In the image, the animal is clearly a sloth missing most of its fur and note the visible sloth-like claw on its forefoot. However, it’s still an eerie image. Read more at HuffingtonPost
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These chupacabra carcasses, which keep turning up, resemble a hairless dog or coyote. In fact, in 2007, a supposable chupacabra was revealed to be a hairless coyote. More from the BBC:
US scientists say an animal found in Texas is not the chupacabra – or goat-sucker – of American myth, but a coyote with a hair loss problem.
DNA tests on the carcass found at a ranch south-east of San Antonio yielded a virtually identical match to coyote DNA, biologist Mike Forstner said.
The coyote was one of three found dead by rancher Phylis Canion this summer.
Central American myth has long spoken of a vampire-like creature that slays livestock by sucking out their blood.
The chupacabra is said to attack its victims at night, leaving a trail of carcasses with their throats torn out.
Mr Forstner said that he himself had assumed the creature brought in for testing at Texas State University was a domestic dog but “the DNA sequence is a virtually identical match to DNA from the coyote”.
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A Loch Ness monster-type object was recently captured via Google Earth. For centuries, eyewitnesses claim that a large aquatic creature inhabits Scotland’s Loch Ness, and many folks believe the Loch Ness Monster is a plesiosaur.
Plesiosaurs existed millions of years before, “appear[ing] at the start of the Jurassic Period and thriv[ing] until the K-T extinction, at the end of the Cretaceous Period.” However, Loch Ness is a relatively new body of water, so “plesiosaurs could not have survived in Loch Ness since the age of dinosaurs, because for much of that time, it was a solid block of ice.”
Obviously, many other reptile groups survived mass extinction events like the crocodilians in addition to turtles and tortoises. Furthermore, fish such as sharks and the coelacanths survived mass extinction events as well. Ultimately, however, the possibility of large creatures remaining relatively unnoticed in areas inhabited by humans is very slim. Bigfoot is an excellent example. Certainly, the more remote and unexplored the landscape (or waterbody), then the greater the possibility that such creatures may exist. However, Loch Ness couldn’t be characterized as unexplored.
Loch Ness does connect to the Atlantic Ocean, so some people believe large ocean creatures could have reached Loch Ness via the various connections between the Atlantic and Loch Ness. However, there’s another problem: cold-blooded marine reptiles prefer to inhabit warmer waters, and Loch Ness is very cold. Alternatively, the Loch Ness monster could be a warm-blooded prehistoric whale, but the Loch Ness monster’s description doesn’t fit most known species of prehistoric cetaceans from the fossil record.
Biologically, Loch Ness contains an ample supply of food—fish—to support a small population of large carnivorous creatures. However, Loch Ness has been described as not being very nutrient rich as well: “Loch Ness is . . . very unproductive, [since] there are very, very few chemical nutrients, fertilizers to start the food chain off. And the little microscopic plants have got another problem, as well. There’s very little light penetration . . .” Furthermore, given the scant sightings and available food supply, the population of these supposable creatures seems small, so maintaining genetic viability is another factor working against the existence of some type of large creature in Loch Ness.
What is the Loch Ness monster? Although I want to believe that prehistoric plesiosaurs or some type of prehistoric cetacean shyly exists in Loch Ness, the likelihood is seems nil. Nonetheless, whatever it or they may be, fascinating images—like those from Google Earth—have been produced of “Nessie” over the years. The image can be viewed on Google Earth here or below.
Video via WCBD
Thalassomedon image via Wikipedia
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A New Hampshire lobsterman made a very rare discovery in his lobster trap—a blue lobster! Apparently (and the numbers vary according to source), “only one in five million [American lobsters (Homarus americanus)] are blue.” The lobsterman donated his rare find to New Hampshire’s Seacoast Science Center. More on blue lobsters from The New York Times
One lobster in a million is blue, and the reason is not that it has been holding its breath.
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In the blue lobsters, a genetic mutation has caused an overabundance of the astaxanthin-wrapping proteins, tying up all of the red astaxanthin into blue crustacyanin. Lobstermen in Maine find a blue lobster every year or two, and such rarities generally find their way to aquariums.
But a blue lobster would make an unremarkable meal. Heat breaks down the astaxanthin-wrapping protein, destroying the blue pigment. In other words, on a dinner plate, a blue lobster would probably be just like any other lobster: red.
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