Australian Cryptozoology Gary Opit

29/04/2025

Check out the face on this sasquatch. It looks like a very powerful human face. If it is a video of a real sasquatch it shows that it is a species of Homo and not a species of Pongo, a hominin and not a hominid. With ever more videos being posted it certainly is interesting, though researchers should be concentrating on collecting anything that could have DNA of the animal on it for future analysis because only DNA will likely prove what is real and what is a hoax.

28/04/2025

Darwin's giant Galapagas tortoise lived in England and was sent to Brisbane because the weather was too cold for her there. I saw her in the Brisbane botanical gardens zoo as a child in the 1950s. When the the Brisbane botanical gardens zoo was closed Harriet was given to zoologist Dr. David Fleay and I patted her dozens of times in her walk-in paddock enclosure at Fleay's Fauna Reserve in West Burleigh during the 1950s, 1960, 1970 and 1980s and when too aged to run the zoo Fleay gave the zoo to the Qld national parks service and they gave it to Steve Irwin.

Harriet the Tortoise lived 176 years — and was owned by Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin:

Harriet was a 176-year-old Galapagos tortoise with a storied life.

She was owned by the late Steve Irwin and his family.

She is also believed to have been one of three tortoises collected by Charles Darwin during his 1835 expedition on the HMS Beagle.

There is some mystery regarding her exact origins, though.

DNA evidence confirmed her impressive age. However, it also revealed that she originated from an island Darwin never visited. That said, giant tortoises can float to different Galapagos Islands on rafts of vegetation or on their own. So it is possible she traveled to an island Darwin did visit, where she was collected.

But some experts are skeptical.

Regardless,Harriet lived an extraordinary life, spending time in Britain before being moved to Australia in the 1800s, where she was initially misidentified as a male and called "Harry."

Harriet spent her final years at Australia Zoo, where Steve Irwin considered her part of his family. She passed away in 2006 due to heart failure, marking the end of an incredible life spanning nearly two centuries.

Weighing 330 pounds, Harriet was one of the oldest known tortoises, though not the absolute oldest — Tui Malila, a Madagascar radiated tortoise, held that record at 188 years.

More details/photos: https://www.beautyofplanet.com/176-year-old-darwins-tortoise-dies-in-zoo/

17/04/2025

A wonderful illustration of pet thylacines with their family of First Nation Australian people. Please add the name of the artist in your comments if you know the talented illustrator, as this picture was emailed to me, and I do not have any information as to where it comes from. Humanity has lived in association with a few other animals in their habitat for thousands of years. Best known, of course, are dogs, cats, ferrets, pigs, cattle, sheep, horses, camels and other domesticated species. The spectacular cave art of First Nation Australian people in the Northern Territory in particular includes paintings of thylacines, including one with what appears to be a bush string dilly bag around its neck. People have likely picked up immature thylacine cubs for millennia and perhaps even used them as guards and hunting companions, with their superb prey animal odour detection, before the arrival of the dingo with Indonesian traders 3 to 4 thousand years ago. The people from Alice Springs in central Australia have a Dreaming story whereby a thylacine guards the community from outsiders, including dingoes.

07/04/2025

The photographs show the actual location were Springbrook national park head ranger, Percy Window had a face-to-face encounter with a Yowie, which gave us our first description of the animal. Percy Window arrived back at the national park office in a very shocked state. My best mate, John Duncan, worked as a ranger with him and John gave me a detailed description. Percy described his encounter with a bipedal, gorilla-like primate standing two and a half metres (8.2 feet) high, clearly observed in Antarctic Beech rainforest in good light from a distance of four metres (13 feet). It had a distinctive odour, a grunting voice, a body covered in long black hair, a flat, shiny-black face, large yellow eyes, a sagittal crest, and huge hands.

07/04/2025

My second encounter with the Yowie was hearing the powerful roars of the animal whilst alone in remote, trackless rainforest at the eastern base of Springbrook in 1975.

My second yowie encounter happened in May 1975 at the base of the Cougals, to the east of Springbrook, a km north of the Queensland / New South Wales border. While walking alone in remote trackless undisturbed subtropical rainforest, my normal occupation identifying flora & fauna, I heard a short series of loud distinctive roars that emanated from the rocky, steeply sloping rainforest-covered cliff, perhaps less than a hundred metres away. It was a loud and powerful, deep base voice consisting of four distinct roars, each lasting a couple of seconds and each a little different to the proceeding one. I could not decide if it was a threatening vocalisation warning me to move away or some territorial call, as I climbed up to the animal to try to identify it. The volume was similar to the roaring of a lion close at hand but this was no big cat, koala or any other animal I had encountered in forests or in zoos. In my line of work as a field biologist the many and varied voices of the animals provides instant identification and many species are recorded for a locality from the calls alone. Having spent years familiarising myself with the vocalisations of big cats, apes & other animals at zoos & in the forests, I was stunned to hear the voice of an animal unknown to science. Albert Lyrebirds were displaying around me, small rainforest kangaroos (pademelons) hopped through the undergrowth, while rifle birds of paradise, the males with black & iridescent green plumage, probed tree trunks for prey, like woodpeckers with their great curved beaks. These were all species that I had observed countless times, but the powerful calls came from something that I could not identify. As the climb became too steep to continue & with no sign of the animal, I descended, imagining, a marsupial lion perhaps, roaring at the entrance to its lair or perhaps the Bigfoot-like animal that had attacked our ranger's house in 1971.

07/04/2025

My first Yowie encounter happened when I was a national park ranger in 1971 at O’Reilly's Green Mountains in Lamington National Park, west of the Gold Coast. I was positive at the time that there could be no unknown large mammals, and we were astounded as to what occurred. I asked members of the O’Reilly family who had lived in the rainforest there if they had ever encountered anything unusual and was told that family members often heard powerful screams from a sheer escarpment and that something large had on occasions followed Bernard O’Reilly through the rainforest and he had several times tried to view the animal without success.

My first Yowie encounter happened when I was a national park ranger in 1971 at O’Reillys Green Mountains in Lamington National Park, west of the Gold Coast. There were always three or four of us rangers stationed up there maintaining 100 km of walking tracks in high altitude wilderness. All around us lived large numbers of birds and animals, including blue satin bower birds, black & golden regent bower birds, red & blue crimson rosella parrots, ancient Prince Albert lyrebirds, rainforest kangaroos (paddymelons), possums, dingoes & spotted-tailed tiger quolls. None of us had ever heard of anything like a Yowie until one attacked the national park office and ranger’s quarters. On the night it happened, a series of heavy thumps were heard on the outside wall & our heavy working tools, stored under the high-set rear of the house, were flung with great force onto the back lawn. An examination by torch light revealed 9 or 10 rakes, hoes, axes and mattocks now lying on the lawn, but there was no sign of anybody. There were no outside lights & it was pitch dark in the rainforest location. Beyond our backyard toilet shed or dunny, sloping gently downhill from the house, just inside the rainforest, was our woodpile. With no electrical power we cooked in a huge cast iron fuel stove & heated shower water in a backyard copper tub with a fire underneath. We always had a fire burning in the fuel stove for making tea & warming the timber house at the high altitude location. The next morning, I walked down to our wood stack, 30 metres from the house & was stunned by what I discovered. Five metres in length, a metre wide and two metres high, the woodpile was composed of very large and heavy pieces of timber, each half-metre across & a third of a metre thick, that we had cut from a giant eucalyptus tree that had fallen across the road. Neatly stacked, it was held in place by eight strong timber stakes, that were three metres long & fifteen cm thick, that we had sledge hammered a metre into the red basaltic soil. The wood stack now lay completely scattered and most of the stakes had been pulled out of the ground. We had no idea who or what had been responsible. We knew that no person could possibly pull up all those timber stakes & throw dozens of timber slabs metres away. Only something like a gorilla or a Bigfoot with hands & powerful muscles could have destroyed a massive woodpile. This was our first inkling that something completely unknown was roaming our vast forested wilderness, consisting of a massive thousand metre high plateau, dissected by steep gorges, sheer cliffs, undisturbed habitat and dozens of spectacular waterfalls.

07/04/2025

Citizen Science and Cryptozoology, data received from listeners during 28 years of wildlife identification broadcasts on ABC North Coast New South Wales Radio station 94.5FM, every Saturday morning at 6:50 am. Over 400 known species were reported by listeners phoning, emailing and texting the station with photos and audio recordings. Several large unclassified mammal species were reported by dozens of farmers, and other rural workers and their descriptions and illustrations were published for the first time in the Australian Zoologist 2017 'Dangerous Ideas in Zoology' edition by the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales.

Citizen Science and Cryptozoology, data received from listeners during 18 years of wildlife talkback on ABC North Coast New South Wales Local Radio. Gary Opit PO Box 383 Brunswick Heads, NSW 2483 Published in the Australian Zoologist, part 4.

Cryptozoology

During decades of gathering data in the field on the natural habitats of the Australian east coast, New Guinea, South-east Asia and the western coast of the United States of America, identifying the flora and fauna, I would always ask local biologists, naturalists, rangers, foresters, farmers and other such people working and dwelling in and adjacent natural habitat for their most interesting wildlife observations. I received and usually recorded many interesting stories of their encounters with both common and rarely seen species. On extremely rare occasions I would encounter stories of unidentifiable animals.

When I started the weekly live-to-air wildlife-talk-back radio broadcasts in 1997 I was expecting to primarily receive enquiries on methods of dealing with wildlife causing problems, house, garden and farm pests, problems with birds flying into windows and birds with annoyingly loud calls. Although these were received and answered, the majority of responding listeners required the identification of a wide array of species. I thought that I would be fortunate to receive calls on distinctive rare species such as spotted-tailed quolls and brush-tailed phascogales. I was therefore surprised to receive inquiries on the identification of animals that were unidentifiable. These reports led me to investigate the specialised field of cryptozoology.

In the abstract of the first article in the first interdisciplinary journal of the International Society of Cryptozoology, published in 1982, Bernard Heuvelmans wrote “Cryptozoology is the science of “hidden” animals”. Heuvelmans coined the term ‘cryptozoology’ in the late 1950’s from the Greek roots kryptos (hidden), zoon (animal), and logos (discourse) and stated that it means “the science of hidden animals.” Heuvelmans writes, “But what are “hidden animals? They are those more generally referred to as “unknowns,” even though they are typically known to local populations – at least sufficiently so that we often indirectly know of their existence, and certain aspects of their appearance and behaviour. It would be better to call them animals “undescribed by science,” at least according to prescribed zoological rules” (Heuvelmans 1982).

The International Society of Cryptozoology’s board of directors at that time included scientists from all over the world. Representing Russia was Dmitri Bayanov of the Darwin Museum, Moscow. Eric Buffetaut and Philippe Janvier worked at the Laboratory of Vertebrate and Human Paleontology of the University of Paris. Nikolai Spassov worked in the Department of Mammals at the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Science. Phillip V. Tobias worked in the Department of Anatomy at the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School and represented South Africa. Zhou Guoxing represented China and worked at the Beijing Natural History Museum. Paul LeBlond represented Canada and worked at the Department of Oceanography at the University of British Columbia.

In the United States were Joseph F. Gennaro at the Department of Biology at New York University; Grover S Krantz at the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University, Leigh M. Van Valen at the Department of Biology at the University of Chicago, Forrest G. Wood, at the Biosciences Department of the Naval Ocean Systems Centre of the US Department of the Navy and George R. Zug, worked at the Department of Vertebrate Zoology of the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution.

The International Society of Cryptozoology published its 12 volumes between 1982 and 1996, and published 12 volumes with quarterly numbers of the ISC Newsletter during that time. Under the heading Purpose of the Society, the journals stated “The International Society of Cryptozoology serves as a focal point for the investigation, analysis, publication, and discussion of all matters related to animals of unexpected form or size, or unexpected occurrence in time or space. The Society also serves as a forum for public discussion and education, and for providing reliable information to appropriate authorities” (Greenwell 1982).

The first article to appear on an Australian subject in the journal of the International Society of Cryptozoology was in Volume 3 in 1984, The Orang-utan in England: an Explanation for the Use of Yahoo as a Name for the Australian Hairy Man, by Graham Joyner, PO Box 4253, Kingston ACT 2604, Australia. In the abstract it states, “The Australian hairy man or Yahoo was the subject of speculation throughout most of the 19th Century and beyond. The name Yahoo was often held to be an Aboriginal word, although it was also attributed to Swift. It is suggested that the word Yahoo was used to describe the adult orang-utan when that animal first arrived in England. This appears to be the reason for its use in Australia” (Joyner 1984).

The second article to appear on an Australian subject was in Volume 5 in 1985, The Yahoo, The Yowie, and Reports of Australian Hairy Bipeds, by Colin P. Groves, Department of Anthropology, The Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T. 2601, Australia. In the abstract it states “Questions surrounding the supposed Yahoo, Yowie, or the supposed wild man of south-eastern Australia are examined in light of what is known of the Australian mammal fauna, the nomenclature of the Wildman, the role of the Wildman in both Aboriginal and Anglo cosmologies, and the claimed existence of the wild man himself. A giant marsupial, such as a wombat, may have survived the megafaunal extinctions, giving rise to the wild man reports” (Groves 1985).

The third article to appear on an Australian subject was in Volume 8 in 1989, Analysis of the Australian “Hairy Man” (Yahoo) Data, by Malcolm Smith, No 7, 23rd Avenue, Brighton, Brisbane, Queensland 4017 Australia. In the abstract it states, “Reports of “hairy men” (Yahoos) in Australia for the period 1871-1912 are examined. The relatively small numbers of eyewitness accounts are characterised by a low level of detail, conflicting descriptions, and a high level of second-hand reportage. The analysis of individual sightings suggests that most can be explained by encounters with isolated Aboriginal males interpreted in the light of a developing settler myth. The evidence for the existence of an unknown primate in the area is very poor” (Smith 1989).

Two articles on an Australian subject appear in Volume 9 in 1990. The first is The Thylacine: A Case for Current Existence on Mainland Australia by Athol M. Douglas, 372 Lesmurdie Road, Lesmurdie, Western Australia, 6076, Australia. In the abstract it states “The thylacine, Thylacinus cynocephalus, also known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Wolf, has been believed extinct on the island of Tasmania since 1936 and on the mainland of Australia for several thousand years. However, sightings of an animal apparently identical to the thylacine have been reported consistently from many parts of the Australian mainland for decades. Investigation of reports from people who have reported sightings of the thylacine in Western Australia are reviewed, and doubt is cast on the carbon 14 dating of a thylacine carcass found in a cave at Mundrabilla Station, Western Australia” (Douglas 1990).

The second article on an Australian subject in Volume 9 is Scientific Discovery and the Place of the Yahoo in Australian Zoological History by Graham C. Joyner, PO Box 4253, Kingston ACT 2604, Australia. In the abstract it states, “Discovery is an extended process in which observation needs to be accompanied by the necessary conceptualisation. The Yahoo (or Australian “gorilla”) may be seen as an unresolved anomaly set against a background involving such anomalies as platypus eggs, marsupial birth, the African gorilla and the Queensland Lungfish” (Joyner 1990).

Previous to the published articles in the journals of The International Society of Cryptozoology, papers, articles and books written by zoologists were published describing unidentifiable mammals in Australia. The Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1871 published a letter from Mr. B. G. Sheridan, police magistrate at Cardwell, to the zoologist Sclater concerning the striped marsupial cat (Sheridan 1871).

The Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1872, published an article by Charles Gould, entitled; Large aquatic animals (Gould 1872). Carl Lumholtz M.A., member of the Royal Society of Sciences of Norway, published in 1889 his book “Among Cannibals, an account of four years’ travels in Australia and of camp life with the Aborigines of Queensland” in which he describes the Yarri, an Aboriginal name for carnivorous marsupials including an animal that he believed, from their descriptions, to be a marsupial tiger (Lumholtz 1890).

The Wild Animals of Australasia, published in 1926, was the first comprehensive book to collect in one volume, information concerning all the Australasian mammals. Le Souef and Burrell listed amongst the Dasyuridae a Striped Marsupial Cat stating

“There exists in North Australia a large striped animal, which has aptly been described as “a cat just growing into a tiger”. Though seen on several occasions, we have not yet had a specimen in any of our museums” (Le Souef and Burrell 1926).

Furred Animals of Australia, written by Ellis Troughton, C.M.Z.S., F.R.Z.S., and Curator of Mammals at the Australian Museum from 1919 to 1958 and published in eight editions from 1941 to 1965, also included a section on the Striped Marsupial Cat (Troughton 1941). Australian Museum scientist Gilbert Whitley wrote an article in the Australian Museum Magazine, issue no. 7, 1 March 1940, entitled Mystery Animals of Australia, which included the bunyip (Whitley 1940). Charles Barrett wrote the book The Bunyip and other Mythical Monsters and Legends, (Barrett 1946).

Bernard Heuvelmans wrote, On the Track of Unknown Animals, published in French in 1955 and in English in 1962, which contains a chapter on Australia entitled, The Incredible Australian Bunyips, with information on and an illustration of, the Striped Marsupial Cat (Heuvelmans 1962). In 1962 the Australian Journal of Zoology published the study Mammals of Innisfail by Dr J L Harrison, which included a description of the Striped Marsupial Cat, observed crossing a road at night near Palmerton (Harrison 1962).

The Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service published an article on the Striped Marsupial Cat in the Wet Tropics Newspaper 1998 describing James Cook University zoological researcher Scott Burnett studying spotted-tailed quolls on the Atherton Tablelands during the 1990s. He received information from elderly local tin miners and timber cutters concerning a cat-like animal the size of a dingo, sandy coloured, with a rounded head and small ears near rocky areas in rainforest (Woodward 1998).

All of these reported sightings are soft evidence (sensu Swords 1991). The difficulty of validation of such observations has been borne out by the recent evaluation of night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) sightings by the Rarities Committee of Birdlife Australia (Davis & Metcalf 2008).

In the 2014 published book The Tasmanian Tiger: Extinct or Extant? Dr Robert Paddle evaluates this situation when he writes “....sightings of a supposedly extinct animal, in themselves, cannot be considered as evidence for the continued existence of that species. Only evidence provided that is capable of scientific analysis, testing and experimentation can overturn a designation of extinction” (Paddle 2014 p 146).

“...it is also completely appropriate (and logical) for a scientist to take an interest in contemporary sightings of the thylacine. This is not a case of cognitive dissonance, but merely a reflection upon scientific methodology. Post 1936, claimed instances of Thylacine encounters actually involve a testing or potential disproof of the hypothesis of extinction, and the core attempt to disprove a scientific idea, equation or hypothesis lies at the very heart of scientific endeavour” (Paddle 2014 p 149).

“Records of thylacines post 1936 are undoubtedly of interest – to the scientist as well as the lay researcher. While they do not amount to evidence for the continued existence of the species – once again, nothing but a body will change that designation – nevertheless, should that evidence be forthcoming, then the information obtained from recent sightings will be seen to possess valuable distributional and behavioural data of relevance to the continued welfare of the species.....The reporting of modern Thylacine sightings is to be encouraged; and detailed records made of such incidents should be forwarded to either professional organisations, such as the Australian Rare Fauna Research Association, with its long history of existence and record keeping, and the social, legal and scientific expertise of its members; or to significant private individuals, such as Col Bailey, with a demonstrable public and private history in the handling of this information ” (Paddle 2014 p 155).

Chad Arment codified cryptozoological thinking in his book Cryptozoology: Science and Speculation, describing it as a “targeted search methodology for zoological discovery”. The researcher compares descriptions of “ethnoknowns” from written and oral tradition with known taxa to search for morphological and behavioural resemblances along with geographical locations to identify a possible match. A targeted search of the possible habitat may then be undertaken using a number of techniques (Arment 2004).

07/04/2025

Congratulations to the Gondwana Rainforest Trust on purchasing the property and beginning the restoration of the critically endangered lowland subtropical rainforest at this site, a great achievement, and I most enjoyed attending the event, planting trees, mulching, watering and talking to like-minded people.

04/04/2025

School Broadcasting Network interviews Gary Opit on the Yowie at

🎧❤️FLASHBACK FRIDAY!❤️🎧 Check out this week's feature podcast for some great screen-free family edutainment over the weekend: this is one of our most popular podcasts from 2024 - Part 1 of Primary Perspectives Series with ABC Radio Talk-back Host and Wildlife Expert ...

04/04/2025

School Broadcasting Network, Part 1 of Primary Perspectives hashtag Series with ABC Radio Talk-back Host and Wildlife Expert Gary Opit interviewed by Christian, Sierra & Tara as we explore both folklore and eyewitness sightings of the Yowie, Australia's version of the North American Big Foot and the Himalayan Yeti can be listened to at

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

04/01/2025

An automatic infrared video recorder set up by a researcher investigating wildlife captured a fascinating video of what looks very much like a thylacine walking amid unconcerned grey kangaroos. Scientists studying thylacine skulls preserved in museums found that the jaws were not strong enough to hold large struggling animals and believe that the marsupial dog did not prey on large animals and that it is adapted to prey on the abundant small animals such as native rodents. Hundreds of published encounter reports received by researchers provide evidence that the thylacine still inhabits our forests as they have always done. It can be viewed at this site

Gondwana Rainforest Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) filmed for the 1st time in HD thermal,14th September 2024. From 12hrs of footage from a stationary Thermal ...

28/12/2024

The world is full of astounding animals and the South American White-faced Saki Monkey is a particulary wonderful-looking primate.

White-faced Saki Monkey