Another video on the Homo florensiensis situation. Recent research suggests that the "Hobbit" might not be a dwarfed Homo erectus (sensu stricto) but some kind of pre-human or almost-human. Perhaps an australopith (sensu latto)? I´m not surprised. I had a hunch in this direction already seven years ago. So can we go home now? Second breakfast, guys!
New research on the mysterious "human" (?) species known as Homo floresiensis suggests that they didn´t and couldn´t hunt dwarf elephants in their island habitat of Flores 100,000 years ago. Rather, the Hobbit (as this species of Homo is colloquially called) was feeding on carcasses of said pachyderm. The unfortunate proboscids had already been hunted and killed by Komodo dragons! That is, the extremely large monitor lizards known as "Komodo dragons" (this species of reptile is of course still around).
Not sure what to make of this. If Homo floresiensis is an example of insular dwarfism - a shrunken Homo erectus as it were - then the erecti weren´t fully "human" in our sense of the term, still being subject to natural selection (which our species can at least try to escape or transcend). But isn´t there also evidence that Homo erectus were smarter than hitherto assumed? I mean, how on earth did they even *reach* Flores in the first place?
So I don´t know. Something strange is going on here. Either evolution can in extreme cases "go backward" even in a lineage were intelligence is developing. Or the good ol´ Hobbit wasn´t really a human in the first place, but some kind of stray australopith a long way from home...
Both perspectives are pretty mind-boggling. So if Frodo and his 57 half-cousins keep you up at night, pray that the Hobbits (those at Flores) were just monkeys!
Years ago, I actually read a book which took the Tatzelwurm seriously and proposed that it could be a cryptid, perhaps a large and largely unknown species of lizard. Think the Gila Monster, but much more agile. Reading more about it, I think it´s *much* more likely that we´re dealing either with local folklore (think dragons) and/or misidentified mammals. Why else would the "lizard" have the head of a cat? Of course, the book in question also took "de Loys´ ape" seriously, so there´s that...
Can you tell me about the Tatzelwurm?
The Tatzelwurm (also called Stollenwurm or Bergstutzen) is a creature from Alpine folklore, especially associated with parts of:
Austria
Switzerland
Bavaria in Germany
Its name roughly means “claw worm” or “pawed worm” (from German Tatze = paw, Wurm = worm/serpent).
Descriptions vary, but most accounts agree on a few features:
Long, serpentine or lizard-like body
Very short body compared to a snake — sometimes described as stubby
Two forelegs (sometimes four) with claws
Cat-like or reptilian head
Reported length: 1–2 meters (3–6 feet)
Some witnesses claimed it had:
A wide mouth with sharp teeth
Piercing eyes
Smooth or scaly skin
It’s often described as aggressive and dangerous.
The Tatzelwurm appears in Alpine folklore dating back to at least the 18th century, though stories may be older. It was said to:
Live in mountain caves or rocky crevices
Attack livestock
Poison or suffocate victims with breath or venom
There are scattered 19th and early 20th century reports from peasants and hikers claiming sightings in the Alps.
One famous alleged sighting occurred in 1828 near the Austrian Alps, where a man reportedly died after claiming to have encountered one. Later, in the early 1900s, some naturalists tried to investigate reports, but no physical evidence was ever found.
Scholars and skeptics have proposed several theories:
Misidentified animals
Large salamanders
Escaped exotic reptiles
Distorted sightings of martens or other Alpine mammals
Folkloric dragon survival
It may be a regional echo of European dragon legends.
Cultural fear-symbol
Mountain dangers personified: avalanches, crevasses, wild animals.
Yes — in modern terms, the Tatzelwurm is classified as a cryptid (a creature reported in folklore but lacking scientific evidence), similar in category to:
Loch Ness Monster
Mokele-mbembe
However, unlike those, it is specifically rooted in Alpine mountain culture rather than lakes or jungles.
In Alpine regions, the Tatzelwurm represents:
Fear of wild, untamed nature
The mystery of mountain caves
A remnant of medieval dragon imagery localized into rural folklore
It’s less a “monster hunt” creature and more a regional mythic animal — somewhere between a dragon and a salamander.
If you’d like, I can also:
Compare it to medieval dragon symbolism
Explore its Jungian/archetypal meaning
Look at how it relates to other Alpine spirit beings
Or examine whether it could connect to older Indo-European serpent myths
Which direction interests you?
That’s a very reasonable hypothesis — and it’s one that has often been suggested.
Short answer: it’s unlikely, but not impossible in isolated cases.
Let’s break it down.
The Gila monster (found in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico) matches some Tatzelwurm descriptions:
Similarities
Thick-bodied
Large head
Short, powerful legs with claws
Venomous bite (which could explain “poison breath” folklore)
Somewhat slow but intimidating appearance
Key problem:
Gila monsters are desert reptiles. They do not live in cold Alpine climates.
The Alps (in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany) are far too cold for such reptiles to survive naturally.
Large lizards are ectothermic (cold-blooded). Alpine regions have:
Long, cold winters
Snow cover
High elevations
Short warm seasons
Even Europe’s largest native lizards (like wall lizards or green lizards) are much smaller and prefer warmer habitats.
A stable breeding population of something Gila-sized in the Alps would be biologically implausible without modern climate change — and even then, survival would be difficult.
This is more plausible in modern times:
A privately kept exotic lizard escapes.
Someone sees it.
Local folklore interprets it through existing myth.
However:
Most Tatzelwurm reports predate exotic pet trade.
Many accounts describe creatures longer than any Gila monster (sometimes 1–2 meters).
If it was a real animal, possibilities might include:
Europe does not have giant salamanders like Asia does, but large amphibians can look very strange when glimpsed briefly.
A rearing marten, otter, or badger seen briefly in rocky terrain can look surprisingly serpentine.
A small lizard + fear + retelling = dragon-like creature over time.
The “two-legged serpent” motif appears in medieval European dragon imagery. The Tatzelwurm may be:
A regional survival of dragon iconography
A mountain adaptation of the pan-European “wyrm”
The name itself (Wurm) already places it in that mythic category.
Biologically stable Alpine population?
→ Extremely unlikely.
Occasional misidentified reptile?
→ Possible but weakly supported.
Myth emerging from distorted sightings + dragon folklore?
→ Much more probable.
If you're interested, we could go deeper into:
Whether Europe ever had large lizards in historical times
The evolutionary plausibility of a cold-adapted reptilian cryptid
Or whether Alpine folklore preserves older Indo-European serpent myths
Which direction would you like to explore?
Short answer: Yes — but not in the time period relevant to Tatzelwurm legends.
Europe has had very large reptiles in deep prehistory, but not in recorded human history in the Alpine region.
Let’s break it down carefully.
In the Miocene epoch (about 23–5 million years ago), Europe was warmer and supported large reptiles.
Fossils show that relatives of modern monitor lizards once lived in Europe. One famous example is:
Varanus priscus (more commonly known from Australia, but related forms existed in Europe)
Europe had monitor-like lizards during warmer climatic periods, when subtropical ecosystems extended much farther north.
However:
These disappeared long before humans.
Climate cooling during the Ice Ages wiped out large reptile populations in Europe.
By the time humans were present in Europe (last 300,000 years):
Large reptiles were already gone.
Cold-adapted mammals dominated (mammoths, cave bears, etc.).
Reptiles were limited to small, cold-tolerant species.
There is no fossil evidence of large lizards surviving in Ice Age Europe.
In recorded history:
The largest European lizards are species like the green lizard (Lacerta viridis), typically under 40 cm.
Europe has no native monitor lizards.
No fossil or archaeological evidence suggests survival of large reptilian species into Roman or medieval times.
If something Gila-sized had existed in the Alps 1,000 years ago, we would expect:
Bones in caves
Mentions in Roman natural histories (e.g., Pliny)
Physical remains
None exist.
The Alps (in Austria and Switzerland) have been cold for tens of thousands of years.
Large ectothermic reptiles:
Cannot regulate internal temperature.
Struggle in long freezing winters.
Require warm basking environments and extended active seasons.
A hidden relic population surviving Ice Ages in Alpine caves would be biologically extraordinary — and would require a unique physiology unlike any known lizard.
Theoretically?
Yes.
Realistically?
Extremely unlikely.
To survive Alpine winters, such a reptile would need:
Extreme hibernation ability
Deep geothermal cave habitats
Very low metabolism
A stable breeding population
No fossil record supports such a lineage.
Even though large lizards didn’t survive historically in Europe, Europe did preserve:
Dragon myths
Wyrm legends
Serpent-killing hero stories
The word “Wurm” in Tatzelwurm already places it in that mythic lineage.
It’s much more plausible that:
Small reptiles or mammals were misidentified.
Dragon imagery survived in localized folklore.
Mountain dangers became personified as a clawed serpent.
Did Europe once have large lizards?
→ Yes — millions of years ago.
Did they survive into historical times in the Alps?
→ There is no fossil, archaeological, or textual evidence that they did.
Is the Tatzelwurm a survival of prehistoric reptile fauna?
→ Extremely unlikely.
If you'd like, we could explore something more speculative:
Could Ice Age cave ecosystems hide unknown vertebrates?
Or how dragon mythology may preserve distorted memory of prehistoric megafauna?
Or whether similar “two-legged serpent” beings appear in Indo-European myth patterns?
Given your interest in comparative religion and symbolism, the mythic continuity angle might be especially interesting.
Five animals only seen once. OK, quite interesting! Note the implication for cryptozoology: if even species that are extremely rare can become known to science, why can´t we find cryptids which supposedly live in our very backyards? Cuz they´re not real, obviously.
Unless they´re fairies. As per usual!
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| - Not sure if the journey was worth it, tbh... |
"Iguanas sailed on rafts 34 million years ago". LOL, no, they didn´t. But the headline does sound funny. I mean, for a moment I hoped peer-reviewed Science (TM) had proved the Silurian hypothesis?!
Alas, it´s an article about perfectly normal lizards clinging to masses of vegetation drifting with the ocean currents all the way from North America to the Fiji islands. The longest journey ever made by a non-human terrestrial animal, apparently. Somewhat ironically, the ancestors of the Fijian iguanas may have been desert-dwelling ditto in America.
I assume their evolutionary adaptations to a desert environment (think extreme heat, almost no water) may have helped them survive on the "raft" in scorching tropical heat with no fresh water until they reached the land of milk and honey in the middle of the Pacific...
Could an unknown (and gruesome) species of crocodile or monitor lizard be lurking in inland Liberia? Cryptozoology blogger Karl Shuker has some ideas about the problematique.
The existence of this cryptid seems unlikely, but it´s interesting to note that the natives don´t consider the gbahali to be supernatural, but just another dangerous animal. My wild guess, offered from the wilds of my armchair, is that the man-eating beast is a misidentified Nile crocodile of extremely large size (a form that would itself be unknown to science).
If a White man with a herpetology degree survives a gbahali attack while lurking in Liberia, we´ll finally know...
The Gruesome Gbahali: Lurking in Liberia?
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"Oceans" is the fourth part of the five-part documentary "A Perfect Planet" from the BBC. Or rather ocean, since strictly speaking there really is just one large sea on planet Earth. As usual, we get to see spectacular footage of more or less bizarre creatures. There is the flightless cormorant on the Galapagos Islands (it´s an excellent swimmer and diver) and the sea iguanas, large lizards which seek their food in the oceans...but die of cold unless they swim back to shore within 30 minutes. When really hungry, they simply attack the nests of the cormorants, eating the algae the nest are made of!
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the Pacific, surgeon fish gather to release their eggs and sperm into the water to be carried away by the streams from any threatening predators...except the giant manta rays, which gather at the same place at exactly the same time, gobbling up substantial amounts of the nutritious mix! Another pelagic glutton is Bryde´s whale, which we see in action somewhere off the Thai coast. "A Perfect Planet: Oceans" also features sharks, sting rays, bony fish of all kinds, and a very bizarre octopus (or is it a squid?).
The episode ends with another look at how "A Perfect Planet" was made, concentrating on the first part of the series, "Volcano". The team, led by Richard Wollocombe, descend into the crater of the dormant volcano at Fernandina, one of the Galapagos Islands. More people have been in space than down this particular crater, and I can´t say I blame Buzz Aldrin for choosing the former option! The place looks like a cross between Mordor and Dante´s Inferno, with huge rocks constantly falling down the steep slopes. At the bottom of the crater is a mysterious blue-green lake. But why on earth does anyone want to film *there*, and did they ever get an insurance, and if so, how much did it cost? If you´ve seen "Volcano", you know the answer: female land iguanas regularly descend into the crater, despite all the dangers, to lay their eggs in the warm ash at the bottom. How on earth evolution took *this* course is never explained, and perhaps we don´t even want to know...
The next and last episode of this stunning series is, perhaps ominously, entitled "Humans". Let me guess. We get to see a lot of house crows, house sparrows and cockroaches? A perfect planet indeed! :D
"A Perfect Planet" is a new series shown on BBC Earth, narrated by David Attenborough. When shown on Swedish TV, however, we have to rest contented with Henrik Ekman! I recently watched the first episode, "Volcano".
It´s ostensibly an educational production about the pivotal role of volcanic activity in sustaining life on Earth. Except, of course, that it isn´t. The "educational" angle is just an excuse to show the most spectacular footage of wildlife the BBC could lay their hands on this season. No hard feelings, btw! I mean, who cares about geology, anyway?
First, we get to see Lake Natron in Tanzania, a large volcanic lake where literally millions of lesser flamingoes breed and nest every year. It looks like another planet. Unfortunately for the flamingoes, but fortunately for the ecological balance in nature, marabou storks also gather to feast at those young flamingoes which aren´t fit enough to run away. I assumed the truly spectacular footage from Lake Natron was made by drones (the lake seems to be strongly acidic) but actually it was shot by an actual human who reached the interior of the lake area with a hovercraft! The local Massai tribeswomen even had to help him repair the hovercraft´s skirt...
Next, we get to see some bizarre footage from the Galapagos Islands. At the small island of Wolf, one of "Darwin´s finches" (actually tanagers) have evolved a truly remarkable behavior. The "vampire ground finch" sometimes attacks the Nazca boobies and literally sucks their blood, weirldy enough without the boobies even noticing. At the island of Fernardina, an iguana climbs down into a volcanic crater 800 meters deep to lay its eggs in the hot sands surrounding the volcanic lake. This almost literal descensus into hell is extremely dangerous for the lizard, due to steep cliffs and falling rocks.
This first episode ends with scenes of otters and coyotes from Yellowstone and a large gathering of cute-looking but dangerous brown bears from Kamchatka in Russia.
I´m not sure if "A Perfect Planet" really proves that the planet is perfect, but at the very least, it does seem to be perfectly wild!
I will certainly continue watching this series with great interest.
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| The shark on the photo has no connection to the book under review |
