–At the Singapore Zoo, the fur of their 13-year-old polar bear and her son turned green due to harmless algae growth in their hollow hair shafts. Polar bears appear white because normally these shafts reflect light.
—The treatment?–Hydrogen peroxide bleaching!
–Of cryptids there is conjecture, but Gigantopithecus really existed! An extinct species of ape, Gigantopithecus made the scene from roughly a million years ago to perhaps as recently as 300,000 years ago…and some would say that he’s still out there kicking. Gigantopithecus hung out in ancient China, India, and Vietnam, some say even making it to North America via a land bridge. He existed in the same time frame and location as several hominid species, and is thought to have stood up to 10 feet tall, weighing up to 1,200 pounds.
Gigantopithecus remains in the form of molars were found in 1935 in a Chinese apothecary shop, where fossilized teeth and bones (termed dragon bones) were often ground into powder and consumed in some branches of traditional Chinese folk medicine; good for what ails ‘ya! Several jawbones and over 1,000 teeth have been recovered.
MonsterQuest has profiled Gigantopithecus, reviewing accounts of those who have witnessed “really big apes,” one of which in a merry sport is reported to have thrown pinecones at a guy for 45 minutes; gotta love the big ape! By the reckoning of some, Bigfoot may be a relative of Gigantopithecus that has endured into the present day…
–Fringe (after “Fringe Science”) is a new show on Fox whose pilot debuted September 9th that promises to delve into the paranormal outskirts of science, and appears to deliver. If you liked The X-Files, you’ll probably enjoy Fringe, which even includes a female FBI agent, Olivia Dunham, played by Anna Torv. A creation of J.J. Abrams, the show mixes horror, thrills, and comedy, and is reminiscent not only of X-Files but also The Twilight Zone, The Night Stalker, Twin Peaks, and even the movie, Altered States.
Just when people were overcoming their jitters about flying, the opening episode commenced with a jet in a thunderstorm suddenly stricken with a flesh-eating condition that transformed everyone on board into a juicy cadaver. The jet lands on auto-pilot, where it is descended upon by FBI, CIA, and other operatives in hazmat suits. Acting, writing, photography, and atmospherics of the show were excellent, keeping the audience on edge and keeping you wanting more.
This is not a “furry” themed show, but as this blog often touches on the strange and the unexplained, fans of the same may have a winner to watch here; Fringe is well-worth a look! In the 1990’s the X-Files told us that the truth is out there. In 2008, Fringe teaches that everything is part of a pattern. Upcoming episodes promise to get into topics like precognition, teleportation, and other cool stuff…I’m in!!!
–Artists who have worked with animal themes are not all contemporary. One of the best was Franz Marc (1880-1916), whose work The Fox (1913) is shown here. He was one of the principal painters of the German Expressionist movement, and his work was influenced by futurism and cubism. Franz Marc also had a strong affinity for the work of Vincent van Gogh. Most of his mature work portrays animals, usually in natural settings. His work is characterized by bright primary color, an almost cubist portrayal of animals, stark simplicity, and a profound sense of emotion. Regretably, Franz Marc was killed in 1916 in World War I.
That Franz Marc was a furry spirit is illustrated in this quote:“I found people ugly very early on; animals seemed to me more beautiful.”
–Two paws up for Franz Marc, and they couldn’t be higher! 😀
–Monster truck rallies can be good brainless fun, and the customization of some of these vehicles is extraordinary. — Just wanted to share this example of a furry monster truck! Others styled like dogs can have floppy ears, a tail, and a tongue…it ain’t Shakespeare, but it’s fun to see these huge vehicles sailing through the air…and it’s probably no coincidence that many of the best-selling vehicles have carried the names of animals…
(<sighs for the return of the Volkswagon Fox…>)
—Mokele-Mbembe is a dinosaur-like cryptic creature living in and around the Congo. The name translates as, “one who stops the flow of rivers.” The creature is thought of as a sauropod that managed to avoid extinction. Pygmies indigenous to the area also ascribe some magical powers to the beast.
The first sighting of this cryptid was in 1776, but most eyewitness reports occurred during the 20th century. The legend of Mokele-Mbembe has inspired a lot of fiction, including the Disney film, Baby.
—Destination Truth reports the existence of a Cambodian wildman, an ape-like man who goes about naked with long hair and a sword (a guy could get into that!). The remote area of the appearances is rich in legends of wild men living in the forest. This guy is not Bigfoot as he also sports tattoos, and Bigfoot doesn’t work with a sword.
It gets better in that a young naked woman was also seen with the guy. She was captured as the duo lurked around the fringes of a village to steal food; the wildman escaped capture. The feral girl was reunited with her biological father, who identified her from a scar she had acquired before her disappearance 18 years ago. The language skills of the girl were poor, and she supposedly didn’t communicate much verbally with the wildman (guys aren’t much for conversation, anyhow). After being given a bad haircut and living with her father in civilization for about ten months, the girl again escaped into the forest, and has not been seen since.
A likely explanation is that the wildman escaped from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia about 20 years ago, and has never bothered returning to civilization…kinda like those handful of Japanese soldiers in isolated locations who continued to fight World War II for years after it ended…
— Hehe, Mongolian Death Worms are cryptids reported to exist in the Gobi desert of Mongolia. They are supposedly two to five feet long (not as big as a sand worm from Dune), reddish in color, and kinda look like intestines. More intriguingly, they are said to be able to spit sulfuric acid, and can kill at distances by electrocution! — Gotta get me some of these puppies for my backyard!
The most recent expedition in search of these creepy-crawlies was conducted by the reality TV series Destination Truth in 2006-07. This show would appear to be the SciFi channel’s answer to the History Channel’s MonsterQuest. In searching the Gobi Desert at night for the Death Worms, they found a tunnel of some sort on the sand. As this might be the lair of a creature that can spit sulfuric acid and electrocute prey, the intrepid investigators did what any of us would do…they plunged their arms into the presumed worm hole! Soil from these holes tested normal rather than acidic…
— Hope you weren’t eating; I’ve got some “thing” to show you! This “thing” was washed up off a remote island by Alaska in early August 2008. The island was very remote and the sea too rough for the “thing” to be inspected up close, and so it was photographed from a boat. The question arises, what is this thing? Possible answers include an aborted Beluga whale fetus, a decomposed elephant seal, or a ray. We may never know now what this “thing” is (or was), since it is likely to have been carried away since its discovery. Post-mortem identification of species remains can be challenging due to rapid decomposition and predation, if you’re lucky enough to get ahold of anything at all…
–No, we’re not talking about Big Bird, that mellow yellow fellow with the endocrine problem universally endeared to children on Sesame Street. This is about cryptic birds big enough to carry away small children, as reportedly happened in Lawndale, Illinois in 1977. At that time, a 4′ tall boy weighing 56 lbs. was reportedly carried 35 feet by an enormous black bird with a white ring around its neck. The bird was said to have had a 4-1/2 foot body, and each wing of the bird exclusive of the body measured 4 feet. The boy pounded at the bird and was eventually dropped after having been carried that 35′ distance; he was physically unharmed, but suffered psychological problems afterwards. The bird came to be referred to as the Lawndale Thinderbird, after the enormous birds of Native American legend…
FOXSYLVANIA 
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