Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Croc?

Very hot weather in Swansea today but further investigations in last few days have revealed nlo trace nor have thee been any reports. However you can now watch online the CFZ Guyana expedition from November last year film report 1 hour 40 mins of it . They looked for three elusive, potentially lethal, and hitherto undiscovered animals.
The Giant Anaconda, The Didi, The Water Tiger

Find out more here.

It is interesting that the CFZ team not only saw Cayman being roasted on a fire in the expedition but also heard rumours of a new species as Jon Downes reports:

Ernest told them of another potential cryptid – and this, to the best of our knowledge – has never been reported before in the annuls of cryptozoology. He is very familiar with Cuvier’s dwarf cayman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus) – the smallest known species of the Alligatoridae, reaching a maximum size of a mere 1.5 metres. However, on two occasions, he has seen a tiny cayman, much smaller than the dwarf cayman, brown in colour, with a red stripe down its back. It bellowed loudly, and most peculiarly, he reported it has having two tails.

The expedition’s driver said that he had seen these creatures as well, and Ernest took them to a cave system near a river where he claims that these creatures live.

The team explored these caves, and although they found nothing in there, Richard – who is, after all, a crocodilian expert, and was, at one time, Head of Reptiles at Twycross Zoo in the West Midlands of England - says that, in his opinion, these caves are eminently suitable for a small crocodilian to aestivate in during the harsh months of the dry summer. For those of you not in the known, aestivation is basically the polar opposite of hibernation; going into a semi-dormant or dormant state to escape extremes of hot weather.

We suggested that the seemingly insoluble problem of the creature being reported with two tails could perhaps be indicative of it not being a cayman at all, but being some kind of huge salamander. When the tails of salamanders and newts have been injured, they sometimes grow back double. But then again, so do those of some lizards, so for the moment this must remain an enigma. However, it is an enigma which we hope will not stay that way for long. Richard and the team are going back to see Ernest this evening for dinner and we hope that they will be able to get some more information from him.

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