Guest ZeTomes Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 (edited) THE NEWS: 'Monster Shark' Chomps Into Great White By Richard Shears Last updated at 11:00 AM on 28th October 2009 A giant shark that could be up to 20ft long has sent shockwaves across Australian beaches after a great white was nearly bitten in half. A stunning picture shows a 10ft predator thrashing about with two massive chunks missing on either side of its body, off the Queensland coast. Experts said its rival may be 20ft (about six metres) long, judging by the size of the huge bites. The great white after being savaged at sea (Pic: Courier Mail) Surfer Ashton Smith, 19, of the Gold Coast, told the Courier Mail: "I've heard about the big one lurking. Every surfer is always cautious over here."Drum lines and shark nets are used to defend swimmers from sea predators, but they have been criticised for occasionally trapping migrating whales. We're going to need a bigger boat: The remains of a 10ft great white shark that was bitten nearly in half by what authorities. Judging from the size of the bite marks - estimated was a 20ft monster (source ) Fisheries minister Tim Mulherin told the Mail that the capture of the bitten shark, and the indication of a larger one feeding in the area, bolstered the decision to keep defences in place. He added there were no special plans to hunt the attacking shark but contractors had reset the drum lines. (read original article here) Edited July 22, 2011 by ZeTomes
Guest rockinkt Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 I am asking in complete ignorance here. I doubt your opinion of Bigfoot is right but I certainly respect your opinion. You seem to have some negative mojo that goes beyond what could be rationally expected as far as a giant cryptic hominid goes. I don't know where that comes from. It isn't like I don't completely understand that attitude as far as that goes and I would probably share it if not for personal experience but I am very curious what are the other mythical cryptids. Just give a couple of the cryptids if you don't mind. It certainly seems to be germane to this thread. What are you talking about? Seriously. My first comment was on the link posted by LAL with the title "Ten Beasts That Used To Be Mythical". If you cannot go to that link and quickly find some factual errors and the absurd logic used in more than a couple of cases - I will be very surprised. http://listverse.com/2010/04/16/10-beasts-that-used-to-be-mythical/ Here's just one example: The site claims that the Chinese people didn't believe in Giant Pandas. Actually, 2400 years ago, Chinese Emperors were buried with Giant Panda skulls and in the 7th Century they were giving Giant Panda skins to visiting Japanese dignitaries. OK - another one: Tigers were a myth even though they were captured live and brought to Rome for sport and display 2000 years ago???
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 http://listverse.com...to-be-mythical/ Didn't notice the link posted by LAL Gonna take a better look into it.
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 (edited) What are you talking about? Seriously. My first comment was on the link posted by LAL with the title "Ten Beasts That Used To Be Mythical". If you cannot go to that link and quickly find some factual errors and the absurd logic used in more than a couple of cases - I will be very surprised. http://listverse.com...to-be-mythical/ Here's just one example: The site claims that the Chinese people didn't believe in Giant Pandas. Actually, 2400 years ago, Chinese Emperors were buried with Giant Panda skulls and in the 7th Century they were giving Giant Panda skins to visiting Japanese dignitaries. OK - another one: Tigers were a myth even though they were captured live and brought to Rome for sport and display 2000 years ago??? Yup, you're right, just by seeing the examples you referred it's possible to confirm the use of conjectures presented as facts in the construction of the myth behind the creature. Although it's factual that many, if not all of the animals posted there as ex-cryptids (I didn't read the article completely) were indeed cryptids once for certain cultures. Edited July 22, 2011 by ZeTomes
Guest rockinkt Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 Yup, you're right, just by seeing the examples you referred it's possible to confirm the use of conjectures presented as facts in the construction of the myth behind the creature. Although it's factual that many, if not all of the animals posted there as ex-cryptids (I didn't read the article completely) were indeed cryptids once for certain cultures. Based on the logic used in that list - any animal that was not native to your community could be called a myth or cryptid if you went back far enough in time.
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 22, 2011 Posted July 22, 2011 (edited) Based on the logic used in that list - any animal that was not native to your community could be called a myth or cryptid if you went back far enough in time. You may say that, but you have to add it the axis of time (lenght), distance, antagonistic features to the other culture, geographical perimeter (taking in consideration that specific habitats produce specific features - New Zealand, Australia, Galappagos, etc - in terms of known evolution or the contrast with known paradigms, either taxonomy or evolution - Pavos were considered to be a real headache in evolution terms). Also in terms of considerable amounts of time and at specific historical periods where knowledge was substituted by superstition or not. One thing are myths, rumors, another the fusion of real creatures with religious attributions (elephant, tiger, panda, etc), another hoaxes or adaptations of fantastic creatures to reality (mermaids, japanese monsters) and another is what West initially thought to be one of those possibilities a priori excluding the reality of it - this applies to the intention of the list, although I just took a brief look at the examples you gave. Cryptozoology is a very modern term. Gorillas, ocapis, orangutans, Platypus, were indeed "cryptids" for westerns in the concept that they were only thought to be fantastic creatures or hoaxes, i.e., that they only belonged to the realm of the fantastic. You can read Marco Polo 's works to confirm that many species were considered to be false by western opinion although indeed many of them were also proved to be false. Platypus: When the platypus was first encountered by Europeans in 1798, a pelt and sketch were sent back to Great Britain by Captain John Hunter, the second Governor of New South Wales.[4] British scientists' initial hunch was that the attributes were a hoax.[5] George Shaw, who produced the first description of the animal in the Naturalist's Miscellany in 1799, stated that it was impossible not to entertain doubts as to its genuine nature, and Robert Knox believed it might have been produced by some Asian taxidermist.[5] It was thought that somebody had sewn a duck's beak onto the body of a beaver-like animal. Shaw even took a pair of scissors to the dried skin to check for stitches.[6] Okapis: The animal was brought to prominent European attention by speculation on its existence found in popular press reports covering Henry Morton Stanley's journeys in 1887. Remains of a carcass were later sent to London by the English adventurer and colonial administrator Harry Johnston and became a media event in 1901.[2] Today there are approximately 10,000–20,000 in the wild and as of 2011, 42 different institutions display them worldwide.[3][4] The okapi was known to the ancient Egyptians; shortly after its discovery by Europeans, an ancient carved image of the animal was discovered in Egypt.[10] Although the okapi was unknown to the Western world until the 20th century, it was possibly depicted 2,500 years ago on the facade of the Apadana, at Persepolis, as a gift from the Ethiopian procession to the Achaemenid kingdom.[11] Pandas: Western "discovery" The West first learned of the giant panda in 1869 because the French missionary Armand David[39] received a skin from a hunter on 11 March 1869. The first Westerner known to have seen a living giant panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first Westerners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live giant panda, a cub named Su Lin[50] who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. In 1938, five giant pandas were sent to London;[51][52] these activities were later halted because of wars and for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas. Edited July 23, 2011 by ZeTomes
BobZenor Posted July 23, 2011 Posted July 23, 2011 Chinese villagers mistake atrophied ape for alien..
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 23, 2011 Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Great White Shark - part 1 Do you expect me to believe these demoniac creatures attack boats because they get their electromagnetic sensors confused by the boat's electrical instrumental interference and that they even aren't that fond of human flesh because humans are too much skinny and bonny for their digestive standards? They too usually confuse surf boards with seals giving just a "lover bite" for analyses purposes, for properly identifying unidentified floating objects (UFOs)? What, these monsters are sometimes preyed by Orcas by suffocation refined methods, and after these selachian have exquisite meals eating their livers ??!! You must be a sick shark-lover, I'm out of here and you should get a therapist! Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) Local names (Hawai): Kamohoalii (shark) Common name: Great White; Great White; Great White Shark Technical name (Genus + Species): Carcharodon Carcharias etymology (Carcharodon): Ancient Greek κάÏχαÏος (karcharos, "sharp, jagged") + ὀδών (odÅn, "tooth") etymology (Charcarias): Ancient Greek καÏχαÏίας (karcharias, “sharkâ€) Taxonomy (Species): Carolus Linnaeus,1758 (Systema Naturae) Taxonomy (Genus): Andrew Smith, 1838 (not included in his most famous work Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa , I think) Size: max known ~7m (23f) (although it's subject of discussion) Vestiges des Temps Jadis Age: Mid-Miocene epoch (16 MM years old) Distribution: Great white sharks live in almost all coastal and offshore waters which have water temperature between 12 and 24 °C (54 and 75 °F), with greater concentrations in the United States (Atlantic Northeast and California), South Africa, Japan, Australia (especially New South Wales and South Australia), New Zealand, Chile, and the Mediterranean.One of the densest known populations is found around Dyer Island, South Africa where much shark research is conducted. IUCN status (International Union for Conservation of Nature): vulnerable endangered by: Great white sharks are rare throughout their range. This, coupled with their low reproductive rates and persecution by humans means that the IUCN considers them vulnerable. Hunting and bycatch in commercial fisheries exerts significant pressure on great white shark populations and newer estimates may suggest that great white sharks should be considered endangered. trivial use: Threats to the species include targeted commercial and sports fisheries for jaws, fins, game records and for aquarium display; protective beach meshing; media-fanned campaigns to kill Great White Sharks after a biting incident occurs; and degradation of inshore habitats used as pupping and nursery grounds. Profile: Fusiform, robust body; snout conical, blunt, with nostrils on sides; mouth large, round; teeth on top jaw triangular, serrated; 5 large gill slits, all before pectoral fin; first dorsal fin large, triangular, origin over rear of base of pectoral fin; second dorsal fin very small; anal fin very small, origin under rear of base of second dorsal fin; tail almost symmetrical, half-moon shaped; tail base very depressed, with large keel that extends onto tail itself. Back grey-brown, blue-grey, to blackish; abrupt changing to white/pale grey belly; eye black; underside of tips of fins black, usually a black spot where rear edge of fin joins body. This mighty shark is often mistakenly thought of as the most voracious predator of the seas, and even has a reputation as a ferocious man-eater, something that sadly has been hugely exaggerated by the media. Their powerful body is supported by a cartilaginous skeleton (as opposed to the bone skeleton of most other vertebrates), is streamlined for efficient movement through the water, and has a pointed snout, two large, sickle-shaped pectoral fins and a large triangular first dorsal fin. The mouth is armed with an array of sharply pointed, serrated teeth; indeed the generic name is derived from the Greek word carcharos for ragged and odon for tooth. These sharks are grey or bronze on the upper surface of the body and are white underneath. They have an acute sense of smell and are able to sense electric fields through sensors in the snout. (to be continued) Sources: Wikipedia Enciclopedia of Life Memidex MyEtymology Wiktionary Biodiversity Heritage Library Vestiges des Temps Jadis IUCN - International Union for Conservation of Nature Edited July 23, 2011 by ZeTomes
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 23, 2011 Posted July 23, 2011 Chinese villagers mistake atrophied ape for alien.. Those mailonline guys... it's not an ape, almost fro certain is a lemur species, although It's very difficult to identify which one because of his malnourished condition. Perhaps a domesticated Greater Bamboo Lemur.
BobZenor Posted July 23, 2011 Posted July 23, 2011 I think it is actually a loris. I just copied the headline because I doubted the alien translation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_loris
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 23, 2011 Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) I think it is actually a loris. I just copied the headline because I doubted the alien translation. http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Slow_loris Good job, it seems indeed to be a Loris. Amazing creatures Edited July 23, 2011 by ZeTomes
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 23, 2011 Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Any clues, guesses for what this animal might be? Or if it is simply a hoax? My first impression was that this was real, a species of deep shark. I've seen this photo for a long time ago, but I wasn't able to find anything either dismissing it as a hoax or saying what species it was. I think the Latimeria suggestion doesn't quite fit on its aspect. According to this site : ...The fish was caught in a city called Balikesir, at the Edremit coast of Marmara Sea. It's 400 kg s and 2 meters long... The fish was later sent to Ege University where it was examined by Prof.Dr.Sumru Unal who named the species of the mystery fish " Latimeria"... I already contacted the university questioning about "Prof Sunru Unal", but without response. correction: Dr. Sumru Ãœnsal Edited July 23, 2011 by ZeTomes
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 23, 2011 Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) #News concerning the Marmara "monster" data Ege university site Dr. Sumru Ãœnsal (confirmation #that he works on and is the director of Ege university) Collection of Abstracts of the Fishing Gear Technology and Fish Behaviour Studies conducted in Turkish Waters (concerning Dr. Sumru Ãœnsal) new email sent to saum@mail.ege.edu.tr Edited July 24, 2011 by HRPuffnstuff Ze Tomes requested it to me via PM
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 28, 2011 Posted July 28, 2011 (edited) The News (Science Now): Diver Snaps First Photo of Fish Using Tools By Rebecca Kessler on 8 July 2011, 4:48 PM While exploring Australia's Great Barrier Reef, professional diver Scott Gardner heard an odd cracking sound and swam over to investigate. What he found was a footlong blackspot tuskfish (Choerodon schoenleinii) holding a clam in its mouth and whacking it against a rock. Soon the shell gave way, and the fish gobbled up the bivalve, spat out the shell fragments, and swam off. Fortunately, Gardner had a camera handy and snapped what seem to be the first photographs of a wild fish using a tool. Lucky shots. The first photos of a tool-using fish in the wild show a blackspot tuskfish banging a clam against a rock to crack it open. Credit: Scott Gardner Tool use, once thought to be the distinctive hallmark of human intelligence, has been identified in a wide variety of animals in recent decades. Although other creatures don't have anything quite like a circular saw or a juice machine, capuchin monkeys select "hammer" rocks of an appropriate material and weight to crack open seeds, fruits, or nuts on larger "anvil" rocks, and New Caledonian crows probe branches with grass, twigs, and leaf strips to extract insects. In addition to primates and birds, many animals, including dolphins, elephants, naked mole rats, and even octopuses, have shown forms of the behavior. Tool-using fish have been few and far between, however, particularly in the wild. Archerfish target jets of water at terrestrial prey, but whether this constitutes tool use has been contentious. There have also been a handful of reports of fish cracking open hard-shelled prey, such as bivalves and sea urchins, by banging them on rocks or coral, but there's no photo or video evidence to back it up, according to Culum Brown, a behavioral ecologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and a co-author of the present paper, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Coral Reefs. A blackspot tuskfish off Australia has its mouth full as it carries a cockle to a nearby rock, against which the fish was seen repeatedly bashing the shellfish to get at the fleshy bits inside. The tuskfish caught on camera was clearly quite skilled at its task, "landing absolutely pinpoint blows" with the shell, Brown says. A scattering of crushed shells around its anvil rock suggests that Gardner didn't just stumble upon the fish during its original eureka moment. In fact, numerous such shell middens are visible around the reef. Blackspot tuskfish, members of the wrasse family, are popular food fish, so it's surprising that its shell-smashing behavior has remained unknown, Brown says. "My feeling is that when we go out and really look for it, it'll turn out to be common." "I absolutely loved it," says ethologist Michael Kuba of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem of the finding. Last year, Kuba and two colleagues documented stingrays in a laboratory forming jets of water with their bodies to flush food out of a pipe. But solid external objects like rocks are harder to dismiss as tools than water jets, Kuba says, and examples from the wild avoid concerns about whether a behavior elicited in the lab is "natural." Primatologist Elisabetta Visalberghi of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies in Rome is less convinced. Visalberghi, who documented the hammer-wielding monkeys, adheres to a stricter definition of tool use that requires the animal to hold or carry the tool itself, in this case the rock. "The form of tool use described [in tuskfish] is cognitively little demanding and present in a variety of species. Often it has been labeled as proto-tool use because the object used to open the shell is still, fixated to the sea bottom, and not portable as stone tools used to crack open nuts by chimpanzees or capuchin monkeys are," she writes in an e-mail. Seagulls dropping shellfish onto hard surfaces to crack them or lab rats pushing levers to get rewards would join tuskfish in the category of proto-tool—but not true tool—users. Brown acknowledges that exactly what constitutes tool use is controversial. But he argues that it's not logical to apply the same rules to fish as to primates or birds. For one thing, fish don't have anything but their mouths to manipulate tools with, and for another, water poses different physical limitations than air. "One of the problems with the definition of tool use as it currently stands is it's totally written for primates," he says. "You cannot swing a hammer effectively underwater." (read original article at Science Now) Edited July 28, 2011 by ZeTomes
Guest ZeTomes Posted July 28, 2011 Posted July 28, 2011 (edited) The News (NASA): Astronomers Find Largest, Most Distant Reservoir of Water could this mean that impossible creatures wouldn't be that scarce throughout the universe after all? By Whitney Clavin/Alan Buis on July 22, 2011 «Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away. Quasar Drenched in Water Vapor This artist's concept illustrates a quasar, or feeding black hole, similar to APM 08279+5255, where astronomers discovered huge amounts of water vapor. Gas and dust likely form a torus around the central black hole, with clouds of charged gas above and below. X-rays emerge from the very central region, while thermal infrared radiation is emitted by dust throughout most of the torus. While this figure shows the quasar's torus approximately edge-on, the torus around APM 08279+5255 is likely positioned face-on from our point of view. Image credit: NASA/ESA "The environment around this quasar is very unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water," said Matt Bradford, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times." Bradford leads one of the teams that made the discovery. His team's research is partially funded by NASA and appears in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. A quasar is powered by an enormous black hole that steadily consumes a surrounding disk of gas and dust. As it eats, the quasar spews out huge amounts of energy. Both groups of astronomers studied a particular quasar called APM 08279+5255, which harbors a black hole 20 billion times more massive than the sun and produces as much energy as a thousand trillion suns. Astronomers expected water vapor to be present even in the early, distant universe, but had not detected it this far away before. There's water vapor in the Milky Way, although the total amount is 4,000 times less than in the quasar, because most of the Milky Way's water is frozen in ice. Water vapor is an important trace gas that reveals the nature of the quasar. In this particular quasar, the water vapor is distributed around the black hole in a gaseous region spanning hundreds of light-years in size (a light-year is about six trillion miles). Its presence indicates that the quasar is bathing the gas in X-rays and infrared radiation, and that the gas is unusually warm and dense by astronomical standards. Although the gas is at a chilly minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius) and is 300 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere, it's still five times hotter and 10 to 100 times denser than what's typical in galaxies like the Milky Way. Measurements of the water vapor and of other molecules, such as carbon monoxide, suggest there is enough gas to feed the black hole until it grows to about six times its size. Whether this will happen is not clear, the astronomers say, since some of the gas may end up condensing into stars or might be ejected from the quasar. Bradford's team made their observations starting in 2008, using an instrument called "Z-Spec" at the California Institute of Technology's Submillimeter Observatory, a 33-foot (10-meter) telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Follow-up observations were made with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy (CARMA), an array of radio dishes in the Inyo Mountains of Southern California. The second group, led by Dariusz Lis, senior research associate in physics at Caltech and deputy director of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, used the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in the French Alps to find water. In 2010, Lis's team serendipitously detected water in APM 8279+5255, observing one spectral signature. Bradford's team was able to get more information about the water, including its enormous mass, because they detected several spectral signatures of the water. Other authors on the Bradford paper, "The water vapor spectrum of APM 08279+5255," include Hien Nguyen, Jamie Bock, Jonas Zmuidzinas and Bret Naylor of JPL; Alberto Bolatto of the University of Maryland, College Park; Phillip Maloney, Jason Glenn and Julia Kamenetzky of the University of Colorado, Boulder; James Aguirre, Roxana Lupu and Kimberly Scott of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Hideo Matsuhara of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Japan; and Eric Murphy of the Carnegie Institute of Science, Pasadena.» (read original article at NASA) Anyway, what's 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean after all...? peanuts! Now if you add several peanuts... you got pretty confused. Edited July 28, 2011 by ZeTomes
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