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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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Thursday, July 07, 2011

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES:GIANT EGGS IN EARLY 20TH CENTURY MADAGASCAR

Folks, here is a report from the Brownsville Daily Herald of August 4th 1902 on a giant egg found in Madagascar.

EGG LEADS TO SEARCH FOR GIANT BIRDS

St Augustine, July. An egg of the giant bird, epyornis found floating in St Augustine Bay, southwest of Madagascar, has given rise to the supposition that living specimens of this creature, which hitherto it was thought became extinct in Pleiocene times , may yet be found in the interior of the island, and a party of Germans, headed by Gottleth Adolf Krause, have undertaken an expedition with the object of tracing it to its home or solving the problem of the existence.

The first acquaintance with the bird was made through Captain Abordie, the master of a French sailing vessel, who in 1850 was surprised to find the natives using as a vessel a fragment of a huge egg shell. He purchased the piece, and upon offering a reward for a whole egg received in a few days from the natives one which had been found in the dry bed of a river. Since then a number of eggs, together with some bones, have been recovered from the alluvial deposits of the island. These eggs, which are now in the possession of several museums, measure over a foot in length, the longest one being 14x9 inches in diameter. They are seven times larger tah an ostrich egg, 184 times larger than a hen`s egg and 20,308 times larger than a wren`s egg. One of them would supply a square meal for a well-patronized country boarding-house, or it is estimated, for sixty persons. (1)


1. Brownsville Daily Herald August 4th 1902 p.1

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