KARL SHUKER
debunks a dessicated dinosaur and is thrilled by a rare porcine photo op
NOT A DECOMPOSED DINOSAUR
During mid-December 2017, the worldwide media contained many reports concerning the decomposed carcass of a fairly small creature that had been found at a long-abandoned sub-station in Uttarakhand, northern India. The reason why such an ostensibly insignificant find was attracting such attention, however, was the remarkable claim that this might be the desiccated corpse of a dinosaur! According to various original Indian news reports that were subsequently circulated and disseminated extensively in Western media accounts, it was a dinosaur-like fossil but with flesh still on its bones that had been found in mid-November by an electrician while cleaning out the sub-station, previously untouched for 35 years, in the small city of Jaspur. However, accompanying photos and a short video showed a creature that was clearly no fossil and certainly no dinosaur either, but rather a mummified present-day cadaver of something that was unquestionably mammalian, as unambiguously demonstrated by its diagnostically mammalian dentition.
Notwithstanding this immediately obvious fact, the reports stated that the carcass was to be sent to Dr Bahadur Kotlia, a palæontologist at Kumaun University, for historical and scientific analyses, including carbon-14 tests, in order to determine its age and identity. Moreover, Dr Parag Madhukar Dhakate, a Conservator with the Indian Forest Service, was quoted as having said: “It looks like a dinosaur, but we can’t say anything until all the tests are done”. In reality, the photos and video showed unequivocally that it looked nothing like a dinosaur but everything like a modestly-sized mammalian carnivore, either a mustelid (weasel, marten) or a herpestid (mongoose). Yellow-throated martens Martes flavigula do exist in the area where this specimen was found, but are not common there, and do not normally associate with human dwellings anyway, not even abandoned ones. Conversely, mongooses are much more common there, and are far more likely to be found in or near human habitation. In addition, the broad base of the deceased creature’s tail, and its relatively straight claws and longer limbs, indicate a mongoose identity more than a marten or some other mustelid. So, not a dinosaur at all, simply a misidentification, albeit one of truly monstrous proportions.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/dinosaur-like-animal-remains-discovered-uttarakhand-jaspur/1/1093004.html, 19 Nov 2017; www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/mysterious-dinosaur-like-creature-discovered-11701321, 15 Dec 2017; www.express.co.uk/news/science/893340/dinosaur-india-scientists-science-corpseuttarakhand, 17 Dec 2017.
PORCINE PIMPERNEL
Photographing a pig whose greatest fan would be hard-pressed to describe it in terms more flattering than ‘homely’ or ‘memorable’ might not be everyone’s definition of excitement, but to conservationists working in Indonesia one such recent event was very exciting indeed. This is because the pig in question was none other than a Javan warty pig Sus verrucosus, one of the world’s rarest species of wild pig, which was stealthily snapped lately by a hidden camera in a forest on the island of Java where conservationists conducting a survey hoped that this elusive mammal might still exist, although some feared that the deadly combination of hunting and habitat loss had already driven it into extinction.
Happily, however, the slightly blurry but still readily recognisable close-up image of one such specimen taken by the camera and released to the media just before Christmas 2017 verified that this was not the case after all. The survey was led by Dr Johanna Rode-Margono from Chester Zoo, England, who confirmed that she and her team were thrilled to have rediscovered this porcine pimpernel, and that their priority was now to ensure that its habitat was protected. An additional danger potentially facing this particular species is that it may be interbreeding with the European wild boar, yielding hybrid individuals that would compete with pure-bred specimens for food and habitat, which would mean that the Javan warty pig’s continuing existence could be threatened by what must surely be the ultimate paradox for any endangered species – breeding itself into extinction.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/scienceenvironment-42465534/hidden-cameracaptures-rare-pig-thought-extinct, 23 Dec 2017; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42433938, 23 Dec 2017.