Mystery Animals of Pennsylvania - Out Now!

It's actually been out for a few weeks (I originally wrote years. Yeah, OK), but Mystery Animals of Pennsylvania is now out. It's also on Barnes & Noble, but for whatever reason I can't seem to find any actual links to purchase it off of there...

Here's some of the topics:

- Bizarre creatures associated with hex traditions

- Out-of-place alligators and other animals

- The Jersey Devil

- Montie the Monster

- The Dorlan Devil

- Thunderbirds

- Bigfoot

- Ice elementals in the northern mountains

- Other bizarre humanoid creatures

- Plus, a lengthy article describing a circus train wreck near Altoona that gave rise to several out-of-place animal reports

The Field & Stream trail cam photo

The photograph on the right is making its rounds on the Bigfoot websites around the internet. Now, while we don't know that this picture was taken in Pennsylvania - or even on the East Coast - it has been noted that it looks to be very similar to the infamous Jacobs photos (possibly showing a Bigfoot, or, much more likely, a mangy or underfed bear) which likewise made the circuit a few years back.

The newer photo, to me, seems like it may have been Photoshopped, in part: the body and head of the creature don't seem to jive. While the body displays motion blur, the head looks very static. It also, in my opinion, doesn't look necessarily apelike. Most likely scenario to me is that it is a genuine photograph of a running bear, with the ursine's head Photoshopped out and replaced with a more apish head.

Original image source: Field & Stream

Berwick bug was an ankle-biter

From the Frederick (Maryland) News (August 24, 1901), comes this little tidbit:

The "ankle bug" has taken the place of the "kissing bug" in some localities. In Berwick, Pa., a number of persons have been crippled as the result of its bite. As yet the insect has not been identified, and is known only as the "ankle bug." Persons wearing shoes, with open work stockings, are easy prey.

The "kissing bug" to which this alludes is an interesting case, and one into which little research has ever been done. First mentioned by Charles Fort in Wild Talents, this was a veritable plague of insect bites which swept from Washington, DC, and thence across the country, in 1899. Most have been content to call it mass hysteria and be done with it - while it undoubtedly was mass hysteria in which any sort of biting or stinging insect was labelled "kissing bug", I don't believe its true origins lie in hysteria. That said, the "ankle bug" seems to be much the same.