leading to impromptu tugs of war between man and beast. With their tiny hands, the monkeys mainly lost. But those that did manage to make off with a cell tended to discard it shortly afterward.
"We want this to be a natural habitat for them," says Cook. "And there was something unnatural about their interest in cellphones."
As a result, animal behaviorists went to work to curb the illicit impulse. Their solution ... mustard.
"...I'm getting strange looks l8tely. U'd think they had never seen a monkey msging b4. MayB they don't want us getting homesick. And there seems 2 B sumthing wrong with this phone...."
Over three weeks, zoo staffers dressed up in what Cook refers to as "civilian clothing" - jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts - rather than their easy-to-recognize brown uniforms. They walked through the squirrel monkey enclosure with the rest of the visitors, armed with broken cellphones. They offered them to the curious monkeys, who, of course, accepted. Bad move. These were cellphones with a difference.
"We put sticky substances on the phones that squirrel monkeys don't like," says Malcolm Fitzpatrick, the curator of mammals at the Zoological Society of London who devised the gooey cellphone plot. "We wanted to teach them not to touch the phones, and we know they don't like anything sticky."
The substance turned out to be mustard because, as Cook says, "They hate mustard."
The idea wasn't to punish the animals, but to reduce the impact of humans on their natural behavior by training them to ignore cells. "It's back to business as usual now," says Cook, although she thinks the exercise may have to be repeated in a few months - squirrel monkeys don't have long memories. "But for the time being they are doing what squirrel monkeys always do - sleeping, leaping, and foraging for insects. Even the loudest ring tone doesn't really interest them anymore."
"...These cells R overrated. Who wants a device that buzzes and bleeps and is covered in yukky stuff?? The uprite lot can keep 'em."
Back in the enclosure, Aoife and Steven watch a couple of squirrel monkeys dart across a rope from one tree to another, more impressively than the most talented tightrope walker. A woman leans down to film a foraging monkey with her cellphone.
He stares at it for a bit, seems to grimace, and then carries on digging the dirt. This is one primate that has apparently decided cellphones are more of a hassle than they're worth, with or without a weekend calling plan.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/2006-05-03-monkey-cellphones_x.htm
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03 Aug 1999 Nepal:
Mysterious Animal Seen by Villager in Nepal
Kathmandu, August 3 (Xinhua) - A villager in Tanahun district of western Nepal saw a mysterious animal Sunday that used to bite villagers leaving them in panic, The Kathmandu Post reported Tuesday. "I saw the mysterious beast with the aid of torch light while it was about to bite me," said Habi Julla Miya, a victim and eyewitness of the animal. Miya said the animal resembled a Tibetan hound-like dog in appearance, but had a white stripe on the neck and a tail somewhat bigger than that of a dog with the remaining part of the body entirely white. The animal went away slowly after a short confrontation with Miya, leaving him with three sores on the head. About 20 people in the district have been attacked by the animal in the past four months - some with minor injuries and others with serious injuries. One man was killed three years ago by the still unidentified animal.
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Abu Bakarr Munu
Nov 11, 2005
The people of Sengbeh Chiefdom in the Koinadugu district past week breathe a sigh of relief following the killing of a certain mysterious animal that had for the past three months terrorized and killed people across the chiefdom.
The strange animal according to police reports, on the 29th August, 2005 attacked and killed one Forah Koroma of Yomandugu village and on the 4th October, 2005 also attacked and killed Saio Koroma of Momoriemaria village all in the Sengbeh chiefdom, while they were on their way to their farms.
The Director of Police Media and Public Relations Unit (MPRU), Inspector Alhaji Kelfallah Bangura, yesterday confirmed to Awareness Times the killing of this mysterious animal.
According to Inspector Bangura, the animal in question was killed on Tuesday 8th November, 2005 at a village called Dangawali in the Sengbeh chiefdom by a means of a native trap that was set in a farm owned by one Moseray Kargbo.
Inspector Bangura quoted police sources in Kabala, the district headquarter town as describing the animal as very close in semblance to a leopard and that the carcass is presently on display at the compound of PC Alie Balla Sama Marah III of Sengbeh Chiefdom.
When this mystery animal was first reported, there was no actual description for it, suffice it only that it ate the entrails of its victims and that it was very strong and fast. It could be recalled that when this animal started causing havoc on the people of Sengbeh, it almost disrupted farming activities in the chiefdom as people were very afraid of it. It was reported that the animal appears on its victim with such swiftness that it was impossible to escape from it. This, according sources had made the people afraid the more.
This is the second animal to terrorize residents in that part of the country. The first was a lion..
http://news.sl/drwebsite/publish/article_2005887.shtml
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05 Sep 2000 AUSTRALIA:
Mystery mammals found - ANU scientist.
By CATRIONA JACKSON.
Canberra scientists are on the brink of proving the existence of several mystery mammal species, after a treasure trove of forgotten specimens was discovered in the basement of a Chinese Museum. The huge find includes skeletal remains of more than 1000 Asian mammals including: pigs, rhinoceros, cattle, antelopes and bears, which had been lost for more than 100 years. The head of the international team that made the discovery, the Australian National University's Dr Colin Groves, said that once study of the specimens got under way the existence of several previously unknown species was likely to result. Proving the existence of such species had been dismissed as too difficult by the scientific fraternity. Other specimens would provide the first evidence of what mammals that were now extinct had looked like, he said. The find is the result of a 40-year search, after Dr Groves read about the specimens in the 1960s. They had been collected and described by a French naturalist and Jesuit missionary living in China at the end of the 1800s, Pierre Marie Heude. The writings and descriptions had been preserved, but the specimens lost. Then recently a Chinese colleague told Dr Groves of crates that had been sitting unidentified for decades in the basement of the Beijing Institute of Zoology and the Natural History Museum in Shanghai. Dr Groves said that rubbing the grime of 100 years away from the bones, to see Heude's own handwriting was an 'indescribable' experience. The Australian team members had now returned from China, with a complete catalogue of mammal skulls, and were writing up the work, he said. Three of the almost 100 species in the collection were now extinct, many more were on the verge of dying out. The work now being done was crucial, with the human pressures destroying natural habitats faster and faster, forcing many animal species to extinction. Areas that had been deemed safe five years ago were now not so. His work was sometimes sad, but it could help to point out where the last remaining populations of rare species were, aiding conservation. Among the surprises in the collection was a rare dwarf buffalo, which was close to extinct in the Philippines, and a deer which appeared to be the same species as the only other example, from Japan. He would now start work on rhinos, with four rare skulls in the collection. It was widely believed that only the hardiest Indian Rhinos were guaranteed survival into the next century.
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Nov 11, 2005
(AP) STOCKHOLM, Sweden A mythical monster, believed by some to have lived for hundreds of years in the murky depths of a Swedish lake, is now fair game for hunters -- if they can find it. Authorities have agreed to lift its endangered species protection.
Hundreds of people claim to have spotted a large serpent-like creature in Lake Storsjon in the northwestern province of Jamtland, and in 1986 the regional council put it on a list of endangered animals.
But a government watchdog challenged the decision, saying such protection was hardly necessary for a creature whose existence has not been proven.
The regional council agreed to remove the listing this month, but declined to rule out that a monster lives in the 300-foot deep lake.
"It exists, inasmuch as it lives in the minds of people," the council's chief legal adviser Peter Lif said about the purported beast. "But I guess we'll have to agree that it cannot be proved scientifically, and then it should not be listed as an endangered species."
The so-called Storsjo monster was first mentioned in print in 1635. Hundreds of sightings have been reported since then. Some people describe the creature as a snakelike animal with a dog's head and fins on its neck. But no clear image of it has been captured on camera.
Storsjo monster aficionados said lifting the endangered species protection was a mistake, and appeared insulted by the decision.
"We are not fanatics," said Christer Berko, of the Storsjo monster association. "We see this as very interesting phenomenon that we unfortunately have not been able to document."
http://wcbstv.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_315011815.html