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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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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

DALE DRINNON: Comparisons between fossil hominids and yowies

Because of the vagiaries of the Internet, some of the pictures that should have accompanied Dale's last post didn't make it through. So when Dale re-sent them, I suggested that he write captions for them all, and we post them as a new stand-alone bloggo entry...

1)Yowie and Homo erectus

The most widely-circulated depiction of an Australian Yowie compared to a more standard reconstruction of Homo erectus from the Time-Life books Early Man foldout. The depiction of the Yowie is exaggerated as a sort of cartoon version of the other, yet the salient features are still identifiable. In particular, the shape of the head and the planes of the face and the relative smallness of the cranium, are all like the known fossil form.






















2) Yowie compared to Fossil Hominids, Ape and Modern Man
The shape of the Yowie's head is much like Homo erectus, reference skulls are Java (Trinil) man to the left and Pekin (Beijing) man to the right. Most notably the top of the head has a sagittal keeling causing the peaked appearance of the midline, low cranial profile, the erectus or Solo type of browridges, and the shape of the lower face is comparable. The Yowie is drawn with much exaggerated fanged canines: That is a severe exaggeration but as a matter of fact Javan H. erectus had outsized canines that projected into the lower row and created a gap (diastema) which in that sense made their dentition more primitive than the earlier Australopithecines.



3) Homo erectus comparisons
Left: reconstruction of original Homo erectus finds by Dubois, under the name of Pithecanthropus erectus. This reconstruction statue was redrawn for Heuvelmans's book On the Track of Unknown Animals. On the right is the most complete find of erectus or a closely related species, the Turkana boy. The arms are actually long in comparison to modern man, but not excessively so. This was an individual that had not yet reached full adult growth and would have been over six feet tall as an adult.























4) Face reconstruction of Homo erectus (Pithecanthropus), for comparison to the Yowie's face.






















5) Solo skullcap from Java
For comparison to Rex Gilroy's purported piece of fossil Yowie skullcap


















6) Purported scrap of Yowie skull
From Rex Gilroy's collection, a fossil assumed to have been a very large form of Homo erectus (or 'Meganthropus') It does in fact resemble that part of the erectus skull and there is no known native Australian animal with that sort of a forehead.
















7) Purported Yowie Fossil footprint
From the blue mountains, another of Rex Gilroy's finds. I am not certain if he has the big toe correctly outlined on this one. The actual footprint would be smaller than the outlined space but still it is about eight inches wide and sixteen inches long by the ruler.
























8) Purported Yowie fossil molar tooth


Another find from Rex Gilroy's collection of possible Yowie evidence, a fossil tooth that has been completely mineralised and has become impregnated by iron ore. It does look to be exactly what Gilroy says it is but of course, I have not seen the original.

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