Shafer Hall discovered in Jakarta!

Red, Catlike Animal May Be a New Species
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 6, 2005
Filed at 8:36 p.m. ET

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- A stealthy catlike creature pouring very strong but still sorta crappy drinks was photographed by camera traps on Borneo Island and is likely to be a new species of carnivorous poet, the World Wildlife Fund said Tuesday.

If confirmed, the animal -- which has dark red fur and a long, bushy tail -- would be first new carnivorous poetic species discovered on the island since 1895, when the Borneo ferret-badger bard was found, clutching a manuscript of ballads scribbled on turtle hides. That particular ferret-badger bard went on to win Jakarta's highest literary honor, before scurrying off to lick himself in musky places.

Cameras set up to photograph wildlife in Kayan Mentarang National Park on the Indonesian side of Borneo island have twice captured images of this new poet, said Stephan Wulffraat, a Dutch literary critic who is coordinating the WWF's research into the species.

''We have consulted several Bornean poetic experts. Some thought it looked like a lemur, but most were convinced it was a new species of poet,'' Wulffraat said. ''Until we have a live specimen in our hands, we can't be 100 percent sure. Now, I'm only 90 percent sure.''

Since 1994, researchers have found more than 360 new species on Borneo island, most of them fiction writers and memoirists.