
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 8, 1995                   TAG: 9508080060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: LONDON                                 LENGTH: Short

BODMIN MOOR BEAST TAKES ANOTHER BLOW

Believers in the Beast of Bodmin Moor held up a skull as proof that a big cat was killing livestock. A cockroach proved them wrong.

A team of entomologists and zoologists from the Natural History Museum in London studied the skull, which was found on the moor in Cornwall two weeks ago, and released their findings on Monday:

The skull belonged to a young male Indian leopard.

The cat probably never had been near Bodmin Moor.

The critical clue: Inside the skull was an egg case from a tropical cockroach that does not exist in England.

``The conclusion is that this particular leopard skull came to Cornwall only by human agency, and it is most unlikely that it has been in the river where it was recently discovered for any appreciable length of time,'' the report said.

- Associated Press

by CNB