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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Sunday, November 22, 2009

DALE DRINNON: The Water Leaper

I had been fascinated by the Welsh creature known as The Water Leaper or llamhigyn y dwr since I first saw it illustrated in Brian Froud's book Faeries (1978).

The creature was later famously featured in Karl Shuker's book From Flying Toads to Snakes with Wings (1997).

The creature was said to have a face like a toad and to leap out of the water, even though it had no legs. Instead it had large wings.

The solution is that the witnesses are describing a sort of freshwater stingray. Stingrays have raised eyes and faces like toads, and they are known to leap out of water to rid themselves of parasites.

Incidentally, the originals for the African Kongamato and the South American Cuero (hide) were likewise wide flat or winged legless creatures that leaped out of the water: the Kongamato is described as living in the water and being a danger to small canoes because of its unexpected leaping up.

They are leaping up like mini-manta rays, and one of the alternate names for the Cuero is even Manta.

It is also possible that Cueros are 'Covered with eyes' because some South American rays are indeed covered with markings that look like eyespots (ocelli)

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