jclures wrote on May 22^nd, 2022 at 10:33pm:


John

Ion Idress wrote a book that was published in 1959 called The Tin Scratchers. A true account of his time spent tin mining in the jungles south of Cooktown. In that area around the pub called The Lions Den.

In it he talks about the mythical creatures in that area.

In 1969 a mate and myself embarked on a trip up there where we were catching snakes, lizards and other reptiles around the Cooktown area for a reptile park.

I had read the book and wrote to the Australian Natural History Museum in Sydney and asked if they had any information on them. I got an amazing letter back however in essence they had no substantive evidence but welcomed anything we found.

Even though we visited the remains of a lot of old tin mines we never did of course. 

By the way Idress books are amazing if you like stories of early Australia.