WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

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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Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Wednesday, April 15, 2015

CRYPTOLINK: More problems for Bryan Sykes

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. 

A paper on the genetics of mythical creatures — yeti and bigfoot — is being corrected after the journal discovered the first author, Bryan Sykes, listed a mythical institution.
The Proceedings of the Royal Society B paper, “Genetic analysis of hair samples attributed to yeti, bigfoot and other anomalous primates,” examined 30 samples from “museum and individual collections” that had been labeled as the North American bigfoot, Tibetan yeti, Mongolian almasty, and Sumatran orang pendek. The analysis showed the samples actually came from a variety of species, such as bears, horses, and cows. Perhaps the most striking is the paper’s claim that two samples match with a prehistoric polar bear, “but not to modern examples of the species.”
According to a spokesperson for the journal, “The correction is being made because the institution the author Brian Sykes gave as part of his affiliation does not exist.” The exact wording of the notice has yet to be decided.

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN HOPS AND SKIPS AND JUMPS ON OCCASION, AND THEN HE MIGHT BE PREVAILED UPON TO DO IT AGAIN, BUT I WOULDN'T BET ON IT

The Gonzo Daily - Wednesday
www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/about.html
 
Yesterday was a very nice day. Jessica and I achieved a lot in the office, she found my missing copy of Adobe Acropbat 9, and is learning the craft of a book designer very fast and well. She is a lovely child, and I love having her in the office. In the evening we had a Chinese takewaway, which means cold Chinese food for breakfast. Yummy. My love and good vibes go out to Martin Eve who had an accident on his bicycle this morning and hurt himself. I hope he will be repaired ready for friday.
 
 
The Gonzo Weekly #125
www.gonzoweekly.com
 
Mick Abrahams, Jethro Tull, Blodwyn Pig, Magma, Robin Trower, G.G.Allin and the Murder Junkies, Brian Wilson, Mark Ellen, Hawkwind, Jon Anderson, and Yes fans had better look out!
 
The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#125) is available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/. It has Mike Abrahams on the cover, and inside yours truly interviews the man himself about his extraordinary new album. Doug writes about Magma, Davey Curtis goes to see Robin Trower, and Jon critiques the new Brian Wilson album and the delightful autobiography of Mark Ellen. Neil Nixon reports on an even stranger album than usual, Wyrd goes avant garde, Xtul gets even more peculiar, and there are radio shows from Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the titular submarine dwellers are still lost at sea, although I have been assured that they will hit land again soon. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons trying to choose (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials having difficulty in making choices, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
 
This issue features:
 
Frances Bean Cobain, B.B. King,Mick Jagger, Barry Manilow, Shaun Ryder, Bertrand Pourcheron, Joni Mitchell, Karnataka, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Bob Burns, James Best, John Shuttleworth, Hugh Hopper, Rocket Scientists, Tommy James, Birmingham Sunday, Inner City Unit, Mick Abrahams, OneRepublic, Ellie Goulding, Florence and the Machine, Brantley Gilbert,Mick Abrahams, Magma, Robin Trower, Hawkwind, Yes, Bill Bruford, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Toto, 4th Eden, Mark Ellen, Xtul, Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Wilson, Neil Nixon, G G Allin and the Murder Junkies, Vanir
 
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
 
All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
 
You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/

 
* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...
 
* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit
 
* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!
 

* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the infantile orange cat?

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF




A Kid May Have Actually Filmed A Bigfoot From A Drone (Video)
Almost any Bigfoot researcher who can afford it are using drones these days. A lot of people are seasoned veterans of Bigfoot research but who would ...

Mysterious Bigfoot Encounter Of California
Mysterious "Bigfoot Encounter" Of California a old friend of mine tells the story of his dealings with "bigfoot" in california nearly 50 years as we will call ...

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

What has Corinna's column of Fortean bird news got to do with cryptozoology?

Well, everything, actually!

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.



NATURAL HISTORY: Fantastic pictures of thresher sharks

Malapascua is a wonderful tropical dive location sites with something to suit everyone's tastes. You can find seagrass muck dives full of macro life, remarkable night dives with a lot of curious creatures, shallow reefs with healthy corals, dramatic drop-offs, a couple of good wrecks and some outlying islands to explore. However, what makes it stand out from most other Philippines destinations, and makes it arguably one of the very best dive spots in South East Asia, are its thresher sharks. They are what put Malapascua on the map.Thresher shark-7938
The pelagic thresher shark

This Indian and Pacific Ocean species is about three metres long, and almost half of that length is made up of its spectacularly long tail. Any pelagic shark is a stunning sight but the first time I set eyes on a thresher shark, using lazy tail swishes to glide effortlessly water, I was filled with awe. It is hard to imagine a sleeker or more perfectly evolved animal to its environment — if I had to choose one creature to represent the strange, beautiful and alien world of the ocean, this would be it.

NESSIENEWS (Caveat Lector)



Mashable

Scottish marathon will award £50000 for a selfie with the Loch Ness Monster
In need of £50,000? Snap a selfie with the Loch Ness Monster and the money's all yours. Runners in the Baxters Loch Ness Marathon, an annual race ...

NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Wednesday

ON THIS DAY IN 1813 - U.S. troops under James Wilkinson attacked the Spanish-held city of Mobile that would be in the future state of Alabama. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Captive bred rare sturgeon released into the wild ...
  • Are there some animals that have stopped evolving?...
  • One in 10 bee species faces extinction
  • Georgia man wounds mother-in-law when bullet ricoc...

  • World's second most endangered turtle on road to r...

  • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day)