Here on Weird Things, we’ve talked quite a bit about the strange history of animal (and human) experimentation for the benefit of medical science. But it would be silly to suggest that there aren’t strange trails that persist to this day.

For example, Taser International is seeking to test how harmful their products are when law enforcement uses them on subjects with elevated heart rates after methamphetamine intake. The solution? Find a bunch of sheep, jack ’em up on speed and taze them ’till they bleet.

Because of the prevalence of methamphetamine abuse worldwide, it is not uncommon for subjects in law enforcement encounters to be methamphetamine-intoxicated. Methamphetamine has been present in arrest-related death cases in which an electronic control device (ECD) was used. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the cardiac effects of an ECD in a methamphetamine intoxication model.

The results? Smaller animals saw more of an effect when zapped while high but larger sheep did not. None died.

However, this surely won’t stop someone from writing “Don’t Taze Me, Baaaaaah!” on a sandwhich board and while handing out literature in front of Taser International HQ in the next two weeks.

[Academic Emergency Medicine]

[io9]

What with all the earthquake news recently, it might be time to start stocking up on toads.

This from The BBC.

Common toads appear to be able to sense an impending earthquake and will flee their colony days before the seismic activity strikes.

The evidence comes from a population of toads which left their breeding colony three days before an earthquake that struck L’Aquila in Italy in 2009.

How toads sensed the quake is unclear, but most breeding pairs and males fled.

The study does not pin down exactly how the male toads knew when to skeedaddle but is anyone not in favor to all least tying a bell to every toad you see from here on out? When you hear the massive jingling, you know it is time to hit the bricks.

[BBC Earth News]

What’s more awesome than a giant ancient crocodile? A really giant snake that ate it for lunch.

A 60-million-year-old relative of crocodiles described recently by University of Florida researchers in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology was likely a food source for Titanoboa, the largest snake the world has ever known.

link: Ancient crocodile relative likely food source for Titanoboa, largest snake ever known

Florida is under attack from giant snakes. If that’s not bad enough, in a turn fit for the SyFy channel, authorities now worry that different breeds of python may be merging together into some new kind of “super snake”. From the Sun-Sentinel:

…state environmental officials worry that the rock python could breed with the Burmese python, which already has an established foothold in the Everglades. That could lead to a new “super snake,”…

The rock python, native to Africa is know for eating crocodiles and even children. If it breeds with the more common Burmese python, the hybrid could end up being even meaner and larger than either individual species.

The semi-good news is that the cold weather is bringing them out into the open and killing a few off. The bad news is that we might be left with really hardy snakes seeking out warm places. Did we mention that Weird Things HQ is located in Florida right off a canal?

link: Pythons in Everglades: African rock pythons add to worries about snakes in Everglades – South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

In the Michael Crichton book Congo and movie by the same name, he describes a race of super-apes almost on par with man in intelligence. Like much of Crichton’s work, he based this on science speculation. For thousands of years there have been stories of ape-men that fell outside our conventional definitions of humans, gorillas, chimps and orangutan.

In 500 BC, Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian explorer described this encounter off the Western coast of Africa:

At the terminus of Hanno’s voyage the explorer found an island heavily populated with what were described as hirsute and savage people. Attempts to capture the males failed, but three of the females were taken. These were so vicious they were killed, and their skins preserved for transport home to Carthage.

The name the intrepreters gave for them was “gorillae”. 2,000 years later explorers would use that word to describe modern day gorillas. But were they gorillas? Hanno described finding these “savage people” in a place far from where gorillas are known to inhabit (the historical version of the story is in Greek and not Hanno’s native Punic, suggesting it’s been repeatedly rewritten). Taking it at face value, it could be that Hanno found an isolated group of gorillas that went extinct. But if it was a distinct population of gorillas on that island, it’s very likely it was a unique species of gorilla with its own behaviors and characteristics (gorillas are now divided into two distinct species with two subspecies each).

By 1847, after the gorilla had been discovered by the West, we had a clearer picture of the major ape species: Humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutan. But since then stories of other species have persisted.

The 19th Century French-American explorer Paul du Chaillu described a species of ape whose behavior doesn’t quite describe what we know about chimpanzees or gorillas.

This ape, whose singular cry distinguishes at once from all its cougeners in these wilds, is remarkable, as bearing a closer resemblance to man than any other ape yet known. It is very rare and I was able to obtain but one specimen of it. The face is bare and black. the forehead is higher than any other ape, and the cranial capacity greater by measurement. The eyes are wider apart than any other ape. The nose is flat. The cheek bones are high and prominent, and the cheek sunken and lank. The sides of the face are covered with a growth of straight hair, which meeting under the chin like the human whiskers, gives the face a remarkably human look. The arms reach below the knee. The ears are very larger, and are more nearly like the human ear than those of other apes.

Saying that it was a “gorilla” or a “chimpanzee” isn’t as helpful of a classification as we might think. Natural history museums are filled with interesting specimens that push the boundaries of gorilla and chimpanzee taxonomy, but are still within those boundaries. A skull and a DNA test can tell us something about how a creature lived, but not the whole picture. A modern day Dane and a pygmy bushmen look about as different as you could imagine, but genetically they’re the same species.

Science encounters a lost race of apes
The idea that of a living chimpanzee or gorilla species with much different physical and behavioral traits (like the gorillas in Congo) got a big boost from the scientific community when credible reports began emerging from the Congo of a large ape that displayed both chimp and gorilla like behavior.

Shelley Williams PhD, a specialist in primate behavior had this encounter with the “Bili Apes” in the Congo: From Wikipedia

“We could hear them in the trees, about 10 m away, and four suddenly came rushing through the brush towards me. If this had been a mock charge they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet, and they were huge. They were coming in for the kill – but as soon as they saw my face they stopped and disappeared.”

Williams continues:

“The unique characteristics they exhibit just don’t fit into the other groups of apes,” says Williams. The apes, she argues, could be a new species unknown to science, a new subspecies of chimpanzee, or a hybrid of the gorilla and the chimp. “At the very least, we have a unique, isolated chimp culture that’s unlike any that’s been studied,”.

Genetically, evidence indicates the Bili Apes are identical with known chimpanzees. But there’s more to physiology and behavior than what’s encoded in the genes. While there are conflicting reports about the physical traits of the Bili Apes, the consensus is that they are larger than common chimps and much bolder.

Presently they are threatened by bush meat hunters and gold miners who are encroaching into their habitat.

Conclusion
With the verification that there is indeed a Bili Ape that has its own distinct behavior and appearance, it’s a reasonable hypothesis that there have been other species and sub-species of chimpanzee and gorilla in historic times with their own particular behavior and physiology that have since gone extinct.

That some of these were smart or closer to humans in behavior is not an unreasonable speculation. Given the friction that exists today between humans in the region and other humans as well as primates, it’s not hard to imagine their extinction being at least human influenced.

So if there was a race of super-apes, chances are we killed them. It’s the Planet of the Apes in reverse…

Bili Ape – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From myth to reality – meet the chimps who eat lions

The story of a faraway island still inhabited by legendary creatures has been a captivating idea since before Homer wrote down the Odyssey. Recent incarnations include the works of Jules Verne and stories like King Kong, Jurassic Park and recently Where the Wild Things Are.

When we think of fascinating creatures we tend to put them into two categories, those that came before recorded history and those that came after and are mostly still around. While we can comprehend recent extinction and acknowledge that our caveman ancestors dealt with beasts that are no longer around, we tend to think of things having been the status quo since we started writing stuff down – with the exception of a dodo bird or two.

The truth is a little bit weirder. A number of fantastical creatures continued on well into recorded history and only vanished quite recently. Oddly enough, many of these creatures survived on remote islands (this isolation might explain why they survived as long as they did).

Here’s a list of amazing beasts that survived in remote places well into historical and almost modern times. Some are sure things, others are a little far-fetched. All are just as plausible as another.

The last Wooly Mammoth died on Wrangel Island (Near Russia) probably around 1,700 BCE – close to the reign of Ramesses the Great and over 1,000 years after the Sphinx was built.

The Elephant Bird was a giant bird (a ratite to be precise) native to Madagascar that went extinct in the 1600’s. At 10 feet tall and close to 1,000 pounds in weight, this was no dainty emu. Given what we now know about dinosaurs and their relation to birds, this is one scary creature.

Megalania was a giant monitor lizard that may have survived into historic times. At 26 feet long and 4,000 lb in weight, it’d be the closest you’d come to seeing something that looked like a classical depiction of a dinosaur. Some cryptozoologists claim recent sighting as evidence that that there may be populations still alive in New Guinea and Australia.

The Giant Hutia was a large rodent that got as large as 440 lb – as big as an American Black Bear. Indigenous to the West Indies it may have been hunted to extinction by aboriginal humans but some may have lived into historic times. One smaller species may have survived as late as when the Spanish explored the Caribbean.

Homo floresiensis – “The Flores Man” or “Hobbit” was a possible distinct humanoid species that is believed to have died out 12,000 years ago. However local folklore about creatures called “Ebu Gogo” that match the description of these creatures suggests that they may have existed as recently as the late 19th century.

Sea Monsters are awesome. What’s even more awesome than that? Live blogging your investigation of said sea monster in 1855! How is that even possible? In 1855 the New York Times was on the cutting edge of tech journalism utilizing telegraphs and locomotives to report the news live from the scene:

Having received this morning very private information, a vague account of the discovery of another sea-serpent near our city, we immediately dispatched seventeen of our reporters to the spot, having first “chartered” the “exclusive” right of the telegraph, and eleven locomotives.

By securing an communications connection via telegraph, reporters were able to send back a blow-by-blow account of their investigation as it unfolded.

Two minutes past 10 o’clock A.M – Serpent’s head seen – struck at one of the party with a stick – blow missed – terrible splashing.

One o’clock P.M. – Serpent showing himself frequently; struck at by Zedekiah Hornbush; club hit Zeke Williams; fight; puddle very rily.

Two o’clock P.M. – Serpent hit by a boy with a stone; dove when hit with a triple bellow – (that sounded as if it came from a neighboring pasture,) rose to surface again; hit by Dutchman; blood flowing from Serpent’s nose; awful scene; contortions of reptile; final capture.

What was this mysterious creature that Zedekiah and Zeke fearlessly confronted with their clubs? The report doesn’t quite get into specifics other than to say it may be of the “Garter” species – which suggests that it’s what we call a Garter snake today. They point out that there is no doubt he was in some relation to the Serpent that tempted Eve, “as he looks very wicked”. Wicked indeed. Remember this was four years before Darwin published The Origin of Species.

The story is a fascinating read and well worth checking out: Sea-Serpent in Wisconsin–another Monster–Terrible… – View Article – The New York Times

Inspired by this and recent accounts of a nearby sea monster, the Weird Things staff is contemplating live blogging its own expedition to find such a creature. We’ll keep you posted.

Apparently it’s snake week here at Weird Things, previously we reported on researchers discovering the stomping grounds of the largest snake ever, Titanboa. Now comes some fun news from the U.S. Geological Survey: We’re being invaded by giant snakes!

High-risk species—Burmese pythons, northern and southern African pythons, boa constrictors and yellow anacondas—put larger portions of the U.S. mainland at risk

It gets better!

Two of these species are documented as reproducing in the wild in South Florida, with population estimates for Burmese pythons in the tens of thousands.

That’s right, tens of thousands.

Just how long can a Burmese python get?

According to Wikipedia: A Burmese Python at the Serpent Safari Reptile Zoo in Gurnee, Illinois , USA was billed as the heaviest living snake in captivity. In 2005, it weighed 183 kilograms (403 lb) at a length of 8.2 metres (27 ft).

Get ready for thousands and thousands of giant snakes South Florida. Sidenote: Weird Things is looking for a desert climate to relocate to.

link: Science Daily: Report Documents Risks Of Giant Invasive Snakes In The United States

link: USGS Release: Report Documents the Risks of Giant Invasive Snakes in the U.S. (10/13/2009 12:00:00 PM)

Science Daily reports that a Smithsonian research team has uncovered the first megafossils of a neotropical rainforest.

Titanoboa, the world’s biggest snake, lived in this forest 58 million years ago at temperatures 3-5 C warmer than in rainforests today, indicating that rainforests flourished during warm periods.

While, modern day snakes have been measured over 30 feet in length, it’s been speculated that that the warmer climate contributed to Titanboa’s 42 foot length.

If 58 million years sounds like a good amount of distance to keep between you and a creature capable of swallowing you and all your friends whole, keep this in mind from a recent National Geographic article on the creature:

So could Titanoboa-size snakes return with global warming? “Maybe,” study co-author Jonathan Bloch said. “They definitely could, or maybe … the warming could happen so rapidly that [snakes] wouldn’t have time to adapt.”

Let’s hope this cooling trend continues.

link: First Neotropical Rainforest Was Home Of The Titanoboa — World’s Biggest Snake

link: VIDEO: Biggest Snake Found

Mark your calendars. August 31st, 2009 may have been the day the insects got the upper hand in their war against mankind.

Reportedly, a truck driver for the Minot Air Force Base 91st Missile Wing lost control of his vehicle when a “large insect” flew into the cab and (attacked) landed on his back.

When one solitary bug accomplishes what all of our enemies combined have been unable to do, it’s time to start buying Raid by the bulk.

‘Large insect’ sparked missile truck’s crash – Military- msnbc.com

Previously, this week, on Weird Things.

• A few tips for the novice Bigfoot hunter.

• Could the Son of Sam, a UFO investigating Air Force base and the birth of popular science fiction have helped create the Dover Demon?

• Michael Jackson may be dead, but his ghost is on a world tour.

• What happens, when myriad ghosts, have chosen to haunt a house, stop beings polite and start getting real? They say some really kooky stuff, that’s what.

• Rhode Island has never had a Bigfoot sighting, but that might be about to change.

Enjoy the weekend, as always, send weird photos, stories, sounds and happenings to JustinRobertYoung@Gmail.

Above is a stabilized version of the latest purported video of Champ the Monster of Lake Champlain. Compare that to the video of a common fresh water otter below, and the mystery of Lake Champlain starts to unravel. Check out the updated investigation on Cryptomundo.com, complete with enhanced videos of the sighting.

The Ishikawa region of central Japan has been receiving downpours of baby frogs this month. A number of cities, including Nanao and Hakusan have experienced hundreds of tadpoles falling from the sky.

The bizarre rain is a rare meteorological phenomena that has occurred before in many parts of the globe. The animals are usually fish or frogs and are often alive when they fall to the ground. Scientists have yet to explain the cause of this baffling occurrence, but one hypotheses suggests that the fish and frogs are swept up in strong winds from waterways before being dumped on the cars of unsuspecting Japanese businessmen.

photo credit: phoenixlily

Portobello Aquarium, New Zealand: Sid the Octopus is finally set free after several successful escape attempts from his tank. An article in The Independent reports on his daring escape attempts:

Octopuses are some of the smartest creatures in the animal kingdom, it’s what makes them such good escape artists. Not having a spine doesn’t hurt either.

You can run Penguins, you can hide, but we will always know where you are, because you are swimming birds that poop a lot. We think we can count this as another unconsidered negative effect of being a flightless bird.

photo credit: nicely85

Glowing Monkeys: The gift that all of us have always wanted but never dared admit it. Now our collective dream has become a reality. We are Weirdthings are pleased to announce that Japanese scientists have created transgenic glowing monkeys. Check it out.