Camden feature: Richard Freeman and Jonathan Downes deliver a beginner’s guide at the Grant Museum of Zoology, Euston Square, on Tuesday May 20, 6pm. Admission free.

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Published: 15 May 2008

Camden feature | Richard Freeman and Jonathan Downes| review | The Grant Museum of Zoology

SEARCHING for myths is hard work – just ask cryptozoologist Richard Freeman.
In pursuit of the world’s “anomalous and unexplained” species he has travelled the Mekong river looking for the immense Naga serpent, sought the Mexican Goatsucker and attempted to entice the Mongolian Deathworm.
A qualified zoologist, Freeman claims to have followed the tracks of the orang-pendek, an “upright ape that walks like a man”, through the rainforests of Sumatra.
He and his team at the Centre for Fortean Zoology fund the tours by dint of their exclusivity – they are the world’s only organisation dedicated to paranormal fauna.
Freeman is the first to concede that common perceptions of paranormal phenomena are more cry than wool.
“By the time it reaches the West they are creatures worthy of Doctor Who – they can generate blasts of electricity and spit acid,” he says.
Next it’s the Caucasus Mountains to look for an early Neanderthal “Almasty”, a “huge, hulking great hominid” called the Didi, and a race of red-faced pygmies with a penchant for tobacco.
SIMON WROE
• Richard Freeman and Jonathan Downes deliver a beginner’s guide at the Grant Museum of Zoology, Euston Square, on Tuesday May 20, 6pm. Admission free.

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