i'm a cryptozoologist. ask me anything.

[Gato Moteado]

cryptozoology is the study of animals not recognized by mainstream science (i.e. bigfoot, loch ness monster, thylacine, etc).

for the last ten years i have been most interested in the possibility of the existence of a sauropod (brontosaurus-like animal) living in the congo basin. the natives refer to it as mokele-mbembe.

i have actually seen one cryptozoological wonder in my life and i can verify it. has anyone else?

[BurtWorm]

1. What the hell is thylacine?

And what the hell cryptozoological wonder have you seen anc can verify?

[Ediacara]

8. a thylacine is

a marsupial native to Tasmania. It looks rather similar to a tiger-striped wolf, with a fat tail. The last verified thylacine died in a Tasmanian zoo in 1936, although there have been numerous unsubstantiated reports of Tasmanian wolf (thylacine) sightings ever since.

In fact, there's a thread in LBN on this very subject, although the title refers to them as extinct tigers...

[BurtWorm]

11. Would you call that a cryptozoological interest, then?

Does that make the pileated woodpecker--or whatever that allegedly extinct red-headed bird that some people think is still living in the bayou is called--a cryptobeast? I thought cryptozoa were more like animals that scientists reject as having ever existed or as being far too long extinct to be plausibly extant.

PS: I've seen pictures of thylacines and I'd love to see a live one. They were gorgeous animals, in their own weird way.

[Ediacara]

13. mmmm sorta

Thylacines are big, and woodpeckers are not so big. Thylacines also ate meat, so one would assume that you'd see carcasses of wallabies and kangaroos or whatnot killed by a fairly large predator that is not a human. It's really getting hard, without a real animal (dead or alive) in a cage to possit that thylacines still live today.

Thylacines sightings also take on the tone of many crypto sightings, "I had my camera but he was gone too fast," "if only I had had my camera," "I had the camera and snapped a photo but the lens cover was on."

[Gato Moteado]

21. the atala butterfly

see my post below

[SiobhanClancy]

2. I saw a herd of unicorns once...

but I think..although I'm not sure...that it was the result of an orange sunshine induced hallucination.

[grytpype]

3. Played.

[InkAddict]

4. Could DU Soon by Powered by

The Missing Link?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/08/18/biological.computing.ap/index.html

[gully]

5. What's the pay?

[dawg]

6. That is so cool! I love stuff like that.

I'm pretty sure I saw a homo habilis with a "Support President Bush and Our Troops" bumper sticker last week.

[Maple]

7. How about Bessie

who lives in Lake Erie?

First sighted in 1817, and no doubt her great grandkids are still there.

[Gato Moteado]

22. lake champlain supposedly has one too....

and several other lakes as well.

[Maple]

35. Hadn't heard about that one

Have heard of one in Alberta, and one in BC.

[On the Road]

9. I Read Rory Nugent's Book

Have you personally seen the humonguous lizard thing? Is that the one you can verify?

If not, what's the crypto-animal that you have witnessed?

[Gato Moteado]

15. i read rory nugent's book too...

...but i think it was mostly fiction. read dr. roy mackal's writings on the subject of mokele-mbembe. mackal also spent a lot of time at the loch ness trying to track down the monster back in the 60s. he has a lot of interesting things to say about that as well.

[On the Road]

29. Thanks for Checking Back

I am open to various types of cyptozoological beings. I understand that the giant panda was considered mythical in the West until about 100 years ago.

Even bigfoot I wouldn't rule out. I happened to see a few minutes of a cable show discussing the famous movie clip, and they pointed out that you could see the muscles of the upper leg flexing in some detail, which would be difficult to do in a monkey suit. Also I believe the general shape and dimensions were difficult to reconcile with a human in a suit.

I do hope the ivory-billed woodpecker is still alive.

The search for the Loch Ness monster keeps turning up empty, though. And having driven past Loch Ness, it isn't all that large. Seems hard to keep something that big hidden for so long. Although the giant eel idea is interesting.

[Gato Moteado]

31. there have been some significant discoveries....

...of new species in the last 50 years or so.

the okapi and the forest elephant come to mind.

also, there had been reports of a giant skink-like reptile in parts of new zealand for a hundred years or so. biologists there didn't believe any of them. then around 1960 a motorist accidentally ran one over and brought the carcass to a museum. still, it took about 30 years to from that time to find the living population, but they finally found them.

[Gato Moteado]

23. i've never seen mokele-mbembe.....

....but i'd give just about anything to see one.

[Ediacara]

10. a couple of questions

what cryptozoological wonder have ou seen?

how do respond to the data that there are not enough fish in Loch Ness to support a population of large fish-eating animals?

Of the cryptozoological possibilities you listed, which do you think are the most likely to be real?

This is not meant to be a baiting post, just an honest inquiry from a paleontologist who realizes the world is not so small that cameras have seen everything.

[Maple]

12. Loch Ness

is a finger in from the sea and very deep.

I would think it's more a stopover than anything else.

Anywhere these 'creatures' are sighted tend to be very deep and cold, and usually with a outlet to the sea or other bodies of water.

[Ediacara]

14. there is no way in

there is, IIRC, only a rather small stream in to and out of Loch Ness.

[MisterP]

27. yes, through Inverness, and a canal towards the Irish Sea

[Maple]

34. I understood there was

an entrance/exit underwater.

[Gato Moteado]

19. a couple of answers....

the cryptozoological beast that i have seen is the atala butterfly. the atala butterfly in north america was thought to have been extinct since the 1950's, but it was rediscovered in the 1990's. i actually know the real story behind the rediscovery because i met the naturalist who was responsible. it's fascinating...someday i'll write about it. anyways, they're around and fairly common again in south florida.

regarding the loch ness monster (or as dr mackal refers to it, "the loch ness phenomena") we don't really know what it is, so we don't know what it eats. it's almost certainly not a pleisiosaur or other aquatic dinosaur because the water is probably way too cold. in his book about the subject, mackal talks about other possibilities including a very large amphibian, an unknown type of eel (apparently, the larval stage of certain eels can be 50 feet long or longer), and several other possibilities.

regarding which possibility i think is most likely...i'm not sure. there's definitely a phenomenon in the loch ness...whether it's a beast or not we don't know. but i think it's very possible that it is. i also think it's possible that mokele-mbembe does exist in the congo basin. the stories coming from there really sound good. also, it's one of the few places on earth that haven't been affected by the last couple of ice ages.

[slackmaster]

16. Where can I get Mokele-Mbembe eggs?

Fertile, of course/

[Gato Moteado]

20. i wish i knew....

...that would be the first species in my cryptozoo.

[davidinalameda]

17. What is the Flatwoods Monster

n/t

[Gato Moteado]

24. i don't know that one

nt

[davidinalameda]

26. I'm not sure if it's a creature or an alien

http://www.flatwoodsmonster.com/

I think it's sort of like the mothman

[Birthmark]

18. I have a question.

Does Bigfoot fly around in Elvis' UFO?

[Gato Moteado]

25. elvis works at a mickey-dee's in grand rapids michigan

thats all i know

[Birthmark]

28. I'm betting...

...his job is to dispose of the unsold product at the end of the night. I feel sorry for the street people of Grand Rapids.

[Gato Moteado]

30. chupacabras are another cryptospecies i'd love to see...

...and since i'll be moving to latinamerica soon, i will definitely search for one!

[Nikia]

32. That's what I want to do

I want to go searching for dinosaurs and big foot/yetis. I would also be intersted in seeing a really giant squid but I'd probably really be too scared. I thought when I was in junior high that I had found an extinct creature. I thought that I had found trilobites. They turned out to be large aquatic sow bugs though.

[pizzathehut]

33. Where are you on Bigfoot?

I've read alot about him on the net. I just dont think its real. The Patterson film seems to be a fake. What we have now is too many people making money off of it. Sort of like the Jackalope.

What I would like to see is (I know this sounds crazy) about 10,000 army rangers, marines, and special forces, along with tracking dogs, thermal sensors and such, do a thourough tree by tree, cave by cave, and inch and inch search of the areas where bigfoot is expected to exist. They will either find something or put an end to the idea.

What do you think?