The Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010

THE TEMPLE OF NIM THE NIM
Vol. 1, Issue No 2
March, 2010.
The giant human [right] footprint measured 1.28m in length by 40cm wide across the toes, 33cm wide at mid-foot and 34cm wide at the heel, by 8cm deep in the rock. How tall was the owner of this titan tootsie? Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
Inside:
Australopithecus in Australia? The Rexbeast Mystery. Migration Mysteries. Australasias Lizard Giants.
Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.
Blue Mountains UFO Research Club. The Club meetings are held on the third Saturday of the month, at the Gilroy residence, 12 Kamillaroi Road, South Katoomba, from 2pm onwards.
We are situated on the corner of Kamillaroi Road and Ficus Street, and as we always say, park in Ficus Street where there is safer parking.
Rex and Heather Gilroy, Australias top UFO and Unexplained Mysteries Research team. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2004.
AUSTRALOPITHECUS IN AUSTRALIA?
A hypothetical proposition based upon the assessment of African and Australian Skull-types displaying parallel anatomical features.
by Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2010. [The Australian skull-types described in this paper are in the authors possession]. n recent times much scientific debate has raged over the discovery of fossil skeletal remains of a pygmy-hight race recovered on the Indonesian island of Flores. The remains form a female estimated to have been about 29 years of age, standing 1 metre tall, weighting around 30 kilograms. Her feet were long with curved toes, while her leg bones were proportionately short. Her arms tended to bend out to the side rather than forwards, and her small skull possessed a tiny ape-sized brain with the skull displaying facial and dental characteristics which firmly place here in the genus Homo. Yet while the facial/dental features are homo, the morphology of the feet bones suggest this race shares a combination of Australopithecine and modern non-human ape characteristics, giving rise to the theory that Homo floresiensis as she is now known is related to a hominin earlier than [African] Homo ergaster or Homo erectus, our immediate ancestor, ie Australopithecus. The skeleton was recovered from 17,000 year old deposits in a large limestone cave called Liang Bua, together with evidence of fire-making and stone tool manufacture. Scientists puzzle as to how the ancestor of these Hobbits [as they have been nick-named] were able to reach Flores via island southeast Asia in times when boat-building skills were unknown. The obvious answer is that they WALKED there. Indeed, it is the authors contention that a continuous Asia-Australia land bridge had to have existed to explain the growing fossil evidence for pre-Australoid [ie Aboriginal] occupation of this continent throughout the Pleistocene period [ie 2 million to 10,000 years BP Before Present]. Prior to this period was the Pliocene, which began some 5 million years ago, lasting until the dawn of the Pleistocene. Might Australopithecines have spread beyond Africa perhaps to enter Asia, spreading beyond into the Australasian region, even to Australia, leaving their imprint as it were, upon the Flores hominins? There is at present no known official scientifically-recognised fossil evidence for an actual Australopithecine migration beyond Africa; so that until such fossil evidence is uncovered and recognised the fossil evidence here presented from Australia must be treated as a hypothetical proposition only. ***** Australopithicine fossils show these hominins roamed Eastern and Southern Africa between 4.4 and 1.4 million years ago. As a primitive mineralised skull from Australia [if indeed it is an Australopithecine] might suggest, migrating bands of these hominins could have found their way into our part of the world at some time during the Pliocene. This skull was found on Thursday 6th January 2005 while I was on a hike out on Narrow Neck Plateau, southwest of Katoomba, New South Wales. At a particular location I chanced to see an oddly-shaped lump of ironstone projecting from out of the rubble of a roadside embankment. Upon removing it out of curiosity, I realised it to be a very badly weathered hominin skull of immense age.
The fossil had come from the base of strata of a 2 metre or so deep Pleistocene deposit where it met deposits of the end of the Pliocene period, giving the fossil an age of at least 2 million years BP. The skull pre-dated the oldest presently-known Homo erectus skull from Java [ie 1.8 million years old] and also other Homo erectus mineralised skulltypes recovered by me since, including the New Years Day 2008 Coxs River, New South Wales example found by myself and associate Greg Foster in 1.5 million year old deposits. The Australopithecine features of the Narrow Neck skull were apparent to me the moment I first held it in my hands, but I passed these off as a coincidence, believing that I had found an archaic Homo erectus skull-type. However, there was something unique about this specimen that set it apart from any other Homo erectus skull found up to that date by myself and my wife Heather anywhere in Australia; it possessed a deteriorated but still noticeable pointed sagittal crest. This feature is rarely encountered in Homo erectus skulls. The skull, originally doliocephalic [ie long, narrow] had suffered distortion in its early stages of burial, as the braincase, not having been entirely filled with sediment [which would have reinforced it against crushing] had been crushed somewhat towards the rear of the frontal section of the skull. The lower jaw was missing, but in the badly deteriorated palate area the remains of perhaps six teeth sockets could still be detected in the dental arch. The remains of a thick projecting right brow ridge and deep eye socket were present, although the left brow ridge and eye socket had long ago broken away together with a section of the left cranial area. The face projected forwards and the skull dome was flattish. The skull is heavily pit-marked, the result of having been subjected to a very long period of exposure to the elements at some time in the dim past. This shows that the skull had been buried long enough to have become mineralised, before becoming re-exposed to the surface after an immense period of time had elapsed. At the time of my discovery of the fossil it had only recently been re-exposed by heavy rain which had washed away overlying soil deposits. Believing I had found the earliest form of Homo erectus in Australia I gave it the name of Proto-Homo erectus Gilroyii. The skull measures 20cm long from the nasal area to the rear of the crushed-in braincase, by 17.6cm deep from cranium to palate, the rear of the flattened braincase area being 16cm deep. There is 7.5cm of remaining pointed sagittal crest length by 2cm wide. The skull is 21.5cm wide across the facial section. The right brow ridge is 3cm thick, the eye socket measuring 6cm long by 3.5cm tall. On the underside the surviving dental arch measures 9cm in width by 7cm in length. The possible remains of four teeth sockets might be detected on the right side of the dental arch with at least two on the left side. The above measurements indicate that, had the skull been intact and the lower jaw present, the Narrow Neck hominin would have stood about 1.6metres tall. ***** West of Katoomba and the Blue Mountains lies the Bathurst district through which winds the Macquarie river. This region lies on the fringe of the central west of New South Wales and has already produced fossil and other evidence of a pre-Australoid Homo erectus past. My late father, Mr W.F. [Bill] Gilroy, who once mined for gold hereabouts used to say that one day fossil remains of early hominins would be uncovered in the vicinity of the river. On Wednesday 29th August 2007 I uncovered a skull-type similar in primitive structural features to the Narrow Neck Plateau, Katoomba skull, in old dawn Pleistocene deposits, making it about the same age as its counterpart. A limestone mineralised specimen, it was an endocast displaying a flattish cranium with two eye sockets tending to project outwards on each side of the skull as in the Narrow Neck specimen, and a forward-projecting face. About half of the lower part of the fossil is missing. There are the remains of a pointed sagittal crest. In honour of my father I named the find Homo erectus billyii. The skull measures 21.5cm tall by 21cm wide across the cranial area. The brow ridges are 3cm thick, the eye sockets 5.5cm wide by 4.5cm tall. As with the Narrow Neck skull the braincase is missing. I identified this skull as another Proto-Homo erectus whose height was about that of the Narrow Neck hominin. At least two other skull-types of what I named Proto-Homo erectus have since been added to the list, one from the New South Wales far south coast, the other from Barraba in the states northwest. However, their Australopithecine appearance is uncanny. ***** While the Proto-Homo erectus billyii skull endocast displays slight differences to the Narrow Neck specimen, and may therefore represent a locally-evolved though related form, the eye sockets of both skulls are situated at the top of the flattish cranium and present the appearance of bulging outwards from each side of the skull, atop which is a pointed sagittal crest, all of which is found in skull-types of the African Australopithecine races A. boisei and A. robustus. The sagittal crest had a purpose, namely to support the muscles of A. boisei and robostus powerful jaws, indicating strong, muscular beings as the Australian skulls owners would have seen. If my proposed Proto-Homo erectus group of skull-types are [as I sometimes suspect] Australian Australopithecines, the 2 million years BP age I have given them, based upon stratigraphic/geological grounds, would fit in well with the time period of 2 million and 1.8 million years when A. robustus and A. boisei respectively roamed Africa. Thus if Australopithecine groups really did find their way out of Africa and eventually into India, thence over the long submerged land-bridge of which only islands remain today, then PERHAPS Australopithecus [ie Southern Ape] migrations ended their long migration on Australian soil.
3
Yet, as already stated: as no fossil remains of Australopithecines have been found beyond Africa, my presentation is purely speculative, although based upon the fossil evidence in my possession. -0-
The Hobbit skull, in relation to a larger modern human example. From News in Science. ABC Online Home.
Artist Peter Schutenss depiction of what a male Hobbit might have looked like. From News in Science, ABC Online Home.
The Hobbit skull, various angles. From News in Science, ABC Online Home.
The Proto-Homo erectus skull. Now turned to ironstone, besides distortions it bears extensive signs of an earlier period of long-time surface exposure, as shown by excessive, deep pitmarking. The skulls distinctive, though badly worn pointed sagittal crest, distinguishes it from all other Homo erectus skulls so far discovered in Australia. The originally doliocephalic braincase was partly crushed flattish due to sediments not having sufficiently filled it to otherwise provide some resistance to distortion in the early stages of burial. This right side view of the skull shows the face projected outwards with the right, badly worn brow ridge having been thick and projecting. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The proto-Homo erectus skull, frontal view. Note the weathered pointed sagittal crest. A section of the left orbital and cranial frontal area of the left eye socket and brow ridge is missing [the shadow gives the impression of a second brow ridge and socket here]. Although no lower jaw has survived, the dental arch [not visible here] shows faint outlines of several teeth sockets. Note how the right brow ridge projects outward. Outward projecting brow ridges is a feature of archaic skull types from Asia and Africa. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The rear of the braincase showing the flattened appearance. When intact, the skull would have been doliocephalic [ie long and narrow]. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
Homo Prometheus gilroyii. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
These casts of Australopithecus boisei [top] and Australopithecus robustus, which lived in Africa 1.8 and 2 million years ago respectively, display large eye sockets and flattish craniums with pointed sagittal crests, a very ancient hominid feature. These features compare favourably with the proto-Homo erectus skull from Katoomba, NSW [2 million years BP] and the Homo Prometheus of Bega district, NSW [4 million years BP] respectively. However, the resemblance is superficial as Australopithecines were confined to Africa. Casts from display in Museum of Western Australia, Perth.
THE REXBEAST MYSTERY.

from the book The Yowie Mystery
by Rex Gilroy Copyright Rex Gilroy 2010
f all the old bushmens yarns of encounters in the wild with the hairy man that were so commonplace throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, none are more fascinating to relict hominologists than those involving so-called hairy giants. Indeed Aboriginal folklore concerning the hairy man [which can get confusing at times] speaks of two forms of Yowie/Homo erectus; namely the hairy man and the giant hairy man. It appears that, to their way of thinking, any Yowie of around 2.6m and over is a giant hairy man. Yet a comparison of the average size modern foot of a Yowie/Homo erectus is smaller compared to the large footprints of the 2.6-2.8m tall form, although both are dwarfed by the massive tracks laid down by the true giants of the Australian bush, the giant hairy man proper. These beings leave footprints [allowing for size distortion in sand etc] of from 90cm to 1m in length with a width of from 40 to 45cm or more. A comparison of footprints of all three forms revealed differences to the Gilroys in 2000 which we realised that everyone else had overlooked. The 2.6m form could not be younger members of the giant form, whom we judged to stand at least 3.66m [12ft] in height and of powerful muscular build. Therefore, like any scientist naming a newly discovered species, we named this giant hominid Rexbeast. What follows are accounts of these giants, who in past ages must have roamed a far wider domain, when the interior was a lush environment in Ice-Age times. Today they are said by our Aboriginal people to inhabit the vast interior of Australias eastern mountain ranges, and it was in these ranges that 19th century settlers were warned by the old tribespeople that they should never go, lest they would be caught, killed and eaten by the giant hairy people! For Heather and I our first encounter with one of these giant beings took place during our October-November 2000 south-eastern New South Wales Yowie field expedition. On Thursday 2nd November, early that overcast morning we were driving inland from Bodalla on our way to the Deua National park, when we crossed over the 3m high Eurobodalla bridge on the Tuross River. As I happened to look down at a sandbar on my [passengers] side I spotted, deeply embedded in the sand, a huge hominid foot impression. Pulling up on the north bank we walked back to the bridges centre, below which was the sand bar containing the huge footprint. The Tuross River is tidal, so that when the tide is out, the river hereabouts virtually dries up, exposing its sandy bottom in many areas, particularly at this spot. Below the bridge the sandbar was 9 metres or so in width by just over 18 metres length, the bridge cutting across its centre, with river water flowing eastwards to the sea. We could clearly see the track of a pushbike, made by a rider when pedalling over the moist sand the previous afternoon. There were also faint signs of childrens footprints and scratching around the bike tracks and a huge [right] foot impression, almost obliterated by the rising tide the night before. We could still faintly detect a trail of enormous footprints beneath the shallow water on the north side of the sandbar. 5
The evidence suggested to us that children had been playing on the dried-up river bed, leaving the scene before dark, after which the monstrous hominid [surely a male] had emerged from nearby forest country to cross open farmland, entering the river on its north bank, then strode across the sand on a north-west to south-east course for some 30 metres to stop at the base of the 3 metre high bridge, then turn directly west. At this point this massive right foot had covered the bike track. Subsequently the tide had returned to cover or wash away most of the footprints but for what remained on this sandbar, which by the time we appeared on the scene, had become an island surrounded by [outflowing] water. But how big was the maker of the monstrous foot impression? The distances between the dozen or so almost obliterated [submerged] footprints showed a stride of about 1.8m. The foot impression, allowing for distortion, measured 1 metre long by 40cm wide across the toes and 35cm wide at the heel, its depth being up to 5cm; all of which suggested an individual of at least 4.6 metres in height and of powerful build and strength. Just after we photographed this lucky find light rain began to fall. We proceeded on our way, deep into the mountains. By the time we returned later that day, all trace of the Tuross Giant had vanished, washed away by the incoming tide. ***** Stories from the far south coastal and inland New South Wales forestlands of giant-size hominids are many. For example, along the Yowaka River at Pambula, where Yowies had been getting themselves in the news since the 1870s, there had been tales among the locals of a much larger form of hairy man, and that the footprints of these beings were far larger than those left by the normal height Yowies. In 1902 a property owner, a Mr Richards, watched helplessly one day as an 11 foot giant-sized man carried off a calf he had just broken the neck of into the scrub. Yowaka was another local Aboriginal name for the Yowie and todays Aboriginal inhabitants of the district still believe that a whole population of them, including a good number of the taller giants, still inhabit the mountains inland from the coast. Some years ago the author received a report from a Mr John Dobson, who in 1950 was camped with two mates all teenagers in the Kanangra Boyd wilds. The month was August if I remember correctly and the time would have been around 2.30pm, when we left our camp to go exploring in the bush. At one point, while my two friends were filling their canteens at a little creek I was some distance from them, when I heard sounds of dried twigs and scrub breaking. To my horror I saw a huge, 12 ft or so tall, naked man-giant moving in my direction. As he had not yet spotted me I crouched down behind some boulders absolutely terrified as the monster moved past. He continued on into the surrounding scrub and I spotted him one more time as he moved out of sight. I was trembling with fear as I ran after my friends and told them what had just happened. We were very cautious as we left the area for our camp but saw no sign of the giant man. We packed up everything and were glad to reach the Kanangra Walls Road. Early settlers of the Liverpool-Cabramatta district, in the latter part of the 19th century, have left us tales of giant hairy people. These traditions continued on well into the 1930s, when people living in bushland areas still claimed sightings or footprint finds of these beings [in those times the outer western region of Sydney was covered in extensive areas of dense gum and tea tree scrub, extending all the way back towards the Blue Mountains, in the age before the Urban sprawl], and were known to keep a wary eye out when outside their homes at night. As late as 1954 a 13ft tall giant man was claimed seen wandering bushland outside Liverpool at sundown. In 1970, a Mr Gary George told me that, when he was 8 years old, in 1954, playing alone in bush near his parents vegetable farm some miles to the west of Cabramatta, one September afternoon. He said he caught sight of a huge, hairy, naked 12-13ft tall man. I ran back to the house screaming for my mum and dad. Of course my parents thought I was exaggerating, but as I had seen something apparently frightening, my dad afterwards searched the area but found no trace of the creature. Over the years the authors have collected hundreds of hairy man [and woman] reports and of course I was doing this long before I met Heather in 1972. It was only when we began to single out all the reports of relict hominids of far greater height than the average Yowie reports that we began to see that we were dealing with a different and much larger form of hominid. This would be confirmed once we compared footprint plaster casts. Aside from the pygmy-like hairy people of Aboriginal lore, we found that there were three separate forms of Yowie/Homo erectus [as described in the previous chapter], and which other overenthusiastic researchers had merely lumped together as a single entity. Nothing could be further from the truth and when we realised that we had identified this separate and much larger form, we named him Rexbeast. On Monday 9th July 2007, after assessing all the available evidence, we gave this race the scientific name Homo giganthropus gilroyii. He is likely to be proven to be an offshoot of the giant Homo erectus fossil form, Homo antjii. ***** During the mid-1890s people in the Mulgoa and Yarramundi-Blacktown scrublands, told stories of having found footprints of the hairy man at least 16 to 20 inches [40.6-50.8cm] in length, while others claimed to have caught sight of the apparent makers of these tracks on lonely bushland roads or in the dense scrub. Even larger footprints were claimed to have been found by property owners in these districts. Some of the claims involved sightings of females of 8 to 10ft height, even their children were sometimes said to have been with them. In Sydneys south, the Sutherland wilderness region of those times is no more, but during the mid-1950s there were still some old people of the area who could recall wild tales of small numbers of big hairy men and women inhabiting those forests, as far down as the Wollongong district. Aborigines of the Mulgoa district around 1897 informed their European neighbours that these giants regularly emerged from the Burragorang Valley to roam about at night, before retreating back into the valley. During 2004 Heather and I gathered a number of Rexbeast-size beings incidents, including information supplied to us by an ABC Radio reporter who interviewed me on the subject. This lady informed me that Aborigines of the Bega district believe that giant Doolagards continue to inhabit the mountains of the far south coast-Bega district. The Aborigines say that the Bunga Pinch, on the back road between Bermagui and Tathra is a frequent area for sightings. Giant Doolagards have been seen, they say, by drivers late at night, moving across the road into bushland often startled by the headlights glare. Large people often cross the road at night the local Aborigines will tell motorists. Both the Aborigines and many townsfolk believe that there is a Doolagard walking track in the area of the road sightings that comes down out of the mountain country. 6
During 1975 a Mr Leo Maka, then living in the Bodalla district, informed us that, one day he was on a fox hunting trip in the Tuross river scrub which is part of the Bodalla Forest. I was standing at the base of a 20ft tall [6.1m] bank of the river at one point, when I chanced to look up and saw two Yowies, very big in body proportions, at least 10ft in height [3.5m]. They began communicating with one another in some guttural-like sounds. Five more three of them small juveniles and two taller adults emerged to join them. All wore crude cloaks of animal hide. All of them then strode off into the forest, and I got out of the area, rifle at the ready, pretty fast, I can tell you!! he said. One does not often know what to make of a lot of such claims, but we prefer to keep an open mind and continue our search for tangible evidence of the existence of the Rexbeast giants. We have learnt of another, apparent giant Doolagard/Rexbeast migratory track, which emerges from behind Araluen in the big swamps that lie on the top of the escarpment to go on through Tilba/Wallaga Lake, Tanja and Kalaru before it goes out through the Black Range to Wolumla, then on into the Victorian wilderness. ***** In Chapter Six we described the discovery, deep in the Wadbilliga mountain country, with our friends and field assistants Antji and Allan Westrip, of the first of what are now two huge endocasts of giant hominid skulls, suggesting that giant Homo erectus beings were present on the far south coast of New South Wales around 300,000 and more years ago. The local Aboriginal people have always believed in the Wadbilliga giant, a giant man of the dreamtime who could stand 2-3 times the height of an Aborigine and who roamed [and still does] the forest-covered mountainsides carrying a big stone club, with which he kills anyone who he comes across and eats them! These obvious race-memories of the giant form of Homo erectus occur under a variety of names, from central Victoria into the Australian Alps and on through the south coast and Monaro districts of New South Wales, to the Blue Mountains. Yet there are more than mere early traditions and present-day encounter claims, or even freshly-made giant footprints found in the wild to convince the authors of the reality of Rexbeast. Since 2000 we have recovered a number of recentlymanufactured basalt and other stone megatools at more than one Wadbilliga district forest location, situated deep within the range on the banks of lonely, eerie deeply cut creeks. Others have turned up deep in the Blue Mountains, in the Kanangra region and I have heard accounts of apparent recently made stone megatools having been found in the Wollemi scrub and swamplands. From what we are able to learn of the average heights of these hominid giants, males can reach from 3.66 to 4 metres; whereas females vary anywhere between 2.8 and 3 metres height. The males are, at full growth, big, powerful and muscular beings, while the females are often slender. The stone implements wielded by the males consist of clubs and chopping tools averaging between 15 and 20kg. They also manufacture other cutting and scraping tools found at their campsites, which also include knives and hand-axes. The Kanangra Boyd National Park, south-west of Katoomba, contains some of the wildest Blue Mountains forestlands, much of which remains still largely impenetrable to modern-day explorers. Fossil footprints, often of monstrous proportions, have been found here as already stated in this book; but also recently made examples have been claimed found by campers and there are seemingly endless claims of these huge forest giants, seen moving about close to camps on moonlit nights, attracted no doubt by the campfire glow through the trees. The Burragorang Giants were known to the early settlers of that valley in the 19th century and on into the last years before the valley was flooded for the creation of Warragamba Dam in the late 1950s. For a long time thereafter, aging former Burragorang inhabitants still recalled the old tales. Like other, smaller Yowies, they were said to emerge from the scrub to drink at creeks and wander onto cattle properties. Farmers hardly ever went about remote parts of the valley without side arms or rifles, just in case the stories of sightings thereabouts were true! Reports from the Blue Mountains continue. On the night of Monday 20th October 2003 six campers three men and three women were returning from a couple of days camping trip in Newnes Forest, walking in moonlight along a fire trail on their way to their two four-wheel drive vehicles parked in the scrub about a kilometre ahead. Their backpacks were heavy and upon reaching a trackside clearing, they stopped for a rest. As they sat on the ground talking, one woman heard the sounds of something or someone, moving through the nearby trees in their direction. Flashing her torch, she revealed a 9ft [2.75m] tall, dark hairy male figure, standing on the edge of the scrub observing them. The woman, Susan who gave me this report, yelled out to the others, but they were already flashing their torches at the hairy being. Our first thought was to grab whatever was handy as weapons. My friends, Vernon and Carroll Marsh, saw that the big fellow was clothed in a scraggly hairy animal hide garment that was tied with twine or something around his neck front and back and this covered him down to about his knees. He then turned around and strode off back into the trees, but by now we were grabbing our packs. We got out of there as quick as we could, said Susan. ***** Turning further north, we find that the Hunter district, as far inland as the singleton district and northwards to beyond Scone, and also the Mt Royal Range-Barrington Tops wilds to the north-east of Singleton, ever since the first Europeans established themselves throughout this vast region in the early 19th century, has long been a favoured haunt of the hairy man, giant and otherwise. For a more detailed account of the hairy happenings of these remote mountainous recesses we direct the reader to our book Giants from the Dreamtime the Yowie in Myth and Reality [URU Publications 2001] by Rex Gilroy. In January 2004 I received a phone call from an informant regarding several reported discoveries of huge man-like footprints, a metre in length and as much as 50cm in width at the toes that were going on in the Manning River district west of Taree, north coastal New South Wales. A hairy being was described as having frightened stock on a farm near the base of the Dingo Tops and who was said to be up to 3 metres in height. I had earlier learnt from a Taree resident that massive 70-80cm long humanoid-type footprints had been found in the Dingo Tops scrub by a man chain sawing old logs for firewood about January 2001. And again in 2002, three men in a four-wheel drive vehicle stopped to open a gate to a remote bush property deep in the Tops, to discover several, few days old and weathered, but still noticeable, giant hominid footprints on both sides of the gate, suggesting the maker had stepped over the 1.2m high cyclone wire gate, to leave the dirt track and make its way down a steep wooded gully to the right of the gate nearby. 7
Tales of giant hominids on the Carrai Range inland from Kempsey further north are legendary. They have persisted at least since the 1840s and this mysterious, eerie, vast region continues to hold the imagination of relict hominologists to this day. Made famous during the mid-1970s, partly by the Gilroys reporting eerie encounters with hairy male and female beings receiving attention at that time, which included an experience by local timber cutter George Grey [see Chapter Twelve Giants from the Dreamtime], other so-called researchers hopped on the bandwagon in the wake of our expedition there in April 1977, hoping to cash in on our researches by getting some media attention themselves. It is unfortunate that their antics only gave the sensationhungry media in Sydney and elsewhere plenty of opportunity for tongue-in-cheek reporting of what was for us a serious investigation! Some of the early settlers tales of the Carrai and the nearby Bellbrook area are reminiscent of old stories of the MonsterMen of the Lamington Plateau, which lies inland from the Queensland Gold Coast side of the New South Wales border, forming part of the Border Ranges. Further north, the coastal high-peaked forest-covered mountain ranges that overlook the coastal flats, and which are often capped by clouds, have particularly in the Mackay district northwards onto the Atherton Ranges, been the fabled home of giant hairy male and female beings. These traditions fill the folklore of the local former tribespeople, as well as early settlers tales and there are also modern-day encounters to consider. In the Cardwell district during the 1860s, local Aborigines offered the same advice as their southern cousins, to settlers never to venture alone and unarmed into the Cardwell Range or else they would meet up with giant hairy men who would kill and eat them! People, both men and women on lonely properties often vanished without trace, giving some credence to these claims. In 1869 a farmer went missing it is said, and a search party later found his dismembered body in the jungle outside the town the following day a victim of the Thunder Men, claimed the Aborigines. This later title for the hairy giants and their women of the Cardwell Range is still recalled by some people of that district. He/ they are also known as the Cardwell Giants today. The heights and footprints sizes reported of these beings certainly fit the Rexbeast image. Inland from Cairns, high up in the forests of the Atherton Range and northwards into the Cooktown district and Cape York beyond, there is a rich Aboriginal tradition of giant male and female beings, besides of course the smaller Yowie/Homo erectus form. In the course of field researches in Far North Queensland during the years 2003 and 2005 Heather and I gathered more reports of these Dreamtime Giants. For example, in 1978 a 9ft [2.75m] tall female hominid was said to have been spotted, walking with a 4ft male child, in the Gilbert River country near Sterling, while a 4m tall male, carrying a big stone hand-axe was claimed seen in the Kowanyama district of the west coast of the Cape in July 2000. Monstrous fresh tracks of 1m length by about 40-45cm width were found by a Mr John Chimes in the Camboola area of the Mitchell River, in the heart of the Cape country in May 1998. Back in 1905, an 18-20ft tall man-like monster, is claimed to have terrorised a Cooktown family on their lonely farm for some weeks, leaving its massive footprints in the ground about the farmhouse on some nights. He terrorised cattle and wrecked wooden fences, until eventually retreating back into the ranges whence he had come, said a local historian to me in a letter back in 1970. In 1967 and again in 1980, there were wild reports of 8-10ft tall male and female hairy hominids being seen in the scrub around the Battle Camp Range, while in the Nicholson River country west of Burketown monstrous footprints were found by a family exploring in a four-wheel drive vehicle. This area had however already been the scene of similar finds back in 1951. Claims of hairy giants persist from these regions today. To go into every sighting report or claims of discoveries of huge footprints in remote regions of the Cape is not possible, yet the material that we have presented we believe, is enough to suggest that an hitherto overlooked giant hominid form, named by us Rexbeast, continues to wander the wild mountain ranges of eastern Australia. An undoubted offshoot of Homo erectus, this race is living proof that giant Stone-Age hominids continue to survive, hundreds of thousands of years after their official extinction, as decreed by our university-based scientists, who refuse to look beyond the confines of their textbooks, to investigate the hidden world of surviving relict hominids which, they secretly fear, threatens to upset their dogmatic belief that our Stone-Age ancestors have been long extinct. The evidence presented in this book clearly disputes this dogma -0-
The Tuross River [looking west], where on Thursday 2nd November 2000, Rex and Heather Gilroy discovered a huge hominid footprint on a sandbar. Others nearby were barely visible in shallow water. The footprints were those of the race of giant hominid identified by the Gilroys as Rexbeast. Having studied all available evidence for Rexbeast, the Gilroys have given this race the scientific name of Homo giganthropus gilroyii. Rexbeast/Giganthropus is likely to be proven to be an offshoot of the giant erectus form, Homo antjii. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
The monstrous [right] foot impression found by Rex and Heather Gilroy on a Tuross River sandbar. It measured 1m in length by 40cm in width across the toes and 35cm width across the heel, being 5cm in depth. Its owner must have stood at least 4.6m in height,. This foot impression, and others found at the location in the eastern Australian mountain ranges, as well as recently manufactured stone megatools showed these giants to be another form of living giant hominid, now identified as Rexbeast. It now bears the scientific name Homo giganthropus gilroyii. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
This sketch is employed here to describe the Rexbeast, a living remnant population of giant Homo rectus. Sketch copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
Heather Gilroy points towards the mountains of the Newnes region north of Lithgow, which like the Capertee Valley, a little further north, is a wild, wilderness region and an extension of the Blue Mountains forestlands, where old tales of Yowie and Rexbeast have persisted since 19th century pioneer days. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
A wilderness valley situated on the south side of the Capertee Valley farmlands. Here within recent years, locals and others have reported either seeing Yowies, often of large size, or else having come across huge footprints in the valley depths. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
The Capertee Valley, to the north of Newnes, to the east of which lies the now abandoned shale mining operations of Glen Davis. Today campers who penetrate the rugged country around Glen Davis, sometimes report having found large hominid footprints, made by beings standing anywhere between 2.8 and 3 metres tall. In one 1998 incident, a giant Yowie was claimed sighted at a distance in clifftop scrub by four campers from Newcastle, one of whom was a Mr Richard Hancock. Also, during August 1999, one property owner reported having seen three animal-hide clad native-like humans; [a large male, a female and a child, the male carrying a spear], crossing a paddock some distance from him disturbing a few head of stock as they moved on out of sight into the scrub. The man, Mr John C., estimated that the male stood about 2.8 metres tall, the female around 2 metres and the child, a female about 1.2 metres. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007. Early shale miners tales of hairy Giants that inhabited the deep recesses of the Glen Davis wilds in the latter part of the 19th century, were laced with accounts of people going missing, presumably having been carried off by these beings to be killed and eaten! Such tales are backed by modern-day Aborigines, who say their forefathers spoke of lost tribes of giant hairy people and Yowie who lived on the mountain summits, venturing down onto the flats at night in search of food human or otherwise! Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
The wilderness country of the NewnesCapertee region, is known to Aborigines as having been the home of giant hairy people since the times of their ancestors. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
The coastal swamplands south of Cardwell, North Queensland. Here is the fabled home of little pygmy folk, as well as the Rexbeast and his smaller Yowie/Homo erectus counterpart. All are said to roam the nearby Cardwell range. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
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The rainforest-covered mountains of the Tully region, Far North Queensland; home of the Tully Giants, the fearsome Rexbeast height hominids, continues to be the locale of many reports of giant human-like beings. Huge footprints are occasionally reported found on the edge of sugarcane farms, or in remote forest creeks. Sightings of primitive, animal-hide clad beings have persisted throughout this district, and as far as the Cape York jungle since the 19th century. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.
MIGRATION MYSTERIES.
from the Book Out of the Dreamtime In Search of Australasias Unknown Animals.
by Rex Gilroy Copyright Rex Gilroy 2010.
he Study of insects, spiders and their kin has come a long way since they first came to the attention of thinkers of the ancient world. An account of migrating plague locusts is to be found in the book of Exodus, written about 1500 BC, which tells of a plague of these insects in Egypt. Yet even before the writing of the Book of Exodus, about 2350 BC, a locust was depicted upon the wall of an Egyptian tomb of the 6th Dynasty [about 2625-2475 BC], and from the 7th century BC there is an Assyrian bas-relief showing locusts being brought to the table of King Asshurbanipal as part of the menu. Upon the wall of an Egyptian tomb dating to around 1000 BC is the painting of a prince hunting waterfowl in a boat. As he prepares to hurl a boomerang at a flock of birds taking flight from reeds, a butterfly is shown to one side. Its markings and orange colour are unmistakable; it is a Wanderer Butterfly, a world-renowned migrant species in modern times. The ancient Chinese made studies of insects as did the classical Greeks, but we can thank the Anglican monks of 12th century Britain for turning the study of insects, spiders and their kin into a science. In finely executed illustrations in illuminated manuscripts they described and named a variety of species. By the time of Henry V111 butterflies and moths had caught the attention of lords and ladies of the Court, who made it their pastime to collect, and display in a crude fashion, species which, sad to say, are today either totally extinct in Britain, or else very rare, due to indiscriminate land development, pollution, and the depredations of unscientific collectors [as apart from researchers]. It is known that Henry V111 rewarded his courtiers with a gold sovereign for capturing butterflies for his collection. Despite the crude collecting, killing and display methods of those times, the early collectors had, through keen observation, discovered the intricate life-cycles of a number of secretive species of blues and coppers. The first known book on British, as well as European insects was Sir Theodore de Mayernes Theatrum Insectorum, which he published in 1634. Sir Theodore de Mayerne was a physician to Charles 1 and a contemporary of Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland, who was killed at the first battle of Newbury fighting on the Royalist side, and who is noted for having once stated that he pitied unlearned gentlemen on a rainy day. Other famous works followed, each adding to the list of British and continental species; most notable of these was The Aurelian, by Moses Harris in 1766. In those days, as the science of Entomology dawned, collectors called themselves Aurelians; a name derived from the golden [aureolus] chrysalis of some butterfly species. By the time of the Napoleonic wars, the study of insects was becoming more refined, with improvements in the killing, setting, display and preservation of specimens and collections as a whole. For example, in the days of Moses Harris, collectors used the Batfowler, favoured by farmers to catch bats or birds in their orchards, which consisted of two hockey-like bent sticks to which was sewn a deep gauze bag 5 to 6 feet long. The collector used both hands to swing the contraption, bringing the sticks together and thus closing the net when a specimen was caught. The Batfowler was used well into the early part of the 19th century, until replaced by the hoop net of today. In those days the modern killing jar did not exist and specimens were killed in the net by pinching of the thorax with thumb and forefinger, or placed in a box of crushed camphor leaves, whose fumes eventually killed the specimen. Camphor would be used also as a preservative. The coming Age of Darwin would see Entomology rise to become one of the major sciences of modern times. Australia, to be sure, has its own history of Entomology, as does neighbouring New Zealand. 382 species have been recorded from Australia and its island state of Tasmania, with just 27 from New Zealand, 12 being immigrants, leaving 15 native species, although that country has 1,000 moth species. The first insects known to have been recorded in Australia were termites and bushflies, whose unwelcome attentions were vividly described by both Pelsaert [1629] and Dampier [1688] during visits by these explorers to our shores. The first butterflies to be collected in Australia were those gathered by Banks and Solander, naturalists of Captain Cooks Endeavour, when the Endeavour arrived in Botany Bay on the afternoon of 29th April 1770 and remained until 7th May. The Banks collection still preserved in the British Museum of Natural History, contains 715 butterflies of 462 species including 37 Australian species. 11
There is little doubt that the most significant contribution to our knowledge of Australian butterflies, was made by one man, Dr G A Waterhouse [1877-1950]. Although since his passing a number of new species have been identified, and a considerable amount of scientific research into butterfly and other insect genetics has been carried out, particularly into variation. The author has also devoted many years research into variation studies, particularly upon a good many of the 130 or more Blue Mountains butterfly species. Insect migration has a prominent place in these researches, and from 1963 to 1965 I assisted in the tagging of hundreds of Wanderer, Painted Lady and Caper White butterflies, as part of the butterfly migration studies undertaken by the Australian Museum Sydney. The reasons for this phenomenon among many species of butterflies, moths and other insects [which is similar to many species of bird, animal and fish species worldwide] has perplexed researchers for generations and is still not yet completely understood. A good example is the migratory habits of the Wanderer. This species is related to a number of tiger and crow butterflies [subfamily Dinainae] grouped within the Family Nymphalidae, which contains a number of prominent migratory species, of the subfamily Nymphalinae, namely the Australian Painted Lady, Vanessa kershawi [McCoy], and also the European Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui [Linnaeus], which is found widespread throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, beyond which it is rare or absent from South America. In south-east Asia it is found from India to Sri Lanka, Malaya and Sumatra. Some of these butterflies have been known to cross the Indian Ocean, reaching Perth, where the first known Australian specimens were captured. W.E. Wright took a specimen in Perth in January 1958, and during the 1970s other specimens have been found flying commonly around Bunbury and Rottenest Island, south Western Australia. This species looks likely to become well established here, and perhaps eventually spread elsewhere in Australia. The European Red Admiral, Vanessa Atalanta [Linnaeus], which also reaches south-east Asia, has been reported seen on-and-off and captured in the Perth area over the years. The Wanderer, or Monarch Butterfly is the worlds most travelled migrant of its kind and it has spread wherever its food plant [Milkweed] grows. It spread from North America to the Hawaiian Islands about 1854 and by 1870 it had spread through the Pacific Islands to Australia, with some earlier arrivals [such as a sighting by a Dr Ramsay at Ashfield, Sydney in 1856] prior to that year. In America the Wanderer or Monarch migrates regularly around late Autumn [Fall], southwards to overwinter in Florida, Texas, California and Mexico - vast, uncountable numbers - and there are several locations near the coast containing trees which are used year after year by the roosting butterflies. At Pacific Grove, California an ordinance has been passed protecting the butterflies from human interference, because the arrival of massive numbers of Wanderers each year attracts tourists from all over the United States. In the Spring the roosting colonies begin breaking up as the butterflies fly northwards, producing broods along the way. It has been found that up to four broods are produced each summer and the descendants of the spring migrants move south again when Autumn comes. In Australia a number of over-wintering tree sites are known in the Sydney district and in the Mt Lofty Ranges near Adelaide, South Australia. A common myth is that butterflies only live a day or two and die. In fact, the shortest lifespan on the wing for some species is a few weeks, while others live up to six months. Breeders of butterflies have found some species live up to a year on the wing, particularly the Wanderer. In eastern Australia, one annual migration takes these butterflies from breeding grounds in south-eastern Victoria up the east coast, passing through the southern highlands south-west of Sydney, where numbers of roosting trees occur, they mate and lay eggs on the way. They continue on, eventually reaching over-wintering trees in the Brisbane area and south-east Queensland. With the onset of spring the hordes of Wanderers begin to stir and commence a return flight south. However their lifespan is just about over and they die on the way. Yet, their young, laid as eggs on the way north have hatched as larvae, gone through the pupa stage and hatched as butterflies. They in turn fly north, eventually to reach the very same trees their parents once occupied. The mystery is: they have never known their parents, so how are they able to locate the very same trees that their parents once occupied? The tagging experiment carried out by The Australian Museum, Sydney Entomologists, assisted by numerous other researchers, including this author, has helped unravel some of the mystery surrounding butterfly migration, and it is suspected by many researchers that individual butterflies lay down scent trails, which their offspring are able to detect and follow even months later. The Wanderer or Monarch Butterfly is a sturdy insect, enabling it to undertake the great migratory flights that have seen it spread out across the earth. They have been clocked at as much as over 30 miles an hour, so are fast flyers. ***** Similar to migratory flights is the phenomena of individuals of certain species being seen or captured great distances from their recognised range of distribution. An example is the beautiful Ulysses Butterfly, Papilio ulysses joesa Butler. The topside wing colouration of this species is metallic sky blue with thick black edging down the outer side of both fore and hind wings, the hind wings possessing a prominent tail. Its underside markings are such that, when it alights upon a plant and closes its wings, it resembles a dead leaf to a bird or other predator. These butterflies, both male and female, have a wingspan of 10cm and like the metallic green and black male Birdwings, are an unforgettable sight when observed flying high above the rainforest canopy. The Ulysses Butterflys range extends northward from Sarina up to Cape York, following the Atherton Tableland above Cairns. It is traditionally a coastal and inland mountain rainforest dwelling species, and yet a few tattered specimens have from time-to-time been captured or seen in gardens or bushland hundreds of kilometres from their normal habitat, as far away as Mt Isa in western Queensland, and as far south as the Noosa district, between Gympie and Nambour just north of Brisbane, south-east Queensland. How they have flown so far afield is a mystery. Perhaps heavy wind currents in storms from time-to-time may blow individuals far from their normal habitat, it is hard to say. Such long flights for the Ulysses are out of character as it is not recorded as a migrant species. 12
Similarly, the Cairns Birdwing, Ornithoptera priamus euphorion Gray, normally found from Mackay northwards to Cooktown, has occasionally been found great distances from its coastal rainforest habitat of Queenslands far north. A battered specimen or two, male and female, have been claimed seen as far south as Townsville, even Charters Towers, and also far west of the Atherton Tableland, perhaps swept to these areas unwillingly by strong wind currents, for like the Ulysses Butterfly, they also are not migrants by habit. Ornithopterids and Papilios are strong flyers, compared with much smaller species, such as the Common Grass Blue, Zizina otis labradus [Godart] and Pea Blue, Lampides boeticus [Linnaeus] of the family Lycaenidae, subfamily Lycaeninae. Yet, like the Australian Painted Lady, Vanessa kershawi [McCoy]; Australian Admiral, Vanessa itea [Fabricius] and Meadow Argus, Precis vilida calybe [Godart], these blues have somehow managed to make the long flight across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand, where they are all well established! The Caper White, Anaphaeis java teutonia [Fabricius], of the Family Pieridae, subfamily Pierinae is also a casual visitor to the above islands from eastern Australia, yet either via these island stepping stones, or by a direct route, this migratory species has yet to make a landfall in New Zealand. Another member of the Pieridae, subfamily coliadinae, the Lemon Migrant, Catopsilia pomona pomona [Fabricius] is not known at all from Lord Howe or Norfolk Islands, but a single male specimen with its creamy white and lemon yellow wings was captured in the grounds of St Johns College, Auckland, in New Zealands North Island some time prior to 1876. Like other members of its genus in Australia, it is a migrant species, and might very well have arrived there by a direct route from northern NSW or even south-east coastal Queensland where these butterflies are commonplace. Perhaps the butterfly in question had been caught in a strong wind current and carried far out to sea and drifted with the winds until it reached the North Island. The Evening Brown, Melanitis leda bankia [Fabricius], of the Family Nymphalidae, subfamily Satyrinae, is best seen in early mornings or late afternoons in forest glades from north of Sydney to Cape York, Northern Territory and Torres Strait Islands. A large 70mm wingspan species with a floppy wing movement and not known as a migrant, it some time ago made the flight from the NSW north coast to Lord Howe Island. Perhaps it was from here that just two individuals have been recorded as having reached North Island; the first being attracted to the lights of a house at New Plymouth in April 1962, and the second being caught at Houhora, north of Kaitaia in May 1972, after several days of strong north-west winds. As with other Australian species of butterflies and moths that have made the crossing, its foodplants are found in New Zealand, so that if ever an egg-bearing female immigrant should reach those shores, it could be possible for a brood to be produced there and the species become established. The Common Eggfly, Hypolimnas bolina nerina [Fabricius], family Nymphalidae, subfamily Nymphalinae, is known as the Blue Moon Butterfly in New Zealand, because it turns up there once in a blue moon as the saying goes! The first New Zealand capture, that of a male specimen, was by Dr Sinclair of Auckland, who sent it to the British Museum sometime prior to 1855. Since then over one thousand specimens have been seen, mostly sporadic immigrants, although 720 of them arrived in 1956 and 96 in 1971. All arrived on the west coastlines of New Zealand; none have been caught at Kaikoura, Canterbury or Southland, with the possible exception of one believed to have been seen at Christchurch prior to 1855 by a Dr Barker. A few have flown over the North Island ranges to reach Hawkes Bay and the Wairarapa district. The species is both tropical and sub-tropical, rarely breeding as far south as Sydney, and therefore those migrants to make the flight across the Tasman Sea more likely begin their journey from anywhere along the mid to far northern NSW coast. The Eggfly is a migratory species in Australia. As it is a long-time resident of Lord Howe Island and occasional visitor to Norfolk Island, it may also reach New Zealand from these islands. There is a maybe list of possible future immigrants thought to be capable of making the long flight from Australia, either by a direct route, or via the aforementioned island stepping stones. These are all Papilios and include the Orchard Butterfly, Papilio aegeus aegeus [Donovan]; the Checkered Swallowtail, Papilio demoleus sthenelus Macleay; Macleays Swallowtail, Graphium macleayanus macleayanus [Leach] and Blue Triangle, Graphium sarpedon choredon [Felder]. All but the Blue Triangle have been recorded from Lord Howe Island, so whereas the others might conceivably one day reach New Zealands North Island from here, the Blue Triangle would have to come by a direct route from anywhere along the NSW east coast, presumably aided by strong winds. On the afternoon of Thursday 16th March 2000, during one of our New Zealand field trips, Heather and I were visiting friends on a farm at Wangamata north of Tauranga, in the south-east of North Island. As we all sat in the lounge room talking, I happened to look out their large window overlooking the front garden to see what looked to be a large male [black and white wing coloured] Orchard Butterfly, flutter characteristically past the house across the lawn from south to north. The butterfly was gone in an instant. It could not have been any smaller species, like a Cabbage Butterfly against a black background to create an illusion, and it was certainly not a bird. This species is a citrus feeder in the larval state, and despite the brief view I had of it, the butterfly looked quite fresh and undamaged, as if it had only recently hatched. The thought afterwards crossed my mind that, perhaps a brood of this species may have become established in the orchards hereabouts through eggs from an immigrant female, and could be breeding up, unknown to local entomologists. Only time will tell, and in any case I would much rather see these creatures allowed to breed up than be collected out of existence by overzealous entomologists. This has not been the full picture of New Zealands Lepidoptera by any means, and I have merely chosen certain species for the purpose of demonstrating the mystery of migration among butterflies. There are many migratory moth species also, such as the Bogong or cutworm Moths, whose migrations are often in the millions and were a former source of bush tucker of our early Aboriginal people. I will never forget the night in November 1965, when net and collecting bag in hand, I made a moth collecting trip from my parents then north Katoomba home up to the main street of the town. The time was about 2am and the whole street appeared to be in darkness, not one streetlight and not one shop window in the entire main street shone. It was then that I realised what was happening. The air was full of Bogongs. I walked up to a shop window and realised it was coated in a thick moving mass of Bogongs. With the fingers of my right hand, I gouged out a slit in the fluffy moving mass, and a shaft of light shone forth! The next day I took a walk up to the shops to see large numbers of Bogong moths, of more than one species, squashed on the sidewalks by passers-by, while some still clung to the undersides of shop awnings and around windows. That such seemingly flimsy creatures as butterflies and moths could conquer untold thousands of kilometres in their migratory journeys across continents, and also cross great expanses of ocean non-stop, is enough to create in us all a feeling of awe 13
and wonder. We may never really discover the answers to the many puzzles surrounding the migratory habits of insects, for Mother Nature never reveals all her secrets to we mere mortals. Rather than just seek to discover the answers to these hidden mysteries of nature, we should all work to guarantee the survival of these unique creatures and their habitats, and clean up the environment, so that future generations may also watch in wonder, at the thousands of winged beauties as they continue to perpetuate a phenomenon that has persisted since the dawn of time. -0-
Wanderer or Monarch Butterfly, [male].

Danaus plexippus [Linnaeus] 1764. Family Nymphalidae, subfamily Danainae, Genus Danaus Klak. Undoubtedly the worlds most famous butterfly migrant. Its migrations from the Melbourne district northwards through Sydney once numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the mid-1950s [as the author can remember]. Land development of its habitats, pollution and also a disease that went through populations in the early 1960s, greatly reduced the species numbers. The species continues to migrate in Australia, but in numbers nowhere near those of the 1950s and early 1960s. Photo of specimen from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The Wanderer, with two other migrating species of the same genus; Lesser Wanderer, Danaus chrysippus petilia [Stoll] 1790. [male, centre], and The Blue Tiger, D. hamata hamata [Macleay] 1872. D. chrysippus is found throughout much of Australia, although it is sporadic in the south with only an occasional record from Tasmania. The species has been found migrating alongside D. plexippus. D. hamata ranges from northern Australia and the Torres Strait Islands, Western Australia as far south as Derby, and down the east coast to the northern rivers of New South Wales. It occasionally reaches Sydney. Rex Gilroy has a specimen caught in Katoomba in 1959, and has caught one as far south as Narooma, on the NSW far south coast. Both these single captures are of specimens that flew far beyond their normal range. Photo of specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect Collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006. Ulysses Butterfly [male].
Papilio Ulysses joesa Butler 1869. Family Papilionidae, Tribe Papilionini, Genus Papilio Linnaeus. Happily protected by law, it had previously been endangered like the Birdwing butterflies through over collecting due to its beautiful metallic blue and black wings. It flies throughout the year, but is commonest from February to May. Its normal distribution is from Cape York to Sarina, but has occasionally been found at widely-distributed locations in Queenslands north. Photo of specimen from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
Checkered Swallowtail [female].

Papilio demoleus sthenelus Macleay 1827. Family Papilionidae, Tribe Papilionini, Genus Papilio Linnaeus. This species is distributed throughout mainland Australia and northern offshore islands. It is accidental to Lord Howe Island and being a strong flyer, it is on the maybe list of species capable of eventually reaching New Zealand on strong wind currents from the Australian east coast. It is a citrus feeder, and also undertakes extensive migratory flights from inland regions to the coast, sometimes in many thousands. Pictured specimen from the Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006. 14
Common Grass Blue.

Zizina otis labradus [Godart] 1819 [female], Family Lycaenidae, Subfamily Lycaeninae, Genus Zizina Chapman. This little species is found Australia-wide including Tasmania. It flies throughout the year in the north, and from September to May in the south. Its small size has been no obstacle to it crossing the Tasman to New Zealand. Its foodplants are clover, lucerne and other legumes. In New Zealands South Island it has developed a southern sub-species, Z.o. oxleyi. While labradus has a wingspan of 12mm, oxleyi is smaller at 9mm and has darker blue colouration to its Australian relative. Specimen from the Rex Gilroy insect Collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
Pea Blue [male top, female bottom].

Lampides boeticus [Linnaeus] 1767. Family Lycaenidae, Subfamily Lycaeninae, Genus Lampides Hubner. An interesting little species whose genus is widely distributed from Europe to Asia and from England to the Pacific islands as far east as Hawaii. The Australian species flies throughout the year in the north, and from September to April in the south. Its foodplants, among others include lupins, Broom, edible peas, Sweet Peas and Crotalaria spp. It originally reached New Zealand from eastern Australia. Specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect Collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The European Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui Linnaeus [female left] and Australian Blue-spotted Painted Lady, Vanessa kershawi [McCoy] 1868, Family Nymphalidae,
Subfamily Nymphalinae, Genus Vanessa Linnaeus. Both species are famous migrants, the European form having spread into Asia, where it can be found in India and Sri Lanka from where it has reached the Western Australian coast via the Indian Ocean! The Australian form has spread through similar migrations to Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands and New Zealand. Specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect Collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The European Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta [Linnaeus] [top female], with the New Zealand Red Admiral, Bassaris gonerilla gonerilla [Fabricius and the Australian Admiral, Vanessa itea [Fabricius] 1775 [called the Yellow Admiral in New Zealand].
While the European Red Admiral has reached the Western Australian coast near Perth, by crossing the Indian Ocean from Sri Lanka, mystery surrounds the evolution of the New Zealand Red Admiral, for no other forms of Red Admiral exist between here and Sri Lanka/India. The Australian Admiral has migrated to New Zealand in the past and become well established, for like its other Vanessid relatives it lives upon nettles, which occur throughout New Zealand. Specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006. 15
Australian Meadow Argus. Precis villida calybe [Godart] 1819 [male]. Family Nymphalidae, Subfamily Nymphalinae, Genus Precis Hubner. This species is found throughout Australia and in northern and eastern Tasmania. New Zealand Entomologists regard it as an exciting insect due to its rare status there. It has never been reported breeding anywhere in New Zealand although its larval foodplants are common. It was first recorded there in the summer of 1886-1887, when literally hundreds, probably many thousands invaded the country. Since then only spasmodic records of odd specimens have been made. Only seven specimens are known to have been caught between 1968 and 1975. This migratory species, like other migrants, could be caught in strong winds on Australias east coast and blown across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand, where it usually appears in the western districts, particularly around New Plymouth and Nelson. It has also been seen at Whangarei, Auckland, Haumoana, Levin, Waiuku, Wellington, Dunedin, Greymouth and Franz Josef. Specimen from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006. Caper White, Anaphaeis java teutonia [Fabricius] male top, female bottom. Family Pieridae, Subfamily Pierinae, Genus Anaphaeis Hubner. Distributed from Banks Island and possibly other Torres Strait Islands, in Australia the main breeding areas for this hardy migrant species, are west of the Great Dividing Range. It is common inland but usually only seen along the coast when migrating. Occasionally specimens cross Bass Strait to Tasmania. The Caper Whites season is from around October through to December when it is usually seen migrating from Victoria northwards through the Blue Mountains and Sydney into southern Queensland. While it has reached Lord Howe Island it has not yet been recorded from New Zealand. Some researchers think it might have at times, hidden in clouds of Cabbage Butterflies [Pieris rapae] and thus been overlooked, otherwise it is remarkable that this species has not reached New Zealand. Perhaps this is only a matter of time. Specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect collection Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The Lemon Migrant. Catopsilia pomona pomona [Fabricius], Family Pieridae, Subfamily colliadinae, Genus Catopsilia Hubner. This migratory species range extends from northern to eastern Australia, sometimes penetrating hundreds of miles inland from the coast. It is a rare visitor to Victoria where it has been recorded only two or three times in the last century, The foodplants of this butterfly are various species of Cassia. Beyond Australia the species is found as far afield as India to the Solomons. It is known to have reached New Zealand in the past, where a single male specimen was captured in the grounds of St. Johns College, Auckland, some time prior to 1876. Possibly the butterfly in question had been caught in a strong wind current, and was carried far out to sea, from where it drifted with the winds until it reached North Island. It is unknown from Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. Specimen from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
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The Cabbage White. Pieris rapae rapae [Linnaeus]

1758, [male] Family Pieridae, Subfamily Pierinae, Genus Pieris Schrank. Found from southern Queensland to Tasmania and west to Western Australia. Its foodplants are cabbages and cauliflowers. In the north it is seen year-round, and in Victoria it flies from mid-September to May. It can occasionally be seen on the wing on the warmer wintry days. Over generations it has spread from its original home in Europe to North Africa, most of Asia including northern India and Japan. It was introduced by man into North America, New Zealand and Australia. It first appeared in Victoria in 1939, but first found in New Zealand at Napier in 1930. The species, which produces variations, is a favourite study subject of student geneticists. Specimen from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The Evening Brown. Melanitis leda bankia [Fabricius] 1775, Family Satyridae, Subfamily Satyrinae, Genus Melanitis Fabricius. Rare in the Sydney district, it becomes more common along the north coast of New South Wales, and is found as far as Cape York, the Northern Territory and Torres Strait Islands. It flies throughout the year, Its foodplants include Imperata, sugar cane and a wide variety of grasses. When in flight, at the first sign of danger, it can be seen to immediately alight on the ground or in grass where its closed wings resemble an old dead leaf. Its camouflage serves it well and varies in shades of brown [the author has made a study of the extensive variation in this species]. Although not a migrant, winds have carried it from the east coast to Lord Howe Island. It reached New Zealand at New Plymouth in April 1962 and a second specimen was caught at Houhora, north of Kaitaia in May 1972, following several days of strong west winds. As its foodplants exist in New Zealand, an eggbearing female immigrant might produce a brood. Specimen from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The Common Eggfly. Hypolimnas bolina nerina

[Fabricius] Family Nymphalidae, Subfamily Nymphalinae, Genus Hypolimnas Hubner. Distributed from northern Australia, the islands of Torres Strait and eastern Australia as far south as eastern Victoria, although from Sydney southward it is a rarity. The author tried to catch one in North Katoomba in February 1959 [a female]. It has not been recorded on the Blue Mountains since. It flies throughout the year. Its larval foodplants include brasiliensis. The species has reached Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. It is a large species with a wingspan of 85-110mm. In New Zealand it is called the Blue Moon Butterfly because it only turns up once in a blue moon as the old saying goes! [The male has an iridescent blue patch around a white centre on the central area of the fore and hind wings]. It was first caught in New Zealand at Auckland some time prior to 1855. 720 were caught in 1956 and 96 in 1971. A male was seen to hatch from a pupa on a hibiscus plant in a Hamilton garden in the summer of 1972, and another male was seen at Matangi, east of Hamilton on 15th May 1972. It was a Mr Johannes Anderson [1924] who gave it its New Zealand name after capturing one in Westland. Specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
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There is a maybe list of possible future immigrants to New Zealand from Australia. All are Papilios and strong flyers capable of arriving by a direct route from Australias east coast. One of these is the Orchard Butterfly, Papilio aegeus aegeus Donovan 1805 [male top, female beneath]. The author may have actually caught a brief glimpse of one on a farm at Wangamata north of Tauranga [south-east North Island] on Thursday 16th March 2000. There were Citrus plants about the house, which are the foodplants of this species. This is the largest butterfly species to be found in the Sydney-Blue Mountains district and further south. It occurs from the southern Torres Strait islands and Cape York to Victoria and South Australia. Its Family, Papilionidae contains some of the largest Australian species outside the Birdwing Butterflies. Specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
From the Genus Graphium Scopoli come two more maybe immigrants to New Zealand - the Blue Triangle, Graphium sarpedon choredon [Felder] 1864 [this specimen is a female], top and Macleay Swallowtail Graphium macleayanus macleayanus [Leach] 1814 [bottom male]. The Blue Triangle is found from southern New South Wales to Cape York and the Torres Strait islands. Its foodplant is Camphor Laurel among others. The foodplant of the Macleays Swallowtail is Sassafras, Camphor Laurel among others. It is primarily a mountain species. While the Blue Triangle flies throughout the year in the north, it is seen from September to May in the south. Macleays Swallowtail is found from Kuranda in north Queensland to Victoria and the mountains of southern Tasmania. It is on the wing throughout the year in the north but further south it appears on the coast of New South Wales from August to April, and in the mountain country from late October to the end of February or early March. Specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
Bogong Moth. Agrotis infusa Boisduval, Superfamily noctuoidea, Family Noctuidae, Genus Noctuinae. [male left, female right]. The spring migrations of this species have become famous, beginning in the southern alpine district, they fly in their hundreds of thousands, even millions northward through coastal and inland New South Wales. The larvae cause considerable crop damage. Specimens from the Rex Gilroy insect collection. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
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Rex Gilroy, collecting insects near Queenstown in New Zealands South Island in 1986. He has never collected any endangered insect species on principal and is a strong advocate of Butterfly/Moth/Beetle and other insect conservation. He ceased active Entomological collecting in 1999. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
AUSTRALASIAS LIZARD GIANTS.

From the book Out of the Dreamtime In Search of Australasias Unknown Animals
ome years ago a Central Queensland farmer recovered a number of unusual large bones on his property. Believing he had made an important find he later gave the bones to university palaeontologists in Brisbane. The bones caused a sensation among Australian palaeontologists; not because they were from the giant Australian monitor lizard, Megalania prisca Owen, believed extinct at least several thousand years, but because they dated as recent as 300 years old! This disclosure implies that, if these huge monsters were still roaming Queenslands interior a mere 300 years ago, then claimed sightings of these reptiles in modern times in remote areas of Australia, suggest Megalania is far from extinct. Needless to say, the find was quickly hushed up. After all, it is embarrassing to have a 7 metre or more long, several hundred kilogram weight giant monitor lizard species, already declared extinct by competent scientists, continuing to survive, when expert opinion dictates it died out with the rest of the Australian megafauna at the close of the last Ice-Age! That is the reasoning of the conservative scientific community, who continue to argue that because the entire continent has been completely explored and mapped long ago, no animal species remain undiscovered, making it impossible for any unknown species to have escaped detection by science. This dogmatic view is in error. True, Australia has been explored and mapped from the air; yet there still remain thousands of square kilometres around this continent, consisting of virtually inaccessible mountainous forest country where any unknown or extinct species could easily survive, hidden from modern human detection. Even our vast interior has been the scene of countless sightings reports for generations of primitive hominids, and long-claimed extinct species such as the Thylacine, giant marsupial cats, giant snakes, the dinosaur-like Burrunjor of Aboriginal tradition, and Megalania prisca. Thus Australias mythical monsters of the past, continue to defy the dictates of official science that they must remain extinct. Australia is not alone in traditions of giant lizards. Until it was found to have become extinct through human depredations in 1948, there had been a species of 14ft [4.27m] length monitor lizard inhabiting Tibet. The jungles of India, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia were or still are the home of monitor lizard species, which local folklore suggests, often reach larger than normal size. The dragon traditions of ancient China were, it is believed, based upon one or more giant monitor lizard species that roamed China and neighbouring countries. In Beszaciers Arts Asiatique [1965] there is a description of the long-ma, a mysterious giant lizard of the Vietnam/Cambodian jungles, unique for a prominent horn on its muzzle. The long-ma has been blamed for cattle deaths in the Song Can and Hue districts in recent years, and at Ban Dan near the Cambodian border, in 1986 a group of men and women walking along a forest track, were startled by the appearance of a large, mottlecoloured long-ma, which strode out of foliage and crossed the track in front of them on four powerful legs. They estimated the bulky bodied giant was at least 20ft [6.1m] in length. During 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War, a unit of Australian soldiers were patrolling a jungle area north of Saigon. Coming in view of a creek, they were surprised to see a 20ft [6.1m] long monitor lizard, standing 4 ft [1.35m] on all fours on the creek edge. The fearsome reptile began striding in the direction of the men, who not wishing to give their position away to any Vietcong troops who might be in the vicinity, did not open fire on the monster, but instead scattered out of its way. The monster reptile moved quite close past one soldier, Private Frank Lennon [who related this story to me in 1983]. He observed that the monitors head was coated with thick, tough leathery skin and that a small horn of tough skin rose from a ridge on its muzzle, and that thick, armour-like scales covered its body. Frank said to me that in comparison to the Komodo Dragon, it was more solidly built. In a similar incident that took place in the same region some time later, after soldiers caught sight of an enormous lizard moving through jungle, an officer asked local villagers through an interpreter about these giant reptiles. He was informed that these lizards had always inhabited the district, and that they were called the long-ma which meant something like fearsome reptile. A similar monster, the Buru, said to reach a length of 14ft [4.27m] and over may, or may not still inhabit the jungles of northern Assam, and in Malaya tales persist of a monitor lizard which, exaggerations or not, is claimed by inhabitants of the interior to reach lengths of from 40 to 50ft with a massive body and big, powerful legs. Even if, as some suggest, that this lizard is around 25ft in length, it is still a very big reptile!
By Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2010.
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Malaya is also the home of the fabled Nagaq, a giant saurian-type reptile, to which we shall return when we investigate the evidence for living neodinosaurs. The folklore of ancient Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] preserves myths and legends of giant reptiles. One of these was a monstrous snake up to 15m long that swallowed people and was the terror of the countryside, but brave hunters killed the monster long ago. Obviously this reptile was symbolic of an entire species. And then there were two giant monitor lizards said to have been at least 20ft [6.1m] in length. One was poisonous to eat it is said. Once again we could be dealing with two species. Many myths and legends surround these lizards which vanished from Sri Lanka in the dim past. The best known of south-east Asias lizard giants is of course the Komodo Dragon, and although the ancient Chinese explorers who visited this region at least 2,000 years ago knew of these giant monitors, their official discovery by Europeans did not take place until 1912, when an airman was forced to make an emergency landing on Komodo, a small island between Sumbawa and Flores off the Flores Sea east of Java. He returned to civilisation to reveal that he had encountered fierce and monstrous dragons, at least 12 feet in length, and which according to the islands inhabitants, ate pigs, goats and deer and were also known to attack horses. Nobody believed his wild tale. However, it was not very long before his claim was confirmed. Major P.A. Ouwens, Curator of the Botanical Gardens at Buitenzorg, who had been in correspondence with J.K.H. van Steyn van Hensbroek, the Civil Administrator of Flores, was informed by him that the islanders had related stories to him of a land crocodile that inhabited the neighbouring island of Komodo. Van Steyn later visited Komodo to investigate for himself. During his stay he acquired the skin of a 7ft long specimen, which he later sent together with a photograph to Major Ouwens, with the promise to try and catch a larger specimen, warning that this would not be easy as the natives were terribly afraid of its teeth and thrashing tail. Eventually a Malay animal catcher working for the Zoological Museum in Buitenzorg captured four live specimens, the largest of which was 9ft 6 inches and 7ft 8 inches in length. Later van Steyn reported that a Sergeant Beker had shot one specimen of 12 ft length. Major Ouwens recognised these monsters as a giant species of monitor lizard, giving them the scientific name of Varanus komodoensis. Before very long investigators were to learn that the Komodo Dragon, as it soon became known, not only fed upon animal life but also humans if given the opportunity! These reptiles are real gluttons, as anyone watching them at feeding time in zoos can testify. Komodo means Rat Island in Javanese, and as there is not one single rat to be found there today, it would appear that they were long ago eaten into extinction by these monstermonitors! Komodo Dragons also inhabit some of the Lesser Sunda Islands east of Java. They have been known to prey upon fishermen asleep on sandy beaches, as well as enter villages at night to drag off sleeping adults and children alike. Young children have been taken while wandering from villages. In 1976 a Swiss banker visiting Komodo Island was eaten by one of these monsters. All that was found of him later was his camera! During 1978 a French cook while holidaying on the island, enjoyed sun-baking on rock shoals near his resort. He did it once too often. All that was found of him later by a search party was one blood-stained shoe! One woman tourist, while visiting an animal reserve fainted in the heat while photographing one docile dragon, at which it, and another nearby specimen, both about 9ft in length, began approaching her. Native attendants were luckily close by and beat the reptiles off with sticks. Local authorities have stated that these monitors prefer carrion, and sleeping villagers and sun-bakers, appearing dead to them will be considered as such. They are not supposed to attack walking adult human game, although young children have been snatched while on foot. Even so, there have, it appears been some exceptions, and regardless of what the local experts have said on these matters, people should and do, still keep a respectable distance from these voracious flesh-eaters. ***** The general pre-historic appearance of monitor lizards cannot help but remind the viewer of the dinosaurs. Lizards have a long history. The oldest known lizard fossils date back to the late Jurassic period, about 160 million years ago. Some species grew very large as we have seen, although the largest of all was/is the Australian giant monitor species, Megalania prisca Owen, which evolved during the Pliocene period, and to which we shall soon turn. This species official length is 6 metres, although I will show that much larger specimens have been met with in the Australian bush. The largest of the mosasaurs, a family of long, slender, fish-like aquatic lizards related to the monitors, grew to an astonishing 38ft [11.4m] in length. They mainly inhabited near-shore marine waters worldwide during late Cretaceous times around 85 million years ago. The closest living relative of lizards is the large lizard-like tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus, of New Zealand. The colouration of lizards varies from shades of green, brown, grey, black on the back and sides, on which there may be patterns of lengthwise stripes, crossbands, or blotches. Many lizard species also possess the ability to change colour or lighten and darken their colouration, by expanding and contracting the pigment of skin cells called melanophores. Many species colour markings vary over long distances. Colour variation within distinct species over wide areas is a feature of monitor lizards. These lizards, also known by the Aboriginal name goannas, belong to the family Varanidae, genus Varanus Merrem, 1820, and are well-represented within Australia by at least 23 species. The body lengths vary considerably, the smallest, V. [Odatria] brevicauda Boulenger, of Western Australia, is the smallest species at up to 25cm; the largest being the Lace Monitor, V [Varanus] varius [Shaw], found throughout the continent, and which reaches 2.15m; and also the Perenty Monitor V. [Varanus] giganteus [Gray], which at 2.44m is recognised officially as our largest monitor species [the giant monitor, Megalania prisca being of course totally extinct!]. Monitors are widely distributed on the continents and some oceanic islands of the eastern hemisphere, occupying a variety of habitats, which vary from deserts to tropical and sub-tropical forests. Many species are good climbers and excellent swimmers. Their diet includes carrion and any animals they are able to overpower. Female monitors lay between 7 and 35 large, leathery-shelled eggs. The Komodo Dragon is recognised as the worlds largest monitor species; but then, as this and the following chapter demonstrate, it has competition! ***** The New Guinea landmass is rich in native traditions of reptilian monsters from another age, and giant-size monitors in particular. Most of these monitors are species recognised by science. It is, however, the unrecognised species with which this chapter is concerned; one of these is the mysterious Tree Crocodile or Si-e of the Koita people of the Port Moresby district, Papua New Guinea. Also known as a Land Crocodile the Motu people have nothing similar in their traditions and are near neighbours of the Koita, even sharing a village with them on the outskirts of Port Moresby. However, the Motu people have a word for large lizard Hariha, into which, collectively they often include reptiles as small as 7ft up to 20ft, including legendary giants of the interior claimed to grow as much as 50ft in length! My informant on these matters was the late H.E [Lynn] Clark of Southport, Queensland, and formerly an Assistant District Commissioner in the PNG Provinces prior to independence in 1975. Lynn related these facts to Heather and I during meetings we enjoyed with him and his wife Margaret during the 1980s. According to Lynn, the fact as to why the Motu people do not have the Si-e in their folklore is due to their having originally come down to the coast from the mountains, thus the Si-e tradition originated up in the highlands. Since crocodiles do not inhabit the mountain country, the Si-e must be something else. The first official mention of the Si-e was made by Sir Hubert Murray then administrator of Papua in his annual report of 1936-1937.
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Further information by Murray also mentions that Father Guis R.C. stationed in the Meko area of the Kairuku sub-district, spoke of an enormous iguana known as Aou-angi-angi or man devourer. He never saw one, but told the story of a native who was asked if he had ever seen one of these creatures. Seen one? he replied, Why, I saw my wife eaten by one. I think the most likely, practical suggestion is that the creature may be the Varanus komodoensis [Komodo Dragon], which had somehow made its way here [in numbers] from its home in the Malay Archipelago. This is the only official name I have heard it referred to by Murray. If not, then what other species of monitor can it be? The largest recognised of the New Guinea species is Salvadores Monitor [Varanus salvadori], which attains a length of more than 14ft. However, it is its thin tail that makes up for more than two thirds of its length, so that it is not as massive as the Komodo Dragon, said Lynn. Famed New Guinea explorer Ivan Champion wrote the following account on May 4th 1936, while on the Bamu-Purari patrol with fellow explorer Bill Adamson: A very large lizard was killed today. It looked like a tree-climbing crocodile. At the time it was shot it had a cuscus in its mouth. So, what is the Tree Crocodile? The Komodo Dragon seems unlikely, although it could be a close relative of V. Komodoensis. Could it be the Salvadores Monitor? Tribespeople of the Kikori region on the top end of the Gulf of Papua believe in another form of lizard monster, whose lengths vary from 15 to 20ft and which are claimed to kill and eat any natives they capture. In 1960 two of these lizard giants are said to have entered a village in the dead of night, and each carried off a native to devour in nearby jungle. Similarly, during World War Two, at Koboka PNG, a 20ft long monitor is said to have broken into a natives hut killing and devouring him, to stalk out of the village, leaving the inhabitants in a state of terror. These and other incidents involving reptiles up to 20ft in length suggested to some investigators that the extinct giant Australian monitor, Megalania prisca Owen, still survived in New Guinea, which after all, until the close of the last great Ice-Age, had been joined to northern Australia by a land-shelf. It was this possibility that interested noted explorer, John Blashford-Snell [nickname Blashers], a British Army Lieutenant and reptile authority. In November 1979 he led a British Army-backed expedition, code-named Operation Drake to Papua New Guinea, with the intention of gathering proof of these monster lizards existence. His information mostly came from areas of the Eastern Sepik coast, and as I had at that time gathered far more reports from the Western Sepik district, principally the Fly River region, I established contact with him via Sydney television Channel 10, where he had just been interviewed prior to heading for Port Moresby. Snell phoned me at 3pm [NSW time] on December 1st to invite me to join his expedition. Regrettably due to my family commitments I was unable to do so, but provided him with enough reports suggesting he should search the Fly River. He informed me that, just prior to his arrival in Port Moresby, a Swiss man and the niece of the Premier of the Western Province of PNG, saw a 20ft length monitor in the Daru swamps. Daru is situated south of the Fly River mouth, and is actually an island surrounded by swamps and is noted for native encounters with oversized lizards. In the course of the expedition, Snells team to 19 men filmed a 7ft long monitor at Daru. However, while the expedition was a success in other ways, the team failed to obtain any hard evidence for the existence of Megalania-size monitors. ***** Besides Megalania-size monitors, there could be something far, far larger than any other known monitor species lurking in those jungles, and which the Motu people include under the term Hariha, or large lizard mentioned earlier. Consider the startling claim of Mr William Thompson, who for reasons to follow, claims he encountered a huge monitor lizard longer than two Matilda Tanks placed one behind the other and 8ft apart! A Matilda Tank is 19ft [about 9.8m] in length. The incident to follow took place one day about 1974 near Lae. I was riding a trail bike along a jungle track, when as I passed two rusting World War Two Matilda Tanks, spaced 8ft apart on the roadside, in a 90ft diameter clearing, the sound of the bike disturbed some large animal. Having gone 60ft past the tanks I stopped and looked back, to see to my horror an enormous reptile, rising up upon four powerful legs at least 5 ft off the ground, its massive body being about level with the turret of the tank nearest to me. I observed the reptiles body was about 6ft in width, and that the bodys width was a bit wider than it was in height [ie about 5ft]. I realised the monster was of great length. As each tank was 19ft in length and 8ft apart the creature was fully 46ft [about 14m] in length from head to tail! The head was monitor in shape, and like the rest of the body, was blackish-grey in colour. The monster looked at me, then turned to move off along a pig track. The track itself was 4ft in width leading off into the thick bush. Tree trunks 4 -5 inches thick along the trackside were simply broken by the shear weight of the monster as it moved along the track, crushing all foliage as it did so. All this time the reptile never made a noise, but for the sounds of its movements, the tail, legs and foliage crashing. As it strode off slowly into the forest I noticed that the spread of the feet was about 12 inches [35cm] wide, and the legs of the creature were about the same thickness. The feet possessed large claws, and there appeared to be webbing between the toes. A 4-inch spur was situated on the back of the hind feet. The body scales all appeared to be smooth. As I said to people later, I wished Id been 60 miles away from this creature at the time, and not 60ft! Mr Thompsons description warrants comparisons with the smaller Megalania prisca. If the proportions just described were not exaggerated, then considering that some Megalania have been claimed to be up to around 7.6 to 9.15m, giving them an estimated weight of about 3,000lbs, the Hariha seen by Mr Thompson might have been another extra 1,500lbs in weight, sum total being 4,500lbs! I remain open-minded about the Thompson report, for as I am about to show, there are native claims of other, equally monstrous reptilian nightmares, inhabiting the eerie forests and swamplands of the interior of this mysterious land. ***** During 1960 a village on the West Irian border, just inside Papua New Guinea was attacked by what the tribespeople called Hariha monsters, and which they said [intimating their lengths to Europeans by drawing on the ground] were about 6 metres in length. Some villagers had scars 30cm long which they claimed, had been made by the monsters. One warrior had, they said, been dragged out of his hut one night by one of these beasts! The Namau people of the Purari delta on the Gulf of Papua believe in monstrous reptiles, which they call the Kaiaimuna, which are described by them as great lizards of monitor appearance. In the Daru area giant Kaiaimunus have been known in the past to enter villages to carry off natives whom they devoured in the jungle. On Strachan Island natives claim two young women were attacked by three of these huge lizards, which tore them to pieces. Natives of these areas like Papuans elsewhere [or Melanesians generally!] know little of time and speak in vague terms. Therefore these events may have happened at any time over the last 25-30 years. Sometimes Europeans have been able to date an event to a particular month and year when there has been a recent incident and they happened to be in the area concerned. Thus, in the Huon Peninsular, outside Finschafen, in July 1970, a Mr Richard Harris met two Melanesian plantation workers, who told him that he should not enter the swamps to the south, as tribesmen and women of theirs had found large fresh tracks and tail marks in shoreline mud, and that there may have been several of the monsters roaming the swamps and jungle thereabouts.
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Upon questioning that they might be mistaking crocodile tracks for those of Kaiaimunus, the workmen were adamant that the tracks were far, far larger than those of any crocodile and their rough estimates suggested to Mr Harris that the creatures were a good 25-30ft [7.6-9.15m] in length. Encounters with giant-size monitor lizards occur in Irian Jaya [West Irian], with similar native tales of giant reptiles striding into native villages, stealing chickens and other animals as well as attacking villagers, as happened in one incident in 1989 in the Wissell Lakes region. Native tales of 20ft or so length lizards have been going on in the Fakfak and Kaimana districts, on both sides of the Cape van den Bosch since before the days of Dutch settlement, while in 1991 a helicopter carrying Indonesian military personnel startled three 15-20ft length giant lizards as the men flew over Frederik Hendrik Island. They were low enough to see that the creatures were not crocodiles. And in the Sarmi swamps of West Irians north coast, a woman is said to have been snatched by a giant-size lizard while resting in long grass some time during 1985. To give a record of all the giant monitor lizard encounters, that have occurred since Europeans first began exploring the interior of the New Guinea landmass in the 19th century would take a book in itself, and what of island Melanesia, particularly New Ireland, New Britain and the Solomons, which before the great submergence at the close of the last Ice-Age, were part of a great land-shelf that extended to New Zealand, as this book demonstrates? Traditions survive of giant-size lizard monsters in the tribal folklores of these islands, and if they are long-vanished elsewhere hereabouts, Solomons Islanders believe these creatures still inhabit the jungles of Bougainville, Santa Isabel and Malaita! In May 1979 plantation workers of Arawa downed tools after a monstrous monitor reputedly strode across a field, leaving its large footprints and tail marks in soil, showing its long, forked tongue as it eyed off the workers, in a fearsome manner before moving on into scrub. The labourers all agreed later that the reptile was a good 20ft in length. In 1980 a 25ft length giant monitor was claimed seen in the interior of New Britain by two geologists, reviving old tales of reptilian monsters on that island. ***** It may seem incredible to some readers that there is a tradition of giant monitor lizard-like reptilian monsters, in old New Zealand Maori folklore. With some justification herpetologists will point out that, with the exception of the lizard-like tuatara, sixteen geckos, twenty eight skinks, two sea snakes and five turtles as well as one extinct gecko and two extinct skinks, there is no evidence of any other reptile species, particularly giant-size ones, ever having existed in New Zealand. Yet it is a fact that, until the 1970s, when bones of dinosaurs were discovered in the Cretaceous rocks of North Island by amateur palaeontologist Joan Wiffen, scientists did not believe these reptiles ever existed here. Could it be that fossil, even sub-fossil remains of a giant New Zealand lizard still await discovery in these islands, to refute the scientists claims that the giant lizard of old Aotearoa is nothing more than a Maori myth? Even the Tuatara is believed to have grown much larger in the past. And the supposed extinct Kawekaweau, Hoplodactylus delcourti Bauer & Russell 1986, the largest of all New Zealand geckos, continues to be claimed seen by campers and others in remote forest areas. The Tuatara consists of two sub-species; Gunthers Tuatara, Sphenodon guntheri Buller 1877, which is known only from North Brother Island [of the Brother group], Cook Strait; and the Tuatara Sphenodon punctatus [Gray 1842], which was formerly widespread throughout New Zealand as sub-fossil remains demonstrate but now restricted to about 30 offshore islands in the Marlborough sounds area, and along the east coast of North Island from Northland to the Bay of Plenty. A fully-grown Tuatara adult is usually about 61cm in length, although some specimens have been recorded at around 76cm in length. Gunthers Tuatara is a dark olive-green colouration and inhabits low growths of shrubs including Traumata and Heber. The sub-species S. punctatus is olive-green to slate grey and is finely speckled. It prefers coastal forest and clearings, especially where the ground has been tunnelled by nesting seabirds. The habits of both species are nocturnal, but they often sun-bask. They are carnivorous, feeding upon arthropods, lizards as well as seabird eggs and chicks. The small population found on Little Barrier Island has been named as separate sub-species S. punctatus reischeki. Today Tuataras are officially extinct on both the main islands of New Zealand. But having seen the vast wilderness areas of the South Island, I cannot help wondering if, having been adapted to that environment, the Tuatara might live on, secreted away from human interference, sharing those wilds with an extinct moa or two! The Tuataras are living fossils unique to New Zealand, and as the only surviving representatives of the Order Sphenodontida, one of the four groups into which all living reptiles worldwide are divided, they are of special interest to zoologists. The Tuatara still possesses a vestige of a third eye on the top of its skull, which is called the pineal eye. This is found in the higher vertebrates in the shape of the epiphysis or pituitary gland. The Tuataras relatives, the dinosaurs, died out elsewhere in the world, we are told, at least 60 million years ago, and since those times these creatures, among the most primitive of living reptiles, have undergone few evolutionary changes in their anatomy during the past 200 million years of their existence. ***** The New Zealand geckos display a variety of beautiful camouflage colour markings. They are lightweight creatures, the largest recognised living species being Duvaucels gecko, which reaches up to 160mm length with a weight of about 120gm, the smallest being the Goldstripe Gecko [Dumeril and Birbron 1836] is mainly grey, often with a faint olive-green hue, with six irregular pale blotches lying from side to side across the body from the back of the head to the tail base. This species is restricted to islands that lie along the north-east coast of North Island, including Great Barrier Island and in the Cook Strait area, such as The Brothers, Chetwode and Trios Groups. Sub-fossil bones of this species have turned up at enough sites in North and South Islands, to show that this gecko was once more widespread than now. The species is nocturnal but may sun-bask. It may be ground-dwelling, or else climbs to forage. Unlike most reptiles, which are silent, geckos emit chirping or chattering communication calls. New Zealands geckos are omnivorous feeders, eating mostly arthropods such as spiders and insects. But they can also seasonally devour significant quantities of soft fruits and also feed upon the nectar of flowers. Some species are known to eat carrion, such as the regurgitated food of seabirds. There are some herpetologists who remain open-minded on the supposed mainland extinction of this gecko, and the author may have in fact seen one clinging to a tree trunk in the Urewera range, North Island, during September 2001 [without knowing the species identity at the time] while Heather and I were on our latest New Zealand field investigation for evidence of living scrub Moas. There was or perhaps still is, a giant form of New Zealand gecko, the extinct Kawekaweau, Hoplodactylus delcourti Bauer & Russell, 1986, whose official length is based upon a single mounted specimen without collection data, at the Natural History Museum in Marseille, France. It is thought to be the Kawekaweau of Maori legend. The specimen has a yellowish-brown back down which run dark reddish-brown longitudinal stripes. The official body length of this species, based upon this single preserved specimen is 270mm. However, Kerikeri naturalist/artist Richard Moore informs me that woodcutters working in the Ureweras in the early years of the 20th century, claimed on a number of occasions, to have seen a large gecko of the above description, crossing forest tracks. The Kawekaweau preserved in the Natural History Museum in Marseille, France is apparently a very young specimen, for old Maori accounts, supported by early and more recent European sightings descriptions, show this reptile to be the size of a small monitor lizard; that is 1.22 to 1.53m in length! They were a favoured dinner item of the early Maoris, who kept them in captivity, fattening them up to eat.
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These giant geckos lived [and may still] up the tallest trees, underneath slabs of bark, hollow logs etc., and ate berries as well as any birds they caught. There have been a few possible sightings of this species in the Ureweras and at another North Island forestland locality, and also in a Bay of Islands forest. Hereabouts a colony of skinks exists with an average body length of 62cm. They are unlike any of the known 28 species found in these islands, whose smallest species is the Copper Skink, Cyclodina aenea Girard, 1857 at 62mm length; the largest being the Grand Skink Liposome grande [Gray 1845], at 143mm length. Like the geckos, the New Zealand Skinks display a variety of attractive body colour markings, which provide excellent camouflage. What then, is the identity of the giant skink of the Bay of Islands? There seems but one species, now extinct, with which this skink might be linked, the Northland Skink, Cyclodina northlandi Worthy 1991. Its body length, based upon sub-fossil bones, excavated in caves near Kaeo and Waipu in Northland, suggest a length of 160-170mm, but depending on the ages of these specimens at the time of death, the species could have been much larger. If so, then it seems possible the Bay of Islands giant skink is a surviving population of this species. If not, then it can only be a species which has somehow escaped scientific detection. The location of this precious little colony is known to Heather and I and we have no intention of revealing its whereabouts for obvious reasons. ***** The Maori traditions concerning giant lizard monsters that once roamed New Zealand seem out of place in a land where geckos and skinks are the only reptiles recognised to have inhabited this land; except of course, the dinosaurs. In fact, some authorities have suggested these traditions were translated from south-east Asia, or Austro-Melanesia, where the ancestral Polynesian migrants spent time in the course of their migrations from their near-eastern homeland; time in which they became acquainted with the Komodo Dragon of the Indonesian islands, the monitors of New Guinea and the Melanesian islands, and perhaps Australias giant monitor, the memories of which were in time merged into the mythical giant lizard monster of Maori folklore. This is a reasonable alternative explanation. Yet it is not at all impossible that a species of large monitor made its way across the former land-shelf from what is now island Melanesia, into New Zealand in early Pleistocene times or earlier. Only the discovery of fossil remains of one of these creatures somewhere in New Zealand will settle the argument. There are, however, a number of legendary tales that have the ring of truth about them consider the following: Two traditions stand out for what was surely one and the same creature Hotu Puku and a cave-dwelling Taniwah whose name has not survived. That of Hotu Puku concerns a giant lizard-like monster that inhabited the countryside between Rotorua and Taupo. In pre-European times Maoris travelling between Rotorua and Taupo used a track that took them from Lake Rotorua by an unusual route, that included going past lakes Tarawera and Rotomahana. This route took them through the open plain of Kaingaroa to Kapenga. It was in the Kapenga area that tribespeople were known to vanish, and it eventually became evident that a great forest-dwelling reptilian monster Taniwha, called Hotu Puku was responsible. Eyewitnesses who saw this monster said that Hotu Puku had the appearance of a moving mountain covered with spines and scales on its body. It was said that, if its victims were not trampled to death by it they were caught and torn to pieces in its powerful jaws and devoured. Hotu Puku was eventually attacked by a great number of warriors and killed. Hotu Pukus counterpart is claimed to have inhabited an area near Kaipara Harbour, sheltering in a large cave mouth, from where it would emerge to wander the countryside in search of food human or otherwise. This huge monsters appearance was identical to that of Hotu Puku. It too was eventually hunted down and killed by Maori warriors, after many years of terrorising and killing a great many of the Maori people of the region. The Maori people preserve knowledge of the actual locations of these events and the former lairs of these reptilian giants, which they say were up to 9 to 10 metres in length and of powerful build. The lengths given are reminiscent of some Megalania prisca reports in recent times. When the mythological coatings are stripped away it is obvious that a species of giant lizard of monitor characteristics is involved in these tales. We have traced the monitor lizards distribution throughout Australasia and seen that, even in New Zealand, it appears that a giant form reminiscent of those of Melanesia and Australia once existed there. We now turn to Australia, home of the giant monitor, Megalania prisca Owen, which although claimed to have been extinct for at least several thousand years by conservative university-based palaeontologists, appears from the mass of sightings reports available, to be still lurking somewhere out there in the vast, still largely unexplored Australian bush. -0-
Close-up view of the head. The Komodo Dragon is dwarfed by the sizes being reported for giant monitor lizards in New Guinea and Australia. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
A Komodo Dragon in Sydneys Taronga Park Zoo. The species is known to reach a length of 12ft [3.66m]. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006. 23
This patch of scrub, deep in the Cabramurra district of the New South Wales Snowy Mountains, was the scene in 1978 of the killing and removal of a cow, by a 25ft [7.62m] greyishskinned monitor lizard, as a helpless farmhand looked on. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
Campers have claimed to have found large five-toed lizard tracks of reptiles between 15 and 22ft [4.57-6.7m] length at more than one location along the Deua River during the years following 2000, suggesting a giant monitor lizard population of reasonable size exists somewhere in this mountainous forest country. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The Kurrajong scrublands bordering the Wollemi National Park north-west of Sydney. In 1993 there were several reported sightings of giant goannas by local property owners. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
A remote swampland deep in the high country west of Dorrigo. This eerie region was known to the early Aboriginal tribespeople as the domain of Mungoon galli, giant goanna monsters that would kill and eat any human that crossed their path. 19th century European settlers believed many stock losses, and even the disappearance of people who happened to stray into the bush, were the result of encounters with these giant goannas. During the1990s Rex Gilroy obtained a number of recent sightings claims from this region.i Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006. 24
Open farmland south of Lismore. During the 1980s there was a rash of sightings of giant lizards from 15 to 22ft [4.57m to 6.70m] in length seen day and night on properties before returning to the nearby forests from where they had come. During 2001 a 26ft [7.92m] length goanna giant was claimed seen feeding on a dead kangaroo killed earlier by a passing vehicle on a roadside. The farmer, a Mr Davis, was driving to his property when he saw the reptile close by the roadside. In haste he reached his home, grabbed a hunting rifle and returned to the scene, but the huge creature had moved on elsewhere. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The coastal swamplands south of Cardwell, Far North Queensland. Early Aborigines warned European settlers in the 19th century, not to go unarmed in the forests and swampy estuaries hereabouts, in case they met up with one of the giant lizards that inhabited the area, feeding upon anyone who chanced to cross their path! There are occasional sightings claims of giant-size monitors hereabouts in modern times. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The vast, dry, open country of the Mt Isa district in Queenslands north-west, has a long eerie tradition of gigantic goanna [ie monitor] lizard monsters. During 1980 a cattle station owner spotted a 28ft [8.54m] length, dark grey skinned goanna striding across a dry creekbed to slowly move across open scrubby country. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
The Perenty Monitor, Varanus varanus giganteus [Gray], which reaches from 2.44m up to 2.6m in length. Photo Strange Phenomena Magazine.
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Remarkably, New Zealand, whose only known reptiles are small skinks and the Tuatara, according to old Maori myths and legends, was also the home of a species of giant lizard monster called Hotu Puku. These man-eating reptiles were the source of nightmares of tribes inhabiting the Rotorua and Taupo districts of the North Island. Tales of these reptilian giants also come from the eerie forest-covered mountains of South Island, home of many modern-day Moa sightings. Any unknown animal could hide in these vast wildernesses. No fossil evidence of a giant lizard species is so far known to New Zealand, and the scientific theory is that Hotu Puku is a myth based upon Javas Komodo Dragons [or perhaps New Guinea/Australian giant goannas], seen by the ancient Polynesian colonists in their voyages from their original Asian homeland to New Zealand. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2006.
Please Note
Our next meeting will be held on Saturday 17th April 2010, same time, same place 12 Kamillaroi Road, Katoomba.
Our previous meeting was a huge success and we look forward to seeing you at our next one. There should be some good Skywatches ahead of us up here at Katoomba weather permitting. `Meanwhile, there is a lot happening up there at present so -
Until our next meeting
Watch the Skies!

Rex and Heather
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The Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010

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THE TEMPLE OF NIM THE NIM

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Homo Prometheus gilroyii. Photo copyright Rex Gilroy 2007.

THE REXBEAST MYSTERY.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Wanderer or Monarch Butterfly, [male].

Checkered Swallowtail [female].

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Common Grass Blue.

Pea Blue [male top, female bottom].

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

The Cabbage White. Pieris rapae rapae [Linnaeus]

The Common Eggfly. Hypolimnas bolina nerina

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

AUSTRALASIAS LIZARD GIANTS.

By Rex Gilroy. Copyright Rex Gilroy 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Temple of Nim Newsletter - March 2010.

Until our next meeting

Watch the Skies!

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