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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Monday, February 08, 2010

APOLOGIES AND SELF CONGRATULATION

Apologies to Dale Drinnon, Ivan Mackerle and Richard Freeman. You have both given me excellent picture-heavy blogs, which I am looking forward to posting. However, there are bloody computer problems again and I can't post anything image intensive for a few days. Sorry about that....

However, it almost passed without comment, but yesterday we posted our 3000th bloggo post on the main CFZ Blog. Haven't we done well? (Where is Bruce Forsyth when you need him?)

MAX BLAKE: Further taxonomy fail

Dear Maximilian - you do make me laugh....

LINDSAY IS BAFFLED

Hi Jon,

I ordered Micheal Woodley's book after seeing the review (very good book btw) but it seems to be having a strange effect on the kittens. The small one, 4 months, attacks the cover everytime she sees me reading it and the older one, now nearly a year old, grabs the spine of the book and tries to chew it.

No other books have this effect on them. I have the CFZ yearbook, which I have been dipping into (again, excellent) but they ignore that. They ignore all other books but for some reason the sea monster book makes them want to attack it! It came from Amazon like most of my books so it isn't that; they know the smell of the books from Amazon. So what have you done to the book? I can only presume it is the cover illustration.

Maybe it looks like something to the cats that they chase or the blue colour (though not sure if cats see colour). Any thoughts from the CFZ community?

Love to all,
a baffled Lindsay xx

OARFISH FILM

Thanks, by the way to Lindsay S and Davey C who both sent this link to me.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8501000/8501251.stm

There is some pretty wonderful footage of a living oarfish in the Gulf of Mexico, although I am pretty sure that it is not the first piece of footage of a living oarfish in that environment as is claimed. However, even more spectacular is footage of a living manefish (Paracaristius sp.) which looks for all the world like something from a Roger Dean album cover c. 1973....

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: SOURCE MATERIAL FOR CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL STUDIES PART THREE

Today is the concluding survey of old and obscure zoological/scientific magazines which may be of benefit to cryptozoologists and Fortean Zoologists. The author was T. Sheppard, who I know nothing about except that he or she has left us a good legacy.

THE QUARRY

'This paper is the `Organ of the building, road stone, stone, marble, slate, and all mineral industries,` and is issued at the Colliery Guardian Office [not much to do with cryptozoology/Fortean Zoology you might be thinking, but perhaps it has the odd entombed animal report? I don`t know, I haven`t checked - R] It is sold at 6d monthly, the number for December, 1916, being Vol.XXI., No. 252. It averages 24 pages of letter press,…and frequently contains notes relating to northern quarries, etc….' (1)

ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW

“In March, 1888, appeared part 1 of the Archaeological Review, a journal of historic antiquities, which was sold at 12s. 6d net,…….each monthly part..contained a supplement of four or more pages entitled `Index of Archaeological papers.`………..In Vol IV pp 446-7, it is stated that the Archaeological Review will in future appear as the official organ of the Folk-lore Society, and under a new name. Vol IV was dated August, 1889 to January, 1890.”(2)

THE JOURNAL OF THE POSTAL MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY

“A Miscellany of Natural and Microscopical Science. Vol 1 was published in 1882,Vol 2 1883 (the year Karl Marx died, my comrades!) With Volume III the title was altered to THE JOURNAL OF MICROSCOPY AND NATURAL SCIENCE: THE JOURNAL OF THE PORTAL MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY…..Apparently the journal continued till Vol IX when it was merged in the Weekly Naturalist and became The International Journal of Microscopy and Natural Science.” (3)

THE SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRER

“In February, 1886, appeared appeared the first part of `The Scientific Enquirer` a monthly medium for the supply of information on all Scientific Subjects` edited by Alfred Allen….There were short contributions on general natural history subjects [in which case it sounds like the old Notes and Queries journal which covered some British counties-R] but much of this journal was taken up by queries and answers………Twelve parts appeared during 1888, forming Volume III (224 pages, including index) At the back of the title-page, however, appears the following note: `To our Readers,- We have endeavoured, during the past year, to fulfil our promise further to improve “The Scientific Enquirer,” but the amount of labour entailed is more than we feel justified in imposing upon ourselves and friends. With this number we bring those labours to a close…”(4)

THE UNION JACK NATURALIST

[This sounds like an ultra patriotic journal of the zoology department of the BNP or one of its forerunners!]

I was previously unaware that the `Union Jack Field Club` did more than circulate manuscripts among its members, but apparently five parts of a magazine at least, were published, four of which I have recently obtained…” (5) The magazine ran from October 1881 to at least July 1882.
Of all the above, The Scientific Enquirer sounds the most promising for our endeavours. It is not mentioned by Fort


1. T.Sheppard Old Natural History Magazines,Etc. Naturalist December 1917. p.389
2. Ibid p.389
3. Ibid p.389-390
4. Ibid p.390
5. Ibid p.390-391

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1971 Apollo 14 splashed down after the 3rd manned moon mission.
And now, the news:

Local Conservation project - The Endangered Species Centre at Wildwood - celebrates £18500 cash boost
Butterflies and dinosaurs
Galapagos sea lions head for warm Peru waters
Portland sheep on BBC's Countryfile
Big cat sighting in Upwey
16-year old matador slaughters bulls amidst protest

More like pratador, amirite?

(note: In the original version of today’s pun I had replaced the ‘m’ for another two letters which, although summing up my feelings more accurately, would certainly not be suitable on a ‘family friendly’ blog like this)

CFZ ARCHIVING PROJECT: BHM Part Twenty four


As you know, Oll has been working on the archiving project since early February 2009, and he is now working on the BHM section. This 24th and last trench of this section, redefines the words `mixed bag` with bigfoot, wildman, orang pendek and monkey man cuttings from 1799 - 1995. The next section is general forteana. Good stuff.

HERE