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Arthur Marrin & The Hairy Man

Here's another story on it from 'The Canberra Times'.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/yahoo-first-netted-in-1912-at-braidwood-20120731-23cxo.html

It does sound like a wombat. And it's interesting to note that if this is quite close to the start of the Yahoo stories, the word was invented by Jonathan Swift by the way, it's not an Aboriginal word, then it may be that the later apelike tradition has been tacked on later to make it more appealing and bigfooty.

Incidentally Daniel Boone, who apparently always carried a copy of Guliver's Travels, claimed to have shot an animal he called a Yahoo in North America. Obviously though that's got nothing to do with any animal mentioned here. It's just an illustration of how the word had been appropriated.

Really interesting story.
 
I lived on the Southern tablelands, on and off for nearly fifty years and have had experiences with beasties that either shouldn't be there, [alien large cat], or animals that were much larger than normal.

The experiences with large alien cats are listed in the thread 'it happened to me', but the large animal [echidna] I saw about four years ago, I haven't recounted.

I was driving from Goulburn to Bungonia national park at a steady 80 k's an hour, due to known wildlife crossing the road, when I came round a corner and saw 200 metres in front of me something crossing the road. Normally at that distance you can differentiate between the shape of a roo, wombat or echidna, but this was out of the ordinary.

I slowed right down to about 10 k's an hour and approached the beastie, puzzling over it's shape. Initially I thought that it was a young wombat because I could see a good 6 inches of daylight under it's belly, but its head was what gave me a problem - it was long and curved.

I stopped about 20 metres away from it and got out of the car to have a closer look at it, only to discover that it was the biggest echidna I'd ever seen, it was at least two feet long, body wise, and over three feet including its head, with, as I said, 6 inches of daylight between the road and it's belly.

It had stopped by the time I'd got to it, and so I walked around it, just checking it out - as I was doing this, it's head was following me, observing closely what I was doing. Normally an echidna goes down into a crouch and pulls all extremities towards its body until you go away, all the while digging into the ground, so that after a couple of minutes, only it's back is showing, which is now on the same level as the ground, while its head will be 6 inches underground - this fellow did none of this.

He followed the basic outline of an echidna, except for the proportions of its body, the shape of his head, plus he had a broad flat tail of at least 4 inches in length. His head was unlike an echidna, with it being keel shaped, following the midline of its body, rather than laterally, with a curved proboscus being approx 8 inches long, terminating in a rounded point. The rest of his body followed the morphology of an echidna - shortish spines running down its back and meeting over its spine, with short stumpy legs, it's gait being one leg after another, with large backward curved nails ranging from 3 to 5 inches long.

At the time I was studying conservation and land management at a diploma level and one of our teachers worked for national parks and wildlife in feral pest control so i had a chat with him. Normally Grant was out bush 14 hours plus, a day, and if anyone knew about this big bugger, it'd be him, but he'd never come across one so I googled it and came across this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaglossus_hacketti who is the dead spit of what I saw.

I wouldn't doubt what Mr Marrin saw at all, knowing the area, and its topography, in fact the thought comes to mind that if I'm going to see anything odd, the Southern Tablelands and Western Tasmania would be the place to see it.

It's a funny old world, isn't it...


 
Yep, the first result I got back when I did a search was Zaglossus Hacketti.
Wow...you saw a creature that is supposed to be extinct!
 
oldrover said:
Here's another story on it from 'The Canberra Times'.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/yahoo-first-netted-in-1912-at-braidwood-20120731-23cxo.html

It does sound like a wombat. And it's interesting to note that if this is quite close to the start of the Yahoo stories, the word was invented by Jonathan Swift by the way, it's not an Aboriginal word, then it may be that the later apelike tradition has been tacked on later to make it more appealing and bigfooty.

Incidentally Daniel Boone, who apparently always carried a copy of Guliver's Travels, claimed to have shot an animal he called a Yahoo in North America. Obviously though that's got nothing to do with any animal mentioned here. It's just an illustration of how the word had been appropriated.

Really interesting story.
Click to expand...
When you write your memoirs, I'm buying a copy.
 
MungomanII said:
I lived on the Southern tablelands, on and off for nearly fifty years and have had experiences with beasties that either shouldn't be there, [alien large cat], or animals that were much larger than normal.

The experiences with large alien cats are listed in the thread 'it happened to me', but the large animal [echidna] I saw about four years ago, I haven't recounted.

I was driving from Goulburn to Bungonia national park at a steady 80 k's an hour, due to known wildlife crossing the road, when I came round a corner and saw 200 metres in front of me something crossing the road. Normally at that distance you can differentiate between the shape of a roo, wombat or echidna, but this was out of the ordinary.

I slowed right down to about 10 k's an hour and approached the beastie, puzzling over it's shape. Initially I thought that it was a young wombat because I could see a good 6 inches of daylight under it's belly, but its head was what gave me a problem - it was long and curved.

I stopped about 20 metres away from it and got out of the car to have a closer look at it, only to discover that it was the biggest echidna I'd ever seen, it was at least two feet long, body wise, and over three feet including its head, with, as I said, 6 inches of daylight between the road and it's belly.

It had stopped by the time I'd got to it, and so I walked around it, just checking it out - as I was doing this, it's head was following me, observing closely what I was doing. Normally an echidna goes down into a crouch and pulls all extremities towards its body until you go away, all the while digging into the ground, so that after a couple of minutes, only it's back is showing, which is now on the same level as the ground, while its head will be 6 inches underground - this fellow did none of this.

He followed the basic outline of an echidna, except for the proportions of its body, the shape of his head, plus he had a broad flat tail of at least 4 inches in length. His head was unlike an echidna, with it being keel shaped, following the midline of its body, rather than laterally, with a curved proboscus being approx 8 inches long, terminating in a rounded point. The rest of his body followed the morphology of an echidna - shortish spines running down its back and meeting over its spine, with short stumpy legs, it's gait being one leg after another, with large backward curved nails ranging from 3 to 5 inches long.

At the time I was studying conservation and land management at a diploma level and one of our teachers worked for national parks and wildlife in feral pest control so i had a chat with him. Normally Grant was out bush 14 hours plus, a day, and if anyone knew about this big bugger, it'd be him, but he'd never come across one so I googled it and came across this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaglossus_hacketti who is the dead spit of what I saw.

I wouldn't doubt what Mr Marrin saw at all, knowing the area, and its topography, in fact the thought comes to mind that if I'm going to see anything odd, the Southern Tablelands and Western Tasmania would be the place to see it.

It's a funny old world, isn't it...
Click to expand...
Sorry, I meant the memoirs comment for this post, but I'll read Oldrover's memoirs too. :oops:
 
MungomanII said:
I lived on the Southern tablelands, on and off for nearly fifty years and have had experiences with beasties that either shouldn't be there, [alien large cat], or animals that were much larger than normal.

The experiences with large alien cats are listed in the thread 'it happened to me', but the large animal [echidna] I saw about four years ago, I haven't recounted.

I was driving from Goulburn to Bungonia national park at a steady 80 k's an hour, due to known wildlife crossing the road, when I came round a corner and saw 200 metres in front of me something crossing the road. Normally at that distance you can differentiate between the shape of a roo, wombat or echidna, but this was out of the ordinary.

I slowed right down to about 10 k's an hour and approached the beastie, puzzling over it's shape. Initially I thought that it was a young wombat because I could see a good 6 inches of daylight under it's belly, but its head was what gave me a problem - it was long and curved.

I stopped about 20 metres away from it and got out of the car to have a closer look at it, only to discover that it was the biggest echidna I'd ever seen, it was at least two feet long, body wise, and over three feet including its head, with, as I said, 6 inches of daylight between the road and it's belly.

It had stopped by the time I'd got to it, and so I walked around it, just checking it out - as I was doing this, it's head was following me, observing closely what I was doing. Normally an echidna goes down into a crouch and pulls all extremities towards its body until you go away, all the while digging into the ground, so that after a couple of minutes, only it's back is showing, which is now on the same level as the ground, while its head will be 6 inches underground - this fellow did none of this.

He followed the basic outline of an echidna, except for the proportions of its body, the shape of his head, plus he had a broad flat tail of at least 4 inches in length. His head was unlike an echidna, with it being keel shaped, following the midline of its body, rather than laterally, with a curved proboscus being approx 8 inches long, terminating in a rounded point. The rest of his body followed the morphology of an echidna - shortish spines running down its back and meeting over its spine, with short stumpy legs, it's gait being one leg after another, with large backward curved nails ranging from 3 to 5 inches long.

At the time I was studying conservation and land management at a diploma level and one of our teachers worked for national parks and wildlife in feral pest control so i had a chat with him. Normally Grant was out bush 14 hours plus, a day, and if anyone knew about this big bugger, it'd be him, but he'd never come across one so I googled it and came across this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaglossus_hacketti who is the dead spit of what I saw.

I wouldn't doubt what Mr Marrin saw at all, knowing the area, and its topography, in fact the thought comes to mind that if I'm going to see anything odd, the Southern Tablelands and Western Tasmania would be the place to see it.

It's a funny old world, isn't it...
Click to expand...

Mungoman, I'm sure you know this, so apologies in advance for telling my granny how to suck eggs, but your sighting may be very important. And I'd urge you, if you haven't already, to report it as soon as you can.
180240.jpg


Especially in light of the fact that there's a question now whether this animal, the western long beaked echidna, and world's largest living monotreme, may have survived in Australia into the last century. And may still persist there. As I'm sure you know, it was previously thought to have been restricted to West Papua since the Pleistocene.

The possibility that it might still be extant in Australia comes from here

http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles...nt_type=7&element_id=0&element_name=Zaglossus

And here are some popular articles about it;

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/how-animal-poop-could-be-key-solving-echidna-mystery

http://insider.si.edu/2013/01/scien...-may-not-be-a-thing-of-the-past-in-australia/

I realise the Kimberleys are a long way from your sighting, but still.

It's hard though to get a reliable size on-line for this species, but it's larger than the Australian short beaked species. And some of the ones I've found match exactly, though they aren't from reliable sources. But, it may not be that far short of what you saw. The only detail that doesn't fit is the tail.

Anyway, yours is the most interesting sighting I've read in years. Thanks for posting. And please let us know if you take it any further.
 
By the way, I'm not trying to say this is definitely what you saw, just that it sounds like it's an important possibility.
 
Christ on a bike this is amazing! Either the 'extinct' Zaglossus or a mainland population of the western long beaked echidna would be an astounding find.
 
Thanks for your replies oldrover, lordmongrove, mytho and petebirdie.

I've looked at pix of both tachyglossus and zaglossus and the fellow that I saw has some morphological differences - almost an amalgam of both species.

giant-echidna-at-taronga-zoo-sydney-photo-the-australian.jpg


he was as big as this fellow, his claws are the same length but his head and proboscus were more defined - this fellow is a western fellow.


171832.jpg


This fellows head shape follows more along the lines of what I saw, but his hair follicle ratio is too fine - I couldn't see skin on the one at Bungonia, but it wasn't as dense as as the western echidna. He also didn't have external auditory meatuses like this one.


Oldrover, I have a philosophy, and I know this will sound vain of me and up myself, of studied neglect - that is, to be aware of things but to view them from a distance, and so, to leave certain things well enough alone. With the wollomi pines discovery up in the hunter valley, the way they handled that was quite successful, to the point where people can now grow these pines in their garden and escapees are now being found growing in the bush, in certain eco niches that mirror the micro climate where it was originally found. As it needs very specific requirements to survive, I don't have a worry that it will go rogue.

This large echidna has obviously thrived where it is, and looked the picture of health I reckon, due to bungonia having a large population of termite nests throughout the bush there, and which I gather is this echidnas preferred tucker. It also has some conservation aligned farmers and citizens throughout the area, plus the federal governments land care initiatives that see some rural areas being left undisturbed, and wildlife corridors being encouraged to join gene pools of vicarianced species.

If a series of surveys [sand trap, stag, scat &c.] could be done entailing scat I.D, with DNA verification on the 'low down and quiet', I'd be more than willing to identify the area where this fellow was seen, but I do admit the area is rather formidable topographically, with limestone Karst areas, known caves and unknown sinkholes, that have contributed to tales of it being a good area to dispose of an unwanted body or two.


09112011(035).jpg



07082010(001).jpg



This is pretty typical of the area where the echidna was seen.



"Either the 'extinct' Zaglossus or a mainland population of the western long beaked echidna would be an astounding find."



Lordmongrove, how about a combination of the two?
 
MungomanII said:
If a series of surveys [sand trap, stag, scat &c.] could be done entailing scat I.D, with DNA verification on the 'low down and quiet', I'd be more than willing to identify the area where this fellow was seen, but I do admit the area is rather formidable topographically, with limestone Karst areas, known caves and unknown sinkholes, that have contributed to tales of it being a good area to dispose of an unwanted body or two.
Click to expand...

I'd still strongly suggest that you pass on the information. If it was a population of western long beaked echidna then it may turn out to be the last on Earth before long. The West Papua population is 'on the roof'.

Whatever it was, it sounds credible and unique, and could provide valuable information for future conservation to anyone who was willing to try and study it.
 
"Lordmongrove, how about a combination of the two?"
Just as amazing. Australia, I think is a hotspot for new species and species thought extinct. My main interest is in the continued survival of the Tasmanian wolf.
 
lordmongrove said:
"Lordmongrove, how about a combination of the two?"
Just as amazing. Australia, I think is a hotspot for new species and species thought extinct. My main interest is in the continued survival of the Tasmanian wolf.
Click to expand...

Ditto. Like areas of other large recently colonised continents, there are sufficiently large areas that haven't seen the imprint of european feet that could harbor unknown species, plus there are species considered extinct that many decades later turn up quite extant, much to the chagrin of those who could know better.

A good source for questionable animal life can be found in Australian Aboriginal mythology and I reckon a survey of the lesser known mobs would unearth examples of hidden life forms encapsulated in their mythology, once known to the Old Ones, discounted by, or unknown to present day zoologists.

P.S. I am a firm believer that the Thylacine still walks in areas of Tasmania, and I'm not sure about them being extinct on the mainland - there are anecdotal tales of large sable beasties slinking around isolated areas of eastern Australia. (I saw something around the southern tablelands as a teenager, the late sixties, the same colour of a golden labrador, which I placed in 'IHTM' - the only discounter was the shortness of the animals muzzle, plus I have posted photo's of a large animals paw print, over 7.5 cm across, running flat out, chasing a roo, that conforms more to a cats paw - no claws, and pad arrangement - that worried greatly the Coorie rangers I showed it to)


IMG_9996.jpg


lense cap is 5.8 cm across.


IMG_9999_edited-3.jpg
 
Little brown men seem to be increasingly becoming this decade's equivalent of spotting little grey aliens. I was chatting with Christian Nash the other day and today's Rendelsham forest adventurers have been reporting sightings of them there. He showed me a pic on his phone of something that might be one in that forest although he admits it's just as likely to be simulacra ..
 
The track does look more cat than dog but the bottom of the big pad is unclear and that's the main diagnostic.
'IHTM'?
I'm convinced that the Tazzy wolf is still extant. Infact I think its the most likely cryptid.
 
lordmongrove said:
The track does look more cat than dog but the bottom of the big pad is unclear and that's the main diagnostic.
'IHTM'?
I'm convinced that the Tazzy wolf is still extant. Infact I think its the most likely cryptid.
Click to expand...


Reading the tracks lordmongrove, the roo has jinked to the right while its being chased closely by its predator - look for the deeper right foot impression of the roo, the higher wall of mud pushed up to the right side of the paw print, with a lighter impression on the left paw print and much less ejected material, also the tail impression is offset to the right . The predator has propped, slid onto its own paw print evidenced by its longer phalange prints and extended rear pad impression, (My reason for measuring across the print, rather than along the print) with a lighter impression of its inside phalange where its centre of balance has shifted to its left, and it has extruded mud from between its phalanges to the right in the photograph.

I'm adding some clearer [only just clearer unfortunately] photo's.


IMG_9996_edited-1Prospectors forum.jpg





IMG_9995_edited-3.jpg



As for the Thylacine being often seen and doubted, I reckon some of those sightings could be ridgeydidge lordmongrove.
 
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