It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Until 1938 the coelacanth was believed to have been extinct for over 65 million years. Individual fish may live to be 60 years old. Large dark brown to blue-grey fish that can grow to about 2 m/6 ft in length, and weigh up to 73 kg/160 lb. It has bony, overlapping scales, and muscular lobe (limblike) fins sometimes used like oars when swimming and for balance while resting on the sea floor. They feed on other fish, and give birth to live young rather than shedding eggs as most fish do. Coelacanth fossils exist dating back over 400 million years and coelacanth were believed to be extinct until one was caught in 1938 off the coast of South Africa. For this reason they are sometimes referred to as ‘living fossils’. Populations have since been discovered off the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, and Sodwana Bay on the northeast coast of South Africa.
"It is quite clear to me that the legend of the mapinguary is based on human contact with the last of the ground sloths," said David Oren, former director of research at the Goeldi institute in Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon River. "We know that extinct species can survive as legends for hundreds of years. But whether such an animal still exists or not is another question, one we can't answer."
Originally posted by Razimus
2 different stories, I get mixed up when it comes to bigfoot stories, they all seem to mesh together for me probably because I don't buy it....
AN American biologist and a team of scientists, technicians and Indian guides are preparing to penetrate the trackless rain forest of western Brazil in pursuit of a South American counterpart of the fabled Himalayan yeti. The object of this quest, headed by Dr. David C. Oren, an American ornithologist employed by the Brazilian Government, is an animal Dr. Oren believes to be a human-size ground sloth, belonging to a family thought by paleontologists to be long extinct. Accounts by Indians of the Amazon region describe the elusive animal as terrifying and dangerous, physically powerful and equipped with some kind of chemical defense capable of paralyzing opponents. Dr. Oren, a staff scientist at the Goeldi Natural History Museum in Belem, Brazil, said by telephone that he had conducted more than 100 interviews in the last nine years with Indians and rubber tappers who told of having had contacts with the
Originally posted by Kandinsky
Good thread. I've never even thought about ground sloths in my life. Had a look at the pictures and read up on them. Also learnt about newly discovered critters in Tanzania. Flagged as a thanks
Looking at the pics of the 'beast', I don't think anyone could be convinced. They look wrong and unnatural. I couldn't work out if it's a guy in a sloth outfit or a stuffed representation of a sloth. Surely there can't be much for demand for a sloth outfit? That's right. Couldn't find any for rental although there is definitely (as pointed out) what looks like an elbow. It seems to be stuck in that position. The glimpses behind the bushes seem to be in the same position, hard to be certain.
Originally posted by scubagravy
its too proportional to a human, look at pics 4 & 5.
I spy with my little eye, something beginning with E....
An Elbow, a pointy human one at that. Looks nothing like the plushy full body haired replica the man is standing next to in the above picture.
Costume shops must be busy these days
Edit: and where is that waggly tail ?
[edit on 6/1/2009 by scubagravy]