On a windswept moor in England, a large black creature crouches alert and
tense, before continuing its midnight prowl. Silhouetted against the night sky,
it reaches the crest of a hill, and passes behind a tree. There it pauses,
scuffles around, strains briefly, and leaves. Is this the Beast of Bodmin
Moor?
For decades, walkers have claimed to see a large cat-like creature, perhaps a
leopard, perhaps a puma, perhaps something even stranger, prowling over Bodmin
Moor in Cornwall. Local farmers have reported suspicious deaths among their
sheep and cattle. Although Britain’s Ministry of Agriculture has dismissed the
whole thing as rubbish after reviewing videotapes and footprint casts, and
although London’s Natural History Museum claims that the large-fanged cat skull
found on the moor is not native to England (it contained the egg case of a
tropical cockroach), the locals think they know better.
Luckily, this time, during its brief pause behind the tree, the creature has
left a new kind of evidence. At first glance it may seem less compelling than
eyewitness accounts, but it holds a treasure trove of incontrovertible
scientific evidence. It’s a pile of dung—humble faeces—that is
chock-full of DNA from cells sloughed off the creature’s digestive tract. It
will either prove the sceptics wrong or show that the “sightings” are just a
pile of…you know. Either way, analysing the DNA found in faeces is likely to
become an essential tool for every biologist who studies elusive or endangered
animals.
Alec Jeffreys of Leicester University, who invented DNA fingerprinting, has
volunteered to do a DNA analysis of any faeces connected with a beast sighting. …
