@mysteryanimals
Big cat sightings, wildmen, Black Shuck and other Suffolk mysteries. Book by Matt Salusbury (Leiston Press, 2023), also a place for reporting local big cat sightings. https://bigcatsofsuffolk.com/
In 19th century England rectangular livestock paintings were commissioned by prosperous farmers to showcase their wealth and status. The same artistic distortion would also be applied to pigs and sheep.
#BookologyThursday
I was sent this photo of a muntjac carcass - possible big cat kill(?) - found in Dunwich, #Suffolk on 01/03/26. An ecologist who's an expert on big cats told me they're 80% certain it's a big cat kill. Copyright holder of the image is known to me, more information to follow.
Report received of "growling" heard in woods at Earl Soham, #Suffolk.
Mystery animal of #Suffolk with a human head! It's a pew end at All Saints Church, Laxfield.
An archangel with a wheel, indicating it's one of the Ophanim, the wheel-like archangels seen in the vision of Ezekiel, they allegedly guard God's throne. This one has feathers 🪶 covering most of his body. He's on the altar screen at St Edmund's Church, Southwold, #Suffolk
Michael the Archangel with scales ready to judge the quick and the dead, also with feathers 🪶 all over his limbs, St Edmund's Church, Southwold, #Suffolk
I've been visiting Southwold regularly for well over a decade, how could I not have noticed before this very worn away wildman with a raised club on the doorway of St Edmund's church?
A kill sign from Ufford, #Suffolk, and recent lynx(?) sightings in the area.
bigcatsofsuffolk.com/a-kill-sign-...
East Anglian big cat sighting! Lela the black leopard arrives at Hamerton Zoo,Cambridgeshire www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/whats-on/thi...
Report of a big cat sighting just came into bigcatsofsuffolk.com - seen after dark by a driver in their headlights 17/2/26 Bawdsey, #Suffolk. "Grey/silver with spots... grey lynx or small leopard," size of a "large dog." Witness "only saw the back half... running into brush".
Recent report of big cat sightings, seen after dark by a driver in their headlights - 13/2/26 Puttock End, Essex (near Sudbury), "black", body "the size of a large muntjac, if not larger... skinny at the back", long tail, 5-10 feet away.
I think it might be a museum of enamel?
"The Great Sea Serpent of Table Bay", South Africa, reported in The Cape Argus, 14 March 1857. From Sir Richard Owen's sea serpent scrapbook 📔, @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social . Image: Courtesy of Trustees of the @nhm.org
"Monster of the deep" seen off the coast of Peru in 1912, from an unnamed newspaper, inserted into Sir Richard Owen's sea serpent scrapbook after his death. Marginal note by illustration says "dead narwhal". Image: courtesy of Trustees of the @nhm-london.bsky.social @bestcryptids.bsky.social
Sketch apparently showing two mating(?) whales 🐳 🐳 - misidentified as a sea serpent? Also a reference to "Mososaurus" in notes above. From Sir Richard Owen's sea serpent scrapbook, @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social. Image: Courtesy Trustees of the Natural History Museum @bestcryptids.bsky.social
Suffolk big cats - lions 🦁 on the facade of the Ancient House, Halesworth
Ostrich food, also Rhea food, also feed for "Exotic- racing & breeding camels as well as zoo animals", Holton Road Garden Centre, #Suffolk.
East Anglian big cat sighting! Panther Cabs advertising poster spotted from the platform of Colchester Station.
The spectacular, fossil-lined, Bell Beaker grave of a young adult and child from Dunstable Downs, England. Genetic analysis revealed these to be a paternal aunt and her six year old neice. C. 4000 yrs BP
#TombTuesday
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-45612-3#ref-CR37
"Another sea serpent" seen by crew of the /Imogen/ travelling from South Africa to London at Lat. 29 deg. 11 min. N, Long. 34 deg. 11 min. W, 15/05/1856, from Richard Owen's sea serpent scrapbook 📔, @nhm.org Library, image: courtesy Trustees of the Natural History Museum. @bestcryptids.bsky.social
Here, with permission from the copyright-holder, is a photo of the muntjac carcass found in the Ufford (#Suffolk) area on 07/02/26. Witness returned the following day and found it been predated on some more.
This follows a "lynx-like" big cat seen nearby by a different witness on 31/01/26.
Rare loggerhead turtle washed up in Suffolk during storm
Via BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
That might be this unsourced article that was on Twitter from a magazine article describing the great hurricane of 1988, and how marksmen were brought in to Thrigby Zoo in Norfolk. They stood by ready to shoot Jomo the Leopard 🐆 if a tree fell and collapsed the fence around his enclosure.
Fisheries magazine "Land and Water" of September 1877 looks at sea serpent misidentifications including basking sharks. From Sir Richard Owen's sea serpent scrapbook, 📔 @nhm.org Library. Image: Courtesy of Trustees of the Natural History Museum.
I've seen footage of deer swimming in Loch Ness before - convincing misidentifications of the Loch Ness monster - but the Loch Ness monster being a misidentified swimming alpaca is a new one on me! ( I think those are alpacas,🦙 not llamas.) Daily Mirror, 9/8/22 @bestcryptids.bsky.social
I I just love rediscovering forgotten 1980s and 1990s waves of British big cat sightings! Here's one I recently stumbled upon from Northants, 1996.
Report of a big cat seen at Ufford, #Suffolk on 31/01/26 - "quite long body... leopard-like markings... brown... brindled.... moved like a cheetah or lynx... smaller than a leopard, bigger than an African wildcat... sort of serval-sized." Lynx?
Mountain lion (puma) captured after being at large in urban San Francisco. Ear tag identifies it as an individual caught in the area earlier and relocated. www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco...
The River Orwell leaves Ipswich under the Orwell Bridge, heading toward the sea. The writer Eric Blair chose its name as his pen name, becoming famous as George Orwell. He died #OTD 21 January 1950. His parents lived at Southwold in Suffolk, and he wrote some of his books there. 1/2