Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 27th, 2011
A rare Tanzanian toad, thought extinct, has been rediscovered. Living in a section of a forest reserve less than half the size of a football pitch in Tanzania, East Africa, the discovery that the population of Wendy’s forest toad is still in existence has delighted zoologists who thought the species was dying out. The three target species under study, only observed in this one area, are Nectophrynoides wendyae – Wendy’s forest toad – and Nectophrynoides poyntoni – Poynton’s forest toad (both listed as Critically Endangered) and Hyperolius kihangensis, the Kihanga reed frog, which is classed as Endangered.
Scientists (including Hamidu Seki, the project’s team leader, Mike Bungard, Paignton Zoo’s curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates, Andy Bowkett, overseas conservation officer) from a project run by the the Whiteley Wildlife Conservation Trust – based at Paignton Zoo, Devon – and the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group made the discoveries.
Meanwhile, in the Caribbean…
…a new bat was discovered. New bat species from St. Vincent has been named the Garifuna big-eared bat (Micronycteris garifuna) after the Garifuna people who inhabit St. Vincent and other areas of the Caribbean and Central America. The Garifuna ancestry includes native Carib, Arawak, and West African. (Photo by: Peter A. Larsen, the doctoral student discoverer.)
Chad Arment, the author of Varmints: Mystery Carnivores of North America, and his associate Kevin Stewart are the sources of these news tips.
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013.