THE BLACK SHUCK OF COLTISHALL BRIDGE
Late one night, between 1960 and 1962, two RAF officers were travelling by car back from Norwich to RAF Coltishall. Passing over Coltishall Bridge, which straddles the River Bure, they were forced to break as an enormous black dog crossed the road. It slowly turned its head and glared at them and then vanished near the other side of the road. Its build was like a Labrador, only level with the roof of their car (1.35 metres or 53 inches in height). A perfectly proportioned giant black dog.
Another encounter took place in the same area in the 1950s, when a woman and her husband were parked on the Coltishall Bridge at nightfall and saw a black dog about the size of a pony, walking towards them, that then suddenly vanished before reaching the other side of the road.
Yet another encounter was experienced by a man and a woman who swear that a Black Shuck passed them one evening on Coltishall Bridge. They initially heard its footfalls and heavy breathing and turned sharply to see the creature approaching them.
A final sighting was made again on Coltishall Bridge, this time by a middle-aged couple. The man was striking a match to light his wife's cigarette when a Black dog the size of a Calf, noiselessly, passed within a foot of them.
The Tasmanian Tiger - Thylacinus cynocephalus
The Mammals of Australia. Krefft, from photographs by Victor A. Prout, 1869.
84 years ago today the last known thylacine died. It died of exposure after being locked outside in its bare concrete pen overnight.
(The body was reportedly thrown out in the garbage shortly after)
Convergent evolution: Dasyuromorphia and Carnivora
The Encyclopedia of Animal Evolution, 1987