Shrieking Skies

 An idea that came to me almost fully formed. 

It may not be the most believably scientifically or geographically but just wanted to get it down in some form.

Shrieking Skies

 

 The world is full of secrets and mysteries and in my time searching the unseen locations of unexplored places I have uncovered a few of them myself.

  My name is Dr. Clara Morrigan, seeker of all things unexplained... unintentionally.

  Why’s this?

  Well that’s because you’re looking at the woman who brought the Yeti out of folklore and into the real world. Though I must admit now, that was an accident, the Yeti colony I found in while lost in the mountains of Tibet weren’t supposed to get their hands on my camera let alone discover ‘the Selfie’ several years after the rest of the world.

  So accidents aside I’m now (again unintentionally) the most famous “Monster Hunter” on Earth because I actually have actually collected solid evidence of creatures of legend, whether I want to be or not.

  Because of this my partner (in both definitions of the world), Emily and I were called to search the depths of the jungles in Papua New Guinea to see if rumours of a giant flying creature that had recently been seen by a group of tourists during a jungle tour were true.

  Very amateur footage had been released of a large silhouette of something flying overhead emitting a high-pitched clicking noise and typical of amateur footage of Cryptids it was noisy because of all the tourists blabbering on and blurry as anything. Just once I want a creature to be as photogenic as those Yeti were.

  Though probably the worst thing about that video was that it was filmed vertically.

 

  Now I’m not going to bore you with all the details of getting visas, being stopped by customs because they wanted to inspect every single piece of our equipment and the journey into the dark jungle. So I’ll pick up from the first day we’d set up camp.

 

  We’d struggled through the dense foliage of the jungle for a good five hours and the only signs of any life seemed to be the rustle of tree branches above us and the calls of all sorts of animals. We had hired some locals to help us navigate the jungle and to protect us from the dangers of snakes and cassowaries. If you don’t know what a cassowary is, think of a smaller ostrich, that got stuck inside a fluffy black bin bag, somehow painted its face blue, glued a helmet to its head and a real anger management problem. They may look nice from far away but they are terrifying up close I can promise you that.

  Our group had trekked through the undergrowth for hours to get near the location from the video; a large clearing with some fruit bearing trees around the edges. Supposedly this clearing was easy to get to but I was beginning to not believe our guide, Burat, one of the locals who knew all the dangers the jungle had to offer. Think of him as Crocodile Dundee but with a Pidgin twang to his voice instead of an Australian one.

 

  As the team began to set up the campsite Emily and I investigated the clearing for signs of anything unusual.

  We split up and took opposite sides and circled round. I could see her looking at the trees and branches. I looked on the bark of trees nearby to me and saw something stuck in the trunk. I took my glasses out of my bag and leaned in to get a better look.

  Stuck into the wood was some sort of quill, like the ones you would find on a porcupine, except this one was a light grey and a good thirty-five centimetres long at least and I don’t remember reading about any animals in New Guinea with quills. Let alone ones this size. So I reached into my bag, and pulled out a large evidence bag and attempted to un-wedge the quill from the bark. Somehow I managed it and placed it carefully in the bag before searching for more evidence of this supposed creature.

 

  I found several more quills, some were black but most were the same grey colour I found originally, on several trees, though some seemed to be a lot older than others and while I had been digging out another set of quills from a rather stubborn section of bark, Emily’s voice rang out

  “Clara, I think you might need to see this,” she excitedly called over to me so I gave up on this particular quill, grabbed my bag and jogged over to where she was.

  “Find something interesting then?” I panted as I wiped my face with my sleeve.

  “Depends on if you count this as impressive.”

  She knelt down on the ground and pointed at a large indentation in the ground and I looked carefully at it and soon a shape started to come into view. Three large toes (or claws) had flatted the grass and leaves. Whatever had left this print must have been heavy as the areas surrounding the toe sections seemed pretty deep for a creature this size.

  “If this creature does actually exist, it must weigh a lot… yet this was the first print I’ve seen like this around here.” Emily said as she analysed the print.

  “Not unless the creature has hollow bones like a bird,” I responded smiling gently at her. “We need to photograph this and make a casting,” I stood up quickly and started walking back to the camp, “you take the photos I’ll grab the plaster of Paris.”

  I didn’t get very far away from Emily, maybe only bout three and a half meters when another indent in the ground caught my eye.

  Another footprint! But there was something different about this one.

  It was backwards. As in the first part of the print I could see was the heel not the toes, which were pointing behind it by a good one hundred degrees. I looked around to see if there were anymore and saw another footprint that matched this one is both size and angle, just in the opposite direction.

  Strange.

  “Emily! There’s another print here. Can you get a picture or two of this one as well, please?” I called as I pointed to the where I was before excitedly running to actually pick up enough plaster of Paris for the two prints. I also grabbed a large measuring tape to get an estimate on how big this creature could be.

 

“While the prints solidify could you do me a favour, babe?” I asked Emily as I picked up the tape.

  “You want me to take one end and measure the length between prints?” She asked, eying the tape.

  “If you do, I’ll love you forever,” I looked into her eyes and smiled playfully.

  “I thought you already did but ok.” Laughing softly to herself she took one end and slowly walked to the second print. We pulled the tape tight and she called out, ”Three meters and sixty centimetres!”

  “Three meters sixty!” I couldn’t help but shout in surprise, “how big must this things wings be if it can manage to get off the ground?”

  Now I really wanted this creature to exist, just to see how it worked.

 

  By the time the plaster of Paris was solid the sun was just clinging onto the horizon and I for one wanted to see what would come creeping out the trees at night but also need to eat. Badly. The excitement of the day must have burned a lot more energy than I realised so we sat down for a decent meal… well as decent as you can have in the middle of a jungle when you’ve only got enough food for a weeks expedition.

  Emily and I carried the footprints back to camp and I asked Burat if he knew of any animals with feet shaped the prints we had taken.

  “I’m sorry but nothing I’ve seen has been this big Dr. Morrigan.” He scratched his stubbly chin as he looked closely at it, “it looks like Cassowary but they don’t get this big.”

  We had measured the prints and the toes themselves were thirty centimetres, whereas the average size of a Cassowary “claw” toe usually measures only 10 centimetres, still a sizeable weapon but barely anything compared to what we found.

 

  I pondered the evidence we collected as we ate the food we prepared.

  The things we’ve sound seemed to suggest we are dealing with a rather large creature, about the size of a Black Rhino, that has somehow managed to avoid discovery by humans for a very long time. Granted most of New Guinea has been unexplored at this point and new species always seemed to be popping up. But I find it very hard to believe this creature could remain hidden for so long.

 

  Yet the thing that I couldn’t wrap my head around the most was the possibly backwards foot. Knowing how bad my phones signal was going to be I had packed a book on the wildlife of New Guinea, imaginatively called “The Flora and Fauna of Papua New Guinea: A Field Guide and Study” by the famous explorer and naturalist Eric Andrews. Now… Andrews may have been excellent at studying plants and animals but is clearly not the best at thinking of catchy book titles.

  Time to find some possible suspects.

  I flipped the book open, skimmed passed the plants section, though I’d be very surprised if a plant was what we were looking for, then pulled the lantern closer to get the best light I possibly could and began to study each sketch the artist of the book had included.

  As interesting as the bugs and birds of paradise were I immediately struck them from the possible suspects. The tree kangaroos were just too small and had the wrong amount of toes anyway.
  The only ground dwelling mammal I found that could have been the footprint culprit was the Attenborough’s Long-Beaked Echidna, which also had quills, but the footprints didn’t match at all… and they were only about fifty centimetres bigger than the prints themselves when they’re fully grown.

  Oh and it was possible they’re extinct, so another possibility was struck from the suspects list. Yet it wouldn’t be the first time an animal has been rediscovered. Just look at cases like the Coelacanth. Believed to be extinct for Millions of years then some random fisherman pulls one out the West Indian Ocean, except the Coelacanth didn’t drastically alter in size over that time.

 

  Time passed quickly and as I scoured the text for some sort of information that could help me understand what this Cryptid could be I was beginning to feel my eyes start to sting from the hours of reading I’d done and it was getting quite late so I decided it was best to get some sleep.

  I sat next to my hammock and just as I was beginning to untie my boots a strange sound was heard from above camp. A faint clicking noise was steadily getting louder, as if what was making it was getting closer.

 Forgetting about my untied lace I got up and attempted to move quickly to get a good view of what was making this noise. But because I’d been careless I managed to trip and knocked into the table, causing the book to drop off the end. Considering I was looking for a creature that had never been seen before I was not very stealthy at times.

  I get easily excited, I can’t help it.

 

    As I got to my feet I felt the wind blow through camp hard but this wind felt weird as well. It felt more like the breeze you get when you wave a book or fan in front of your face to cool you down. Too regular and not continuous enough for actual wind. It also died down as the clicking noise passed and began to get quieter, though it was still rather close. The clicking was then followed by branches cracking and hitting the ground a few hundred meters away. So curiosity got the better of me and I slowly picked up a lantern, lowered the light a little and crept outside the camp.

  I saw two members of the team who had been on watch, walking slowly into the darkness of the clearing, hunting rifles in hand. They seemed to be moving towards the same location, one of them keeping their gun aimed almost too ready to fire if you ask me.

  I moved ahead of them and whispered to them both gently to follow quietly but to stay focused just incase there was danger in the dark. I listened to the noise of some unknown creature clicking and chittering in the darkness and then, out of the black a shape began to emerge.

 

  A tail with grey quills covering most it, while bare pink skin covered a triangular point, hovered about 2 feet in the air and twitched at the edge of the light. I crept along as carefully as I could but before I could get much closer I heard the man on my right cry out in surprise and saw him ready his rifle like his watch partner.

  However it seems like making that much noise was the wrong thing to do.

  Because faster than you could imagine a huge ugly face was glaring down in the direction of us, yet seemed not to be able to see us. It sniffed the air and slowly lowered its face to my level. A giant, flat, leaf shaped nose was all I could see in the low light emanating from the lantern. I stepped a little closer, slowly turned up the lanterns brightness and made out a few more details of this creatures face.

  It was covered in small grey quills that seemed to bristle together making a disturbing rattling and scratching sound as if the creature was trying to scare the few of us that were directly in front of it, like if its whole body was make of a rattlesnakes tail. The eyes of it were very small, almost non-existent for a creature that became active at night and it’s radar dish ears were completely upright and seemed aimed at us. So even if it couldn’t see us I could definitely hear us.

  That was when the screechy clicking started again and at this close a range it felt like I was getting hit by some sort of invisible force. Though this force didn’t stop me from reaching out to attempt to touch the creature… even I don’t know what caused me to do this.

 

  Cautiously, I stepped forward; controlling my breathing as much as I could and as gently as a butterfly landing on a flower, my fingertips met the warm, bare skin of the creatures nose.

 

  What happened next?

  Well, I guess I must have spooked the creature because that’s when things went a bit… wrong.

  The head of this creature reared back into the darkness quickly and it shrieked in surprise and a huge clawed hand swiped out at us, which in turn caused the guard on my left to shoot blindly into the dark and the screech of pain must have meant that the creature was hit.

  I heard a set of massive wings begin to flap and the down force generated by those wing beats knocked me on my back. I felt something land on my stomach and face and instinctively pulled myself into a ball to try and protect myself from… I didn’t know what I was protecting myself from really.

 

  As the creature flew away we heard shouts and saw torches and lanterns coming towards us through the dark.

  “Stay there!” I shouted at the team through the night and the lights stopped where they were. The wing beats were going further away. Though I couldn’t tell what direction at all.

  “Damn.” I couldn’t help myself from hitting the floor as I began to get up, “lost it. Are you both ok?”

  The two men were both fine but a little shaken, can’t flame them really.

  “Clara? Are you alright?” I heard Emily call with an air of panic to her voice; I couldn’t blame her for that.

  “I’m fine babe… Just a bit winded,” I answered, beginning to make my way back to camp and meeting the team in the dark clearing.

  Emily aimed her torch at me and gasped in fright, “are you sure you were just winded?”

  “Honestly Emily I’m fine, no need to worry about me” I wiped my cheek to get rid of whatever landed on me and in the beam of the torch I saw the back of my hand covered in a crimson smear of blood. No wonder Emily was worried. But at least we have viable DNA to have tested now. That would help work out what that thing was.

  But I couldn’t help but get a bit annoyed at knowing I had blood on a decent shirt for these sorts of expeditions…

“Damn it… first time wearing this as well.”

“Look on the bright side, Clara,” Emily said as she took me by the hand, “at least it’s not your blood.”

 

  Needless to say I didn’t sleep much that night, whenever I closed my eyes I could hear the wing beats of the creature only to realise it was the wind blowing across the top of camp.

  So in the end I gave up and went back to the book. However I realised it was still on the ground. I forgot to pick it up when I knocked the table earlier.

  It had ended up open with the pages facing into the dirt and dust. I picked it up, gently dusted the page and somehow my bleary eyes noticed something I hadn’t seen earlier.

  The page it had landed on was an entry describing the lesser sheath-tailed bat. It was an illustration that caught my eye. It was showing the animal crawling along the ground and something looked really strange about it. I looked for something to magnify the image and failing to find an actual magnifying glass I opted for a camera lens that I held above the picture.

  Then I saw it.

  The detail that seemed weird to me was the bats feet. They were practically facing backwards when it was on the ground.

  We were tracking down a giant bat!

  Have to admit… I was a bit surprised by that. But it makes sense.

  It seemed like it was a nocturnal animal, in a vastly unexplored region. But you’d think someone would have seen this thing taking off at dusk before now…

  So where is it hiding during the day that people don’t go to?

 

  I must have fallen asleep at some point but I did not end up back in the hammock. I opened my eye and was greeted by a dog-eared, beaten u map of the surrounding area. Now I’m not the greatest at reading old-fashioned styled maps, give me a satellite image any day, so during what could be called breakfast I asked Burat to look over the map with me.

  “I had a thought last night Burat,” I stuffed the last bit of breakfast in my mouth and carefully thought of how to explain this thought as I chewed and swallowed the food. “The creature seemed to be a kind of megafauna species. From what I saw last night and the evidence we’ve collected it seems to be a giant bat, or something bat-like anyway, so is there anywhere around here, that something big and nocturnal can stay hidden during the day?”

  Burat looked at the map and studied the surrounding area, his eyes squinted at he looked at one specific spot.

  “My guess would be there, an area to the North-East of camp, Dr. Clara,” Burat finally said as he pointed to a section of squiggly circles that got closer to each other. I may not be the best at reading older maps like this but I remember that means a mountain.

  “Why do you think there?” I questioned.

  “Because it’s an old lava tunnel, very warm at all times still,” Burat said as if it was obvious, “at least that’s what I’d think.”

  “Ok, makes sense to me,” I looked at how far it was from our location, not very far at all but I had to ask, “how long would it take to get there?”

  “Through this foliage?” He looked around and thought carefully, “about three hours.”

  “Perfect, grab what you need and get ready to leave within the hour. We’re going to find ourselves a mega-bat!”

    I went to find Emily to tell her about the trek Burat and I were planning and found her kneeling down at looking at the grass. As I got closer she looked up and seemed very excited.

  “We have a blood trail,” she said excitedly as she stood up, “so if we’re lucky, we have a path to follow.”

  “Do you know which way it seems to be going?” I asked as my eyes darted around looking for another splash of blood seeing a few in the clearing and like Emily said, it seemed like a decent trail.

  “North-East by the looks of it. Hopefully its instinct was to retreat homeward once it had been injured.”

  My eyes widened in delight, evidence was backing up what Burat suspected, I kissed Emily gently on the cheek and congratulated her on finding the blood trail.

  “Great find. You are amazing!”

  “I know,” she smirked at me and said, “but don’t forget about how great you are as well.”

 

  A couple hours of pushing through the rainforest later Emily, Burat and I started to notice the trees thin out a little and through the shadows of the forest floor we saw daylight begin to break through more and more.

  The blood trail had helped aim us in the right direction and we kept seeing splashes of blood that had fallen through gaps in the canopy so we had made up a bit of time getting to where Burat was taking us.

  Bit of advice to all you want to be explorers: always hire a local to help you navigate the area. You could have the best sense of direction ever but still get easily lost in jungle as thick as the one we were pushing through.

  The trees thinned out and opened up to an area that seemed to be a battle between forces of nature. Grass looked as though it was very slowly invading an area of barren volcanic rock. Though it must have been inactive for some time for the plant life to make it this close to a volcano.
  The three of us looked for any sort of large opening that the creature could call home and although we didn’t find a huge opening, we found a gap big enough for us to descend below the earth.

  “Helmets and head lamps people. Lets go and take a look.” I unclipped my helmet from my pack and secured it comfortably, flashed a smile at the others and we climbed carefully into the cave.

 

  Once I got on solid ground I found myself in quite a thin area with slick, black walls, probably from the rain that gets in and a small trickle of water was flowing towards a another hole that we could climb through.

  “Ok,” I called up to the hole, “it’s a bit cramp in this bit but there’s another hole we can crawl through.” I clicked my torch on and looked through the gap.

  I crouched low and struggled through the next hole as Burat shimmied down the slope I got in through.

 My torch cut a bright beam in the darkness of the cave but the light wasn’t bouncing off any walls. This meant the room was huge.

  One main difference between caves made by lava flow and caves made by water flowing through them may not seem obvious until you’re standing in one. The difference is that there are no stalagmites, stalactites or the fantastic formations made when they meet. Well not the usual kind anyway, these lava ones are a lot tougher to break off than the limestone ones in most caves.

  Another thing you should know about lava tubes is that most of the time they just look like massive holes of porous rock in the Earth has it was formed by the flow of lava that was draining away from an active volcano.

  But sometimes there’s something interesting to look at.

  As Emily and Burat joined me in this chamber of the cave I swept my light slowly across the room until it hit a massive pillar of black rock, a rare formation in places like this.

  We carefully moved closer to the huge pillar and as I looked at the column of solidified lava I noticed there were gouges scraped out of it. Maybe the creature sharpened the claws that nearly disemboweled me last night on this pillar. I kicked some loose rock. The sound echoed loudly around the room and I swore slightly as I almost slipped on another smaller piece.

  My eyes widened in fright as I realised I was making a loud noise, possibly in a lair of a creature that uses sound to see through darkness. My muscles locked up. I stood as still as the pillar looming over us. It suddenly dawned on me how risky this situation was, the trill of adventure had been kicked out of my system and had been replaced by the fear of an unexpected sound in the dark.

  I reached out for Emily’s hand for support. My fingers curled between hers and gripped it tightly.

  “Are you ok? You’re shaking like a leaf,” Emily whispered, leaning close to me.

  “I’m…” I swallowed my fear and finished, “yeah I’m ok. Just a bit nervous is all.”

 

  We carried on down the massive tunnel for another twenty minutes. The temperature of the cave stayed quite warm, surprising for a cave, so I can understand why a big nocturnal creature would want to call this place home during the day.

  It was while I was thinking about this that as we followed the bend of the lava tube I could begin to make out heavy breathing.

  I tapped Burat on the shoulder, held me finger to me lips and issued a small “shh” as I pointed around the bend then whispered back to Emily as quietly as I could that we must be close.

  We slowly edged around the bend and just at the edge of Burat’s torchlight we got our first proper look at the creature.

 

Huge leathery wings curled up and over the back of the creature, with three clawed fingers one what I would describe as the wings hinge, yet a closer look showed the rest of the top of the wing was a fourth finger as there was another claw on the tip of the wing (I couldn’t see a reason for it at the time and even when thinking on it, I still can’t think of any good use for it).

  The quills quivered with every breath and I noticed for the first time that there was a strip of black quills starting from above the creatures nose all along its back and to almost the tip of its tail.

  The face was just as ugly as I remembered it. The huge, flat nose was the most obvious feature but as I stepped closer I noticed a very fresh injury on the right side of its mouth, gashing both the upper and lower lip.

  “So that’s where you got hit last night,” I whispered under my breath as I leaned forward to get as good a look at the creature as possible. The injury was definitely fresh but had scabbed over in the few hours since it had taken off from the clearing. That gash was only the newest of a whole set of scars and if something this size can get scars I can only assume it is not the only member of its species alive today.

   I turned to Emily and mouthed, “camera,” reaching out to take it as she passed it carefully. I didn’t worry about turning off the flash. The incident last night proved this creature didn’t rely heavily on sight, maybe it actually was blind, because it had used its version of echolocation and sense of smell to find us.

  I pressed the capture button and camera let out a small click as the shutter immortalised the frame I had set up.

  And once again something simple had not crossed my mind because as the shutters on the camera closed to capture the creature’s image, I noticed the ear twitch and saw the head twitch towards us.

  Bugger.

  The creature had woken up and I don’t have a clue what to do about that. Luckily Burat had a brilliant idea. He holding his a flare gun and whispered as softly as he could to tell Emily and I to cover our ears.

  “Miss Emily, Dr. Clara, get ready to run.”

  My hands shot to my ears and I saw a blinding flash of red hit the wall behind the Bat, which caused the massive creature to instinctively move away from the heat, generated by the pyrotechnic projectile while we ran back to where we entered.

  As Emily scrambled through the smaller chamber I squinted into the dark room, moving my torchlight everywhere I thought the creature would be and I could definitely hear movement, snuffling and screeching. At the time I assumed we were being hunted so I moved through the thin chamber and climbed up to the entrance we had found.

  Burat was the last to emerge as Emily and I pulled him up out the ground. We immediately ran to the cover of thick trees and planted ourselves and hoped that the creature had lost us.

 

  “Ok, I admit…” I panted as we crouched in behind the trees, “That could have gone better.”

  “Oh you think so Clara?” Emily angrily whispered, “next time we go underground in search of a huge creature… maybe bring something to protect yourself! Be glad we had Burat.” I could tell she wasn’t too mad at me but I know that must have been scary for her as well.

  “I’m sorry ok,” I took her by the hand and squeezed it tightly. “But we got…”

 

  Deafening screeching interrupted our little “I’m glad you’re alive” chat and I looked back to the barren rock to see the huge creature perform quite a delicate landing for something as big as it, like if an elephant could perform gymnastics.

  Seeing the monster bat in broad daylight was a bit surreal. It sniffed at the ground and scratched at the rock that we had just ran across leaving rough scratches along the floor.

  I watched it carefully as it shuffled around. The wings bent weirdly as the creature crawled on all fours, chirruping to see its surroundings. As it slowed its search I gingerly stepped out of the trees and to force myself to take another picture. A picture both in the cave and in daylight would be a lot of concrete proof.

  “What are you doing? Get back here!” Emily projected a whisper and I could hear the tension in her voice.

  “Shhh… just keep low,” I kept moving closer my eyes locked on the creature’s head. I raised the camera to my eye and pressed the capture button again

  Once again the shutters sound alerted the creature to us again and it looked in our direction. It shrieked a little, focused it attention, lowered its head and looked right me and I knew it that it knew I was there.

  It edged closer and I stood as still as I could even though every part of me was telling me to run.

  “Don’t act like prey. Don’t. Act. Like. Prey.” I repeated under my breath then I was surprised to hear myself saying, “hey there, big fella, it’s ok… no need to act rashly…” I put the camera on the floor, raised my hands and stepped forward slowly, “I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to say hello and then be on my way.”

  I edged closer and closer. My heart was in my throat but I tried somehow remained calm. The bat had seemed to calm down a lot. Its body seemed to relax, stretched out its neck and sniffed deeply.

  My guess is it realised I was neither a threat nor food and so it lay down and sighed deeply, kicking up a cloud of dust from the floor. I stepped closer, reached my hand out and gently placed my hand of the flat leaf shaped nose and felt the heat of the creature once again.

  “Hey there big guy, there you go, no threats here. Just some people who want to discover new things.”

  The creature’s eyes blinked slowly, giving me the idea that it could see me just a little. Its hot breath was strong enough to blow my hair a little and it stunk. Not that I expected minty freshness from a wild animals breath but still.

  I invited Emily and Burat to come a little closer and introduce themselves.

  They edged slowly out from the cover of the trees and Emily came up to me side. I took my hand away as Emily touched the same spot.

  “Hello,” she whispered quietly, “you’re incredible aren’t you?”

  Burat stayed back but had a childlike smile on his face.

 

  We stayed with the creature for a couple of hours and observed its behaviour over the next three days. A few notes I made on the creature, which I took to calling Kirk, can be found below. I also have given it a placeholder species name of Morrigan’s Megabat, which I have used in the titles I’ve used.

 

The following notes are taken from the Journal of Dr. Clara Morrigan

 

Possible name for species

·      Draconic Bat

·      Leathery Skinwing

·      Wyvern Bat

·      Screeching Megabat

·      Morrigan’s Megabat (X)

 

Morrigan’s Megabat’s physical description

  Large snubbed nose, shaped like a giant leaf.

  Large pointy ears, with ridges of thin skin in the inner ear on the top of the creature’s head.

  Extremely small eyes for its size and seem to be largely useless as this creature uses echolocation and smell to navigate it’s environment.

  A stripe of thick black quills/scales runs down the middle of its back, with lot of thinner and paler gray quills/scales covering the majority of its body. The only parts not covered in quills/scales are the face, ears and tail

  One huge pair of black, leathery wings act as this creatures arms with claws on the “elbow” of the wing, making this creature capable of “walking” on all fours (Though this tends to make them more skittish as the sounds around them set off their echolocation).

  1.7 meters tall (to the shoulder).

  3.8 meters long (to tip of the tail).

 

Behaviour patterns

  Hunts for food mainly at dusk by using a strong version of echolocation

But then have also been seen feeding from large fruit bearing trees, eating

similarly to browsers making it a large omnivorous creature, feeding on

the lower fruit bearing plants if it doesn’t go hunting.

  Seem to be aggressive to other animals.

Though this could be due to a fear of other creatures managing to sneak

up on it.

            Possibly due to it being hunted by others of its species when they are

            younger?

  The bad eyesight means that this creature always screeches at what it perceives as a treat and failing that will lunge at them in order to scare off any attackers

(I can attest to that).

  Lose quills are often found embedded in thick trees or in large caves at the foot of walls with large scratch marks on the cave walls.

  Its echolocation is produced from clicking its tongue and tightening its larynx.

(I assume is similar to how regular Bats produce it).

  Sharpens its claw on volcanic rock in its lair.

 

Habitat

  Lives in large cave systems during the day but takes to the air at dusk to hunt birds for food

  You can also regularly find evidence of them being active in jungle clearings where fruit bearing trees are found

Including broken branches with quills caught in the bark of trees.

 

This concludes the Notes from Dr. Clara’s Journal

 

  After a week of observing Kirk it came time to pack up and leave the rainforest.

By then I couldn’t help but feel we got very lucky on this trip. Like all the dominos were lined up perfectly when we took the job to find Kirk.

  I know it sound stupid but after spending most of the week with Kirk but I’m guessing he got inquisitive about the original group of tourists that appeared in his territory. He just did the same thing you would do if you saw something interesting happing outside your window except he needs to shout a lot to see what’s in front of him.

 

  I’m not sure how wide spread Kirk’s species is so who knows if there is a breeding population or not but with how many volcanoes there are around Papua New Guinea its possible the Morrigan’s Megabat is an endangered species. I hope not because for such an amazing creature to be lost to time would be a travesty.

  So now that I am back home I will attempt to get the species some protection now that there is proper scientific prove that the “Monster” Emily and I were hired to find is real and just a previously unknown species of Megafauna.

  As I said at the start, the world is full of secrets and I intend to uncover more.

 

  Here’s to the next adventure.