Tatzelwurm, Notes

Note, that the layout irregularities are due to a not translated format of the original file!

1) See PURSUIT, Vol. 19, No. 1, First Quarter 1986, page 16-22
2) I'm using the term Tatzelwurm hypothesis (TWH) for the supposi- tion of the existence in the Alps of an animal species or variety of reptilian or worm-like appearance, that is either unknown to science or not considered indigenous to the Alps.
3) There is no reference to the Tatzelwurm in the works of Charles Fort. I am the very last to criticize this. Until I began writing this article I was unaware of most of the existing material although I am born and have lived for six decades in Austria, in a Tatzelwurm 'infested' country so to say.
4) Charles Fort certainly would be delighted to learn that modern psychology considers the inability to suspend judgement, the all-or-nothing attidude, a pathological trait.
5) On the history of such fakings see Ley/91-94.
6) Franz Eberhöfer, the informant in this case is the son of witness Eberhöfer in case (1849.06.?).
7) Native people then explained the presence of a crocodile by the assumption that the Möls lake must have an underground connection with the sea.
8) A 'Fatschenkind' wasn't exactly a baby in swaddling clothes as the term is understood today. It was a baby wrapped up in a sort of bandages so that it had to lie still, unable to move feet or arms. Today in toy museums, dolls of that time can still be seen. They were often nothing more than turned cones made from wood, with the bandages painted on.
9) Case (1883.). Apparently the girl was found dead. There is no information whether she was actually bitten.
10) According to Hüb/967 in Salzburg every big worm is called Höckwurm, as for example the adder, the blind worm and, specifically the ring-snake.
11) A belief once held in the Tyrol states the weasel attacks poisonous snakes by means of a lozenge, which it keeps concealed in the jaws (Kob/346).
12) Fore legs are not explicitly mentioned. The wording of the report however suggests their presence.
13) The Slovenic name for lizard is 'kuscar'. Maria Rain is 12 kilometers from the Austrian-Yugoslavian border.
14) This sounds a bit suspicious. How many people are able to distinguish the sexes of reptiles?
15) Roy Chapman Andrews (1884-1960) was paleontologist and director of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He lead expeditions to China and Mongolia and became known for the discovery of many dinosaur fossils.
16) The investigator thinks this idiomatic term is derived 'from the shaking movements of the mill' and would mean, that the worm started, i.e. that a tremble went through the worm's body.
17) Although this spot is only one kilometer from the center of the famous winter sports resort of Igls, it is even today a rarely walked on place.
18) This is the only known case where somebody has tried to catch the animal by means of a trap etc.
19) This term was coined by Steinböck (Ste/457/462/464), but the same reductionalism can be observed with other authors (Nic/124-126, Meu3/71, Flu4/507).
20) The physiologist Hj. Öhrvall in Upsala used to say that if some strange phenomenon was put before a scientist his first task was to assure himself of the falseness of the assertions! (Quotation in: Carl Benedicks, Theory of the lightning-balls and its application to the atmospheric phenomenon called "flying saucers" in: Arkiv für Geofysik, Stockholm, 1958, Band 2, nr.1, p. 1).
21) Those latter terms could suggest a slight paranoid trait on the part of some witnesses but this would, of course, not necessarily invalidate the observations as such. It may also be of some interest that the greek word 'drakon' means 'one who looks sharply'.
22) Snakes are usually overestimated in size by more than one third (Bre/329).
23) See: Helen E. Ross, Behaviour and Perception in Strange Environments, London, 1974.
24) Hobarth M.Smith and Edward H.Taylor: Annotated Checklist and Key to the Reptiles of Mexico Exclusive of the Snakes, United States National Museum, Bulletin 199, Washington, 1950, pp.37-38.
25) Heu/99'1 quotes Schmidt and Inger (1957) saying that Amphisbaenidae are 'a group of animals we are not positive they are reptiles, let alone lizards' and M. Bogert (1964) calling them 'a taxonomic riddle'. Bre2/226 regards them as a family in the suborder of the Sauria, remarking however, that their systematic position is not clear.
26) Weasels can be incredibly impudent and aggressive. Once I was standing in a meadow in the middle of a country lane. Suddenly a fuzzy something ran towards me, stopped short at my feet and began to climb up my trousers. It was the big weasel (Mustela erminea). When it reached my chest it craned its neck and sniffed at my chin. I stood there, motionless and dumbfounded but nevertheless amused because it was so lovely. But suddenly the weasel bared its teeth and the saucer-like eyes narrowed to slits. Now it looked really nasty and to say I was concerned would have been an understatement. Fortunately it turned around, climbed down and ran back into the direction from where it had come.
27) The German word 'Schnecke' means snail. 'Schneckender Wurm' could mean a worm producing droppings shaped like a snail or, simply behaving like such one.
28) In case (1951.s. St.Georgen), a Tatzelwurm was seen with a lizard in the mouth, in case (1914.06. Braien) it was seen 'fighting' with snakes.
29) This reminds me of a report from the USA years ago, about a sewerman bitten by an alligator, when such pets were fashionable for a while but dropped in the gullies by some so- called 'lovers of animals' when they got tired of them or when the animals had grown to big!
30) Such things do not necessarily invalidate a report as a whole. At the time in question still many a farmer in the Tyrol now and then used certain spells against illness, thunderstorms, hail and parasites.
31) See the daily newspapers 'Tiroler Tageszeitung', Innsbruck and 'Kurier', Vienna, 14 July 1988.
32) Inzing, a village 13 kilometers west of Innsbruck, has a history of catastrophic floods and land-slips. The last of them occurred in 1969.
33) This occurrence is somewhat reminiscent of a phenomenon observed during an UFO sighting on August 22, 1955 in California. Several children perceived various shapes continually vanishing and re- appearing. A boy, saw an arm, suspended in the air beckoning to him. (See: Gordon Creighton, The Extraordinary Happenings at Casa Blanca, Flying Saucer Review, London, Vol. 13, No. 5, Sept./Oct. 1967, p. 16.)
34) Male snakes have duplicate genitals, a fact, even in our time not widely known.
35) Robert Mertens (1894-1975) prominent German herpetologist and director of the Senckenberg Museum at Frankfurt. Publications on amphibeans and reptiles.
36) The snakes mentioned are: Eryx johnii, Charina bottae, Micrurus lemniscatus, Maticora intestinalis, Cylindrophis rufus, Cylindrophis opisthorhodus, Typhlops, Leptotyphlops, Apostolepis ambinigra, Chilorhinophis and Calamaria septentrionalis.
37) Doblhoff confirms this inadvertently when he writes that 'the farmers feared to be treated as uneducated by the tourists who would not accept their delusions' or that a game-tenant when asking one of his hunters why he wouldn't tell him about the 'Bergstutzen' was answered: 'after all you won't believe it' (Dob/162).
38) This is the more astonishing as scientists usually carefully avoid making statements interfering with the competence of disciplines other than their own. In many of the more recent cases, witnesses could have been examined and scientists at a university would have had more likely the means to do this than amateur researchers.
39) Just consider the bad traffic conditions and the undeveloped communications of the time.
40) Joseph August Schultes was professor of natural history at the Innsbruck University.
41) Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672-1733), naturalist and medical officer at Zürich and founder of paleobotanics. He received publicity for his 'Homo diluvii testis' (Andrias scheuchzeri), an incomplete skeleton regarded by him as the 'deplorable bones of an old sinner drown in the flood'. Cuvier (1769-1832) recognized it as a giant salamander, i.e. one of Scheuchzer's beloved dragons.
42) Franz Michael Vierthaler (1785-1827), an Austrian educationalist was an early advocate of advanced training for teachers and of the Socratic method.
43) Johann Rudolf Wyss (1781-1830), Professor of philosophy at Berne wrote about folk tales, and Swiss country life.
44) The popular Austrian Archduke Johann (1782-1859) is also said to have offered a price of 30 ducats but the money was never claimed (Dob/152, Sin1/267).
45) Johann Georg Kohl (1808-1878), director of the public library in Bremen, travelled extensively through Europe and Northamerica and wrote many travel books.
46) A queer logic indeed when in every court identical testimonies by independent persons substantiate rather the truth and not the opposite.
47) Wolfgang Franz Xaver von Kobell (1803-1882) was a prominent figure in the Munich society. Already at 23 he was associate professor of mineralogy. In April 1839, with C.A.Steinheil, he published a photograhic process, four months before Arago announced Daguerre's method. He invented an electrotyping process and the stauroskop, a device utilizing polarized light in the analysis of crytals.
48) An early predecessor of the Goro monster? See PURSUIT Vol.9, No.3, Whole No. 35, Summer 1976, p. 62.
49) Karl Wilhelm von Dalla Torre (1850-1928) was full professor of zoology at the Innsbruck University and author of 150 botanic and 200 zoological publications, and an excellent bibliographer and author of catalogues.
50) In Mühlen, situated between Tiefencastel and Bivio, Switzerland, Dalla Torre had found a buzzard nailed alive to a stable door, with cropped wings and the eyes bored out. Only after continuous pleas he was permitted to kill it! (Dal/208-210 and 224'3).
51) Even if some personal experiences have infuriated this great scientist, it is hardly conceivable that such a harsh, generalizing criticism is or was ever warranted.
52) Franz Leydig (1821-1908). Professor of Zoology at Tübingen and Bonn.
53) Later Dalla Torre informed Doblhoff that he had not pursued the matter further since 1887 (Dob/144'4).
54) Josef Freiherr von Doblhoff-Dier (1844-1928) was an Austrian diplomat and an author. Being a well-to-do man he travelled all over the world. He was an early advocate of a law for the protection of monuments in Austria
55) For a folklorist and a periodical specializing in folklore another policy would hardly have been tenable. Yet one must ask whether it was really necessary to print the heavy-handed letter of a hunter with all its numerous orthographic errors without any editing? (ZÖV1/263).
56) It isn't always clear whether the opinions mentioned are those of Doblhoff or of his informants.
57) In Styria woodchucks were released in 1875. It is however possible that they were already indigenous to this region before, but not recognized as such and perhaps taken for Tatzelwurms (Hof/60).
58) It has been argued that inhabitants of higher alpine regions would probably be unable to correctly identify a rare otter appearing there (Tscha/298).
59) Karl Meusburger (1870-1940) was a Catholic priest and a teacher in Brixen, South Tirol. He had studied theology, physics, geology and mineralogy. A dedicated naturalist, he was specifically interested in glaciology and in all sorts of unusual natural phenomena.
60) Once a hunter had called Meusburger in order to identify a dead animal nobody knew. It was an emaciated, hairless badger who had just finished hibernation. With its cornered,protruding shoulder- blades, the teeth of a predaceous animal not covered by lip hairs and the comb-like projections of the vertebrae on its back it looked like a little dragon (Meu2/464).
61) Meusburger has, for instance, apparently never interviewed the witnesses in case (1920.f. Atterkar). Yet he rejects it as a hoax although the innkeeper who kept the carcass in his house, was at the time of reporting mayor of Sölden, i.e. a person of some standing in this community. Professor Paulmichl in turn, who brought the case to the attention of the 'Tiroler Heimatblätter', was then a prominent architect in the Tyrol. Unfortunately both informants are long deceased and the original correspondence is lost.
62) Dr. Otto Steinböck (1893-1969), full professor of zoology at the Innsbruck University was a widely known specialist for the morphology of the Turbellaria, a class of the flatworms. Another of his activities was limnology, specifically the exploration of the waters in the high mountain regions. He was on expeditions in Greenland and Iceland and traveled all over the world. Half a dozen of species have been named after him, as for instance, the mite Mesoteneriffia steinböcki Irk.
63) This is rather a social scale than one based on observational capability. Besides that, those cases are discarded in the same way as the others.
64) This amounts practically to the claim, that from the standpoint of the zoologist who must regard the legendary material in the reports as noise, the existence of such noise justifies the assumption that there is no signal, no new zoological data.