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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Thursday, January 16, 2014

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

What has Corinna's column of fortean bird news got to do with Cryptozoology?

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. 






CRYPTOLINK: Bigfoot Encounter in Ireland, Real Squatchin From The Woods, Bigfoot Bounty Premier

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. 


CRYPTOLINK: Local man shows off collection of Bigfoot 'evidence'

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. 


Pizzeria cashes in on Bigfoot sighting
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CRYPTOLINK: True or False? Extinction Is Forever

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. 


"Danger," says the sign on the door of a laboratory at the Australian Museum in Sydney: "Tasmanian Tiger, Trespassers will be eaten!" The joke is that the Tasmanian tiger—a beloved symbol of the island state that appears on its license plate—has been extinct for nearly seven decades. But researchers behind that door are working to bring the animal back to life by cloning it, using DNA extracted from specimens preserved decades ago. Among other things, the work raises questions about the nature of extinction itself.
The Tasmanian tiger’s Latin designation, Thylacinus cynocephalus, or "dog-headed pouched-dog," makes it redundantly clear that the marsupial’s feline nickname is a misnomer. It comes from the dark striping on its back that runs nearly shoulder to tail. The animal had large, powerful jaws, which secured the predator a place atop the local food chain. Females carried their young in backward-facing pouches.
Thylacines, once spread throughout mainland Australia and as far north as New Guinea, were probably outcompeted for food by the dingoes that humans introduced to the area some 4,000 years ago, says Australian Museum director Mike Archer, founder of the cloning project. Eventually, thylacines remained only on the dingo-free island of Tasmania, south of the mainland. But with the arrival of European settlers in the 1800s, the marsupial’s days were numbered. Blamed (often wrongly) for killing livestock, the animals were hunted indiscriminately. The government made thylacines a protected species in 1936, but it was too late; the last specimen reportedly died in captivity the same year.
Read on... 

JESSICA TAYLOR PROVES THAT THE JOURNAL OF CRYPTOZOOLOGY VOL 2 ACTUALLYEXISTS!


THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS BACK IN THE JUG AGANE

The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
Things are beginning to get back to normal. Not only is my broadband working but it is faster than it has ever been. And (although I am probably tempting fate by writing this) it hasn't glitched out once. I went through over a thousand emails yesterday. Please - if you have written to me and are expecting a reply that hasn't arrived - can you re-write? It is quite possible that I deleted something that I shouldn't have done, and I would hate you to think that I did it on purpose.
On another good note. Volume Two of The Journal of Cryptozoology came out yesterday. The European, Japanese and British orders have been dispatched already. The UK ones will be sent out by Naomi West, and have been ordered for her, and the Australian ones will be sent out by Rebecca Lang (ditto). After weeks of highly frustrating (both for me and for everyone who ordered one) faffing about, it is all sorted. Hooray!

Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/01/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_16.html
Today's Track of the Day is by The Incredible String Band
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-gonzo-track-of-day-incredible.html
Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery 40th Anniversary
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/01/emerson-lake-palmers-brain-salad.html
Frank Zappa vs. Pierre Boulez: Winnipeg’s New Music Festival
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/01/frank-zappa-vs-pierre-boulez-winnipegs.html

*  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/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

* 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 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) - 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 orange cat?

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

Yesterday’s News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1970 Garth Ennis was born. Ennis is one of the UK's most well known comic-book writers, having been the second main writer of Judge Dredd and co-creator of Preacher.

And now the news:

  • Ants Protect Acacia Plants Against Pathogens
  • Oldest Hippo in US Dies
  • Marsupial Extinctions: Don't Blame the Dingoes (Op...
  • How the scorpion's venomous sting evolved
  • In Elephant Society, Matriarchs Lead (Op-Ed)
  • Brownfield sites proven to provide valuable habita...
  • Shark Species Thought to Be Extinct Found in Fish ...
  • Giant Squid Caught By Japanese Fishermen - via Sim...

  • Ghost of the Guadalupe Mountains - via Chad Arment...

  • Here's the trailer for the recent film adaptation of Dredd (ignore the Stallone one; it didn't happen) :
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbCfqGsXu3M