THE KIDS OF WOOLSERY GET IN ON THE ACT

In the North-Devonshire village of Woolsery there has only been one topic of conversation for the past few weeks; the Guyana expedition. Five intrepid monster hunters are currently enduring the baking heat and wild terrain of the South American country, rooting out witness reports of giant anacondas, the monstrous yeti-like dai-dai, a large water dwelling beast known as the water tiger, fearsome red-faced pygmies and a diminutive two-tailed caiman-like creature unheard of by anyone outside of Guyana before this expedition.

The expedition is being run by the Woolsery-based Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] and when the young Braund-Philips brothers – Greg (9) Ross (12) and David (15) – read yesterday about how discussions regarding the expedition have taken over The Farmer’s Arms, the village’s pub, they wanted to get in on the action too.

Since the expedition set off, they have been avidly following the team’s adventures on the expedition’s blog (http://cfzguyana.blogspot.com/) and drawing pictures of the fascinating creatures they have read about. As well as the mysterious animals mentioned above, the boys were particularly excited to hear about how the explorers had taken the first video footage of a newly discovered green scorpion. As a result, Ross – a keen amateur naturalist - now wants to start keeping and breeding pet scorpions, although his parents might have other ideas!

The expedition was sponsored by video games manufacturer Capcom to tie-in with their new game Monster Hunter 2: Freedom for the Playstation Portable allowing the CFZ, the world’s largest mystery animal research group, to undertake its most ambitious expedition to date.