8/3/2019 14janBeastsUKMAP

1/1

109

8

5

4

3

2

1

7

6

10.Scorpions

Venomousyellow-tailscorpionsaccidenta

lly

introducedfromItaly havelivedin thewall

s of

SheernessDockforhundreds ofyears

.Recentwarm

summers haveboostedtheirnumbersto13

,000. Their

sting,luckily,isnotlethal.

6.Man-eatingsharks

Repeatedsightingsof sharkspeciesoff the Cornis

h

coast, froma mako(Maori forman-eater) in2009

toa

large oceanic whitetipnearStIvesin2011havebee

n

reported. Aseries of allegedsightingsof a great w

hite

offCrackingtonHaven in 1999remainunconfirmed.

5.TheStrouddeer-eaterScientistsarestillanalysingDNAsamplestotestclaims

thatthecreaturethatmutilatedadeeratWoodchester

Park,Stroud,thisweek,wasabigcatsuchasapanther

orapumawhichcouldbeconnectedtoanalbinobig

catseeninnearbyNailsworthafewdaysearlier.

8. Wild boar

Extinct in the UK since the 17th century, boar returnedto the British wild in the 1980s after a handful escapedfrom farms. The population could now be as high as1,000, spread through seven English counties, notablyDorset. Hunters have been culling boars, which areconsidered pests, since 2007. Landowners are notobliged to record a kill.

2.Lioness

In2010,academicandfor

mermountainranger,DrB

ob

Sharp,reportedseeinga

5ft-long,beige-coloured

creatureprowlingintheK

ilsythHillsinStirlingshire.H

e

concludedthatthecreatu

rewasalioness.Experts

said

thatthiswasnot

impossibleasthehillsar

erichin

prey,suchaslambanddeer.Therehavebeenno

furtherreportedsightings

.

9.Blackpanthers

Repeated searches by policemarksmenhave failedto

locate thebig, dark cat assumed tobe a melanistic

jaguar or leopard(ie, a black panther) reportedin

Sydenham, south-east London, in2002 and 2005. But

Tony Holder, whorequired hospital treatment after

being mauledby the beast inhisbackgarden, has no

doubt that it wasreal. Since the life-expectancy of such

a creatureis about 12years, itis probablystill around.

1.Cougar

When PC Chris Swallow,a Ministry of Defence dog

handler, filmed a sleek, black,metre-long cat in Argyll, Scotland,

in 2009, he was convinced it wasa black panther. But locals

insisted that it was the CoulportCougar, which is said to havebeen spotted several times

in the area since

2005.

4.Siberian

chipmunks

Firmly established in parts ofthe South and the Midlands. In

Wolverhampton, a young motherwas attacked by a pair of them in

2009. As well as inflicting a nastybite, the creatures can carry the

sometimes fatal Lyme

disease, and other highlycontagious viruses.

3.Giant rats

In Bradford, WestYorkshire, 2 ft-long ratshave been spotted on theRavenscliffe estate, even

attracting hunters from outsidethe area. The Mammal Society

claims they are in fact coypu -large South American rodents

that may have escapedfrom a farm in East

Anglia.

7.The Beast

of BodminThere have been many reports

since 1983 of a black big cat that

farmers on Bodmin Moor blame forslaughtering livestock. A 20-second

video, released in 1998, may or maynot have confirmed the existence of

such a beast. But a 1995 Ministry

of Agriculture report insistedthat there was no evidence

of big cats living in thearea.

Graphic: John Bradley