MagiStream

Matthew wrote:i don think that dragons could actually exist, because a gigantic fire-spitting reptile that can somehow lift itself off of the ground with bat-like wings despite its huge body sounds completely unrealistic to me. Instead, I have a better explanation for what people have been mistaking as dragons.

That's pretty much the commonly accepted answer-- for instance, look at China. Their mythology and legends say they are descended from dragons, and the area is a hot spot for dinosaur bones.

And as for the Loch Ness Monster - yes, I do believe there are plesiosaurs out there. They were thought to be extinct for millions of years, but so were coelocanths, and they were discovered alive. And while that famous black-and-white photo taken in the loch may not be real, i think that Nessie is.

Plesiosaurs and coelacanths are extremely different things-- one in a massive creature stuck in a comparatively tiny lake, and the other is a hardy fish that was brought up from deep down in the ocean. The ocean likely has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of undiscovered things-- simply because we can't get to them. People have scoured Loch Ness a handful of times, and found absolutely no signs of a creature the signs of a plesiosaur aside from a sound called "bloop"-- which I, and some others, believe to simply be a gas bubble released from the lake bottom. Personally, I believe Nessie to simply be an oversized lake eel or even catfish, if anything else; it would also explain why it's been there for so long. There's tons of eels native to the lake, and catfish may have been introduced-- which can grow to monstrous sizes. They, at least, have multiple animals to breed with-- not so with the plesiosaurs, as there would be much more evidence of multiple creatures breeding in the lake.

I'm not saying Nessie doesn't exist, just that it's probably not an extinct water creature.

In my opinion, Bigfoot and the Yeti are the mostly reasonably explained of the cryptids. Gigantopithecus, a massive ape that lived in Asia, specifically China thousands of years ago before crossing the Bering land bridge. However only the mandibles, aka a fancy term for its lower jaw has only been found, and thus the animal's means of locomotion are unknown. Though many say it could have walked on two legs, it is believed by most to have be quadrupedal. Anyways, in a nutshell Bigfoot went across the land bridge and lives in America while the Yeti stays at home. It's reasonable with open possibilities, but I won't put my faith into it.

Another thing about Nessie, the most common appearance is in fact a plesiosaur, but many other accounts have described it as a sea serpent and even a bulky amphibious creature. So depending on whom you interview or speak to, it may be different from person to person.

And yet...you never know what exists where on this planet. Just because we haven't seen it or haven't seen it recently that does NOT mean it never existed or that it's extinct. Ten good examples:

Ten Lost Amphibians

Their existence was, by the way, proven not by regular scientists but by cryptozoologists.

There's also the ivory billed woodpecker, also known as the Lord God Bird (if you ever see one, you'll know why). The biologists had the bird extinct since the 1920s. Some Florida birding books had sightings listed as late as the 1960s but none thereafter. They were rediscovered living in an Arkansas swamp, enough evidence to list them as endangered rather then extinct.

These I have seen personally...because they're still alive and kicking here in Florida in THIS habitat. There's no mistaking them for anything else because they're the largest woodpecker in North America, males have a bright red crest, and they have distinctive double stripes down the body and large white wing patches when seen in flight. I've seen not one but two of the males and a female out here, enough so that I reported the sighting to the Cornell ornithology department. There was enough recent evidence, through the types of holes they make in trees, knocks, calls, scat, and feathers, that Cornell listed Florida as a habitat. the bird is no longer listed as extinct either....and probably is not endangered. Were that the case, I don't think I'd have seen so many (I've seen them elsewhere as well, the large size and double white wing patches are dead giveaways and distinguish them from the smaller pileated woodpecker).

What about the coelacanth? This animal was determined not only extinct but of another evolutionary era...until fishers in the cold northern seas off of Great Britain began pulling up live specimens in their nets.

The point being, myths often have a solid grounding in fact. Just because we cannot now link the creature to an existing animal that does NOT mean the animal doesn't exist. Not being able to provide good photos or a dead specimen is NOT a good indicator of whether or not an animal exists. To date, for instance, no one has photographed the ivory bill nor has there been any biological evidence (corpse or egg shells). And yet no one would deny that the bird exists.

Well about a " short" time ago (100 years) the Okapi was concidered mythical until they were discovered. You never know what still lives in the places we have yet to truly research like the rainforest and the deepsea. Who knows what still resides in them.
Like the giant octopus it took a while but they finally did find scientific proof.

I know they are real. fairys,dragons and griffins and all of them and one day we will find them

TxCat wrote:Not being able to provide good photos or a dead specimen is NOT a good indicator of whether or not an animal exists.

Sometimes even a dead specimen is not enough if the animal does not conform to what is "normal." About 150 years ago the British Museum received the skin of a venomous, egg-laying animal with the bill of a duck, a beaver's tail and the eyes of a mole. That skin is still in the British Museum collection, and has a large number of cuts in it where the taxidermist tried to see how the obvious hoax was stitched together. Today, no one doubts the platypus exists.

You've seen my photos of echidnas, Kitty, and yet I still get emails asking if a spiny, burrowing, egg-laying mammal that eats termites and sweats pink milk is real.

North America would have been mostly "normal" for the first Europeans. Australia must have been a totally alien planet when the first settlers arrived in a continent of marsupials and monotremes.

In 16th century London there was the phrase "a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan." ie something that did not exist. Everyone knew all swans were white, so the black swan was a mythical bird. A cryptid. And then the first explorers arrived in Western Australia where all the swans were black. Now the phrase "black swan" is used to describe something that everyone knows could not possibly exist... until it is discovered to actually exist.

The ivory-billed woodpecker is a "black swan:" Everyone knew it was extinct, and then it wasn't.

Cryptozoologists are all chasing their black swans. There are some I hope find what they are looking for, but there are others... I mean, what sort of boring world would it be if *everything* is explained?

Dragons- Yes, I am convinced that they exsist completely. No, maybe not the typical version where they battle knights and spit fire, but yes I do believe they existed if not still exist. They could have evolved, we don't know. We weren't there. I think that as time went they evolved into something smaller because all the bigger prey thay ate died out or also started to evolve. I don't see why people say it is impossible for them to have existed. We had to get the ideas somewhere and they have been talked about for 100's of years in different cultures that had nothing to do with eachother or were in completely different times. Coincidence? I think not.

Dragons do exist... in the form of a Dinosaur called Dracorex Hogwartsia, which- though was a relative of the cephaloids looked much like a dragon (though, if you watch(ed) the T.V programme 'Primeval' Dracorex doesn't have any evidence of 'wing like' frills along the back.)

Spoiler

Here's the Skull of Dracorex Hogwartsia;


And here is what Paleo artists think the creature looked like:

They we not carnivorous, but herbivorous and used the bony lumps on its skull to literally 'lock-heads'.

Dragons as a fire-breathing serpentine creature is very unrealistic- granted, there are lizards today that glide using rib muscles and skin flaps, but they aren’t very big. I have just done a course on anatomy, very hard stuff. And- like a bird you need flight muscles to flap up and down- ever wondered when you was a kid and you saw cartoon characters flap their arms and fly, and wondered why you couldn’t do it yourself (even with wing-like structures on your arms). Birds have a breast Bone (if you’ve eaten chicken its that big white bone that has all the dry chicken meat on it) this connects muscles that enable powerful ‘up and down’ strokes. That big bone- just for a few movements of the wings. Pterosaurs (prehistoric flying reptiles) used muscles in their arm and chest to propel their flight, but the larger pterosaurs mainly glided. This anatomy also applies to ‘Angels’ (an possibly demons if you envision demons as winged creatures) like I said before- you need very big and very strong muscles on your chest to propel flight, and, if Angel existed, they would look more avian.

Another mythical creature that 'existed' was the gryphon, the Persian/Mongolian Half-lion, half-eagle creature that guarded its eggs and gold with all its might. These creatures existed... as Protoceratops- a late-creations dinosaur with a beak- it was small and a relative of the famous ceratopceian: Triceratops.

Q: but how on earth does a reptilian-like dinosaur end up with wings and feathers?

A: Protoceratops had a 'beak' and teeth. And its fossils had been found huddled around fossilised nests still containing fossilised eggs. As a ceratopceian, it had a frill at the back of its head- possibly to shield its neck and attract mates. sometimes, fossils of dinosaurs are broken up- actually 99.9% of the time, whole fossils are rare to come by, with that said- it's possible that some of the frill of the Protoceratops broke away from its skull and landed by its shoulders- making it look like a wing.

Spoiler

Protoceratops skeleton:

it has also been suggested that Protoceratops may of had some sort of feathering along its tail- that may of been preserved to create the classic 'lion tail'.

As for Unicorns, they may have been misidentified stags, I’ve seen some stags that have lost a horn. Or, the ‘horn’ could be from male Narwhals, as their tusk is long and spiral in shape- these creatures, much like elephants could have been killed for their tusk to be sold on a unicorn horns:

Spoiler

I was recently studying the Lock-ness Monster and the lake. And you would think that it is full of lots of big yummy fish to eat. It’s not, not enough to sustain a full grown plesiosaur at least- the lock is rather cold too- never freezing, but still cold, and plesiosaurs are described as marine reptiles and, having a reptile of my own- when they get cold they become very sluggish- so, if ‘Nessie was in the Lock Ness- it would of died of drowning ages ago due to it being a marine reptile. Though, Being British myself- I do know that Britain was home to a vast array of sea reptiles in the Jurassic(?) and it is possible that someone (in Scotland) dug up or saw a plesiosaur skull/skeleton and thought that they must have been living in the lock. As for most of the sightings of ‘Nessie. They are caused by floating Logs, bird and even otters.

Mythical sea creatures may have a grain of truth to them- at least in my eyes (over the years of disappointment and fakes, I’ve grown sceptical of seeing ‘real’ mythological sea creatures)
Mermaids: They are an imposibilially, at least in the sense of half-fish, half-human concept, but sailors could have mistaken manatees and seals for mermaids.
Q/Statement: but mermaids are beautiful women! How can sailors mistake manatees or seals for them?
A: to survive in the water- especially for a mammal, you need a layer of blubber to insulate yourself (even in tropical oceans), with the salt water you would get wrinkling of the skin and mermaids wouldn’t be able to keep the hair on their heads (forgot the reason, I think it’s to do with the salt water), making a mermaid look rather like a manatee- or a very old, rather large mermaid.

There is, however a condition simply known as ‘mermaidism’ where the legs are fused together in foetal development- these children don’t usually live very long (of what I have heard)

Krakens:
Now, these creatures I DO believe in, maybe because they’ve been discovered under the name of ‘colossal Squid’ which can grow up to 35 ft. long, but oceanographers claim to have seen one as big as 132ft! Sperm Whales fed on these squid- that’s why sometimes, when a beached sperm-whale is on the beach, you can see ring-like scars where the squid have grasped at the whale, when the whale has them in its jaws.
:WARNING: some people may find this image disturbing

Spoiler

But most of these creatures are stories, told on from generation to generation. Maybe, like today, some people fooled others into believing creatures existed, or maybe they told tall tales, much like the tale ‘of the one that got away’ exaggerating the event.

Synchronized wrote:Even the largest flying creatures in our history(Quetzalcoatlus, for example) were extremely awkward and likely very slow moving while on the ground, and probably incapable of any strong takeoffs.

I'd just like to correct something: Quetzocoatlus and the azdarchids were well-suited for walking around, as proved by some azdarchid tracks and the limb proportions. Also, biomechanics mean that nearly all pterosaurs could take off from standing in a few seconds (I would post the video, but I'm having trouble getting on Youtube right now).