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Cryptids of Bernard Heuvelmans # 4
🕑 Added 2022-07-19 15:02:41 +0000 UTCThe slow work of compiling the giant cryptids montage continues in 'spare' time. Here are some recently completed carnivorans: they won't necessarily be closely positioned in the final thing, since Heuvelmans arranged the cryptids by geographical region, not phylogeny. I've grouped them together for this post only because it looks interesting. The animals shown in the montage above are -- remember that these are all from Heuvelmans's definitive 1986 list of 'creatures yet to be discovered'! -- are..
(1) The large, wolf-like canid reported from the Sahara, called the kelb-el-khela in Mauritania, and generally implied to be a wolf-like form (as depicted here). However, Heuvelmans referred to the 1928 work of Theodore Monod who established that this animal represents a range extension of the African hunting dog. I’m not sure what to make of the accounts given recent work showing that Grey wolves and a large, wolf-life form of the Golden jackal occur throughout North Africa’s deserts – isn’t it more likely that the accounts refer to those known canids?
(2) Small brown bears from the mountains of Morocco were suggested by Heuvelmans to have persisted to modern times, and perhaps be the same taxon as Pleistocene brown bears known from the region and the so-called Atlas bear, a controversial taxon named in 1844 but generally thought to have gone extinct in the late 1800s. This is the second bear I've finished (the other is the milne, at left here): by the time I've finished there will be several more...
(3) The Beast of Gévaudan -- yes, the legendary French predator, said to have attacked somewhere between 60 and c 600 people (sources differ!) between 1764 and 1767. Numerous identities have been suggested for La Bête, the most reasonable of which argue that it was an escaped lion or a population of Italian wolves. As you'll know if you've read The Cryptozoologicon, I'm especially fond of the fanciful idea that it was a giant unknown mustelid of novel sort (no, I do not take this seriously!), something suggested by the remarkable illustrations of the time...
(4) The Ile de Levant wildcat is a relatively large wildcat (as in, a member of the Felis lybica/F. catus complex), identified by people of the region (an islands off the coast of the Var, France) as a 'lynx', and said to reach 15 kg. Heuvelmans suggested that it's a new island-endemic subspecies of F. lybica.
(5) The Andean wolf, a long-haired, mountain-dwelling canid suggested to be a close relative of the Maned wolf and described as Dasocyon hagenbecki on the basis of a skull and skin examined in 1949 but purchased in Argentina (by German animal collector Lorenz Hagenbeck) in 1927. This, then, isn't really a cryptid at all, since cryptids are creatures known from anecdotal information, not actual specimens. The skull has been lost. The pelt has been examined several times and DNA results have been ambiguous. It's generally thought to be from a domestic dog though.
Ok, that's it for now. More soon! I'm quite excited about this project and think that the final product will be pretty neat. Thanks as always for your support :)
