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Is there any cryptids that could be real?; Which cryptids could be real?
Topic Started: Feb 8 2018, 08:16 PM (4,369 Views)
LittleLazyLass
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Flisch
Feb 17 2018, 07:56 AM
This thread is a prime example of the human mind forming opinions first and justifying them later.

Like, people believe in cryptids and then try to find any scrap of potential and circumstantial piece of pesudo-evidence to make a point that cryptids could, theoretically, exist, while playing down the points that speak against cryptids.
I fully and utterly admit to being completely biased regarding holding out hope for Sasquatch... and I don't really care about that. I'm not going to change my mind on I just because of that fact. If I want to believe I will.
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Dragonthunders
Feb 17 2018, 10:02 AM
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so how did things like the saola manage?

They are quite small bovines to tell the truth, is given the title of the first large mammal discovered in 50 years, but does not mean that it is a big bull sized animal.
sorry, may've been conflating and confusing the saola with one of the other antelopes of the region.
(but even with the saola, it may not be bull-sized...but it does answer an earlier charge that all the recent discoveries have been of small raccoon-sized animals)
Edited by Rodlox, Feb 17 2018, 12:56 PM.
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Feb 17 2018, 12:24 PM
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Feb 16 2018, 06:12 PM
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Feb 16 2018, 03:12 PM

(Also, like, the aborigines of Australia knew what a platypus was well before English naturalists, it wasn't a cryptid).
by that logic, Bigfoot and the Yeren aren't cryptids, because the local people knew of them before Europeans arrived.

They were also never believed to be physical beings. Its like saying angels are an undiscovered species.
people see angels all the time.
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In other news, I've heard from some NZ herpetologists that the "kawekaweau" from the Marsieille museum is likely not from New Zealand, but from New Caledonia. Either meaning the kawekaweau might not have existed at all (there are no giant geckos apart from the Duvaucel's gecko in NZ subfossil cave sites) or was a late-surviving Northland skink.
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Feb 17 2018, 01:37 AM
The olinguito isn't a "big species", it's the smallest of all procyonids in fact.
"Big" is a subjective term.

Flisch
 
This thread is a prime example of the human mind forming opinions first and justifying them later.

Like, people believe in cryptids and then try to find any scrap of potential and circumstantial piece of pesudo-evidence to make a point that cryptids could, theoretically, exist, while playing down the points that speak against cryptids.
Nice strawman. While I obviously can't speak for everyone with pro-cryptozoology views I can say that my own views on the matter were formed after I looked at the evidence, not before. Quite the opposite from "forming opinions first and justifying them later".
Incidentally, the whole "forming opinions first and justifying them later" could just as well be turned against those who hold the opinion we've discovered pretty much every species on Earth (new species getting discovered all the time "don't count" for whatever reason) and thus any evidence for still undiscovered species can be safely ignored as they already "know" it must be "fake" or "mistaken" or whatever.
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Pliny the Elder's Natural History mentions the mountains of Nysa (a mythical location that is allegedly in India according to Pliny) being home to 24-foot lizards. Though Cuvier suspected this was a crocodile, I think Pliny clearly described crocodiles and lizards as two different animals.

Though the book mentions obviously mythical races like people with 16 toes and people with backwards feet, I am curious about this lizard. Varanus sivalensis is the closest thing to it in India but went extinct during the Pliocene. Probably a myth or mistranslated crocodile, though I'd be curious if there are any subfossil sites in India where such a thing could potentially be found.

The Periplus of the Red Sea also mentions Socotra being home to great lizards (not too exciting, similar language is used to describe the lacertids of the Canary Islands), great snakes, crocodiles and tortoises. I wonder if any of the caves there are hiding subfossil remains of these.
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Mar 5 2018, 06:03 PM
The Periplus of the Red Sea also mentions Socotra being home to great lizards (not too exciting, similar language is used to describe the lacertids of the Canary Islands), great snakes, crocodiles and tortoises. I wonder if any of the caves there are hiding subfossil remains of these.
I also remember that according to Kingdon's Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa's Rare Plants and Animals, water buffalo could be found on the island.
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Mar 5 2018, 06:42 PM
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Mar 5 2018, 06:03 PM
The Periplus of the Red Sea also mentions Socotra being home to great lizards (not too exciting, similar language is used to describe the lacertids of the Canary Islands), great snakes, crocodiles and tortoises. I wonder if any of the caves there are hiding subfossil remains of these.
I also remember that according to Kingdon's Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa's Rare Plants and Animals, water buffalo could be found on the island.
Those were introduced, but the island apparently used to have more wetlands and waterways. Maybe the tortoises were introduced from Aldabra or the Mascarenes, but I doubt they would have survived exploitation.

EDIT: Apparently, Alexander the Great found a city called Nysa in the Indus Valley, between Indus and and the Cophen river. If these "24 foot lizards" ever existed, I'd have to guess they were gharials.
Edited by Rebirth, Mar 5 2018, 07:04 PM.
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Still would've been pretty spectacular - larger than any gharial known today, without a doubt.
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Olduwan tools have been found on Socotra too. The dragon's blood tree and some other plants of the island are apparently remnants of Miocene-Pliocene forests that once covered Africa. Who knows what the "great lizards", snakes, crocodiles and tortoises could have really been. A paleontological expedition might be fruitful.

Translation of the Periplus.
Edited by Rebirth, Mar 5 2018, 08:30 PM.
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Wait, large animals that have been discovered in the past 50 years? Well, there's always the Megamouth shark (discovered 1976) and the Omura's whale (first recorded 1976, named in 2003).
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Mar 6 2018, 11:00 PM
Wait, large animals that have been discovered in the past 50 years? Well, there's always the Megamouth shark (discovered 1976) and the Omura's whale (first recorded 1976, named in 2003).
It should be noted that both of those species live in the ocean, which is not only much bigger than land but also not inhabited by humans or even explored nearly as much. That's why I've always found oceanic cryptids to be more believable.
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A few examples of terrestrial large animals discovered pretty recently: saola (discovered in 1992), giant muntjac (1994), giant peccary (2004), Kabomani tapir (2013).
Yes, I realise some may insist "those aren't big enough", though terms like "big" and "large" are somewhat subjective. I'd say the creatures I've listed are certainly not small things unless one views anything that's not a multi-tonne giant as "small".
Edited by Tartarus, Mar 7 2018, 07:50 PM.
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That tapir was an already known species which had been split.
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The tapir isn't even a different species.

The original paper has a lot of flaws, the genetic analysis are deeply biased. The original author was just trying too far, and manipulated his results, just so he could publish a "new" species.
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