Those Mysterious Creatures

Way back in 7^th grade, my classmates started to label me as an information sponge or the “encyclopedia reader.” They had a justifiable position in that label because every study hall I would head to the library to read more if I could. I did read the encyclopedias and spent most of my time in the non-fiction section.

Eventually, I found a section devoted to animals and those animals which peak the curiosity of many. The giant squid, Mokele Mbembe, Coelacanth, Megalania, Mapinguari, various lakes and ocean ‘monsters,’ Sucuriju Gigante, Ropen, Kongamato, Yeh-Teh, and many more creatures are reported as existing or sighted. Without a doubt, this captures the imagination of those who study the topic of unknown or unclassified animals or otherwise known as Cryptozoology.

What are these creatures? Are they real, hoaxes, or figments of over active imaginations? Are some of them alive today or have they gone extinct at some point in time? Quite simply, I cannot answer these questions anymore than anyone else because of the nature of the creatures talked about. If real, these animals are elusive and quite rare.

A few have been proven to be real such as the giant squid and the Coelacanth which were thought to be extinct. The giant squid has been known from its carcasses and only recently was it photographed in its natural habitat. Those last two words form the crux of the argument surrounding these mysterious animals.

Nearly all of the animals are said to live in natural habitats that are flat out hostile to humans. The enormous swamps of Africa that prevent a person from standing, walking, or seeing far because of the waterlogged ground and canopy of trees blocking sight from above make for a great hiding spot. Add in a variety of things that can kill a person and the environment being even more hostile to equipment, you now have a place where many unknown animals could thrive. Other spots are a variety of densely forested areas where people rarely go, the Amazon rainforests with its long list of deadly creatures to greet you, and the deep oceans and lakes where humans are incredibly out of their element. (Does anyone else watch those deep sea documentaries and compare fishing in a lake with a bobber to those subs dangled down there?)

The greatest argument against these mysterious animals comes in two forms. The first is there is no valid observational data to prove these animals exist. That is a point. The counterpoint is these are animals with little behavioral information to go on, in very hostile, large environments making most scientific expeditions an expensive shot in the dark. If these animals are nocturnal as well, then they may very well stay hidden as all the factors would be against us finding them. (Not to mention scaring the animals away with the sound / lights of our equipment.)

The other argument is they animals couldn’t have survived all of these millions / thousands of years because they went extinct. Good scientists know better to avoid this argument for a simple logical reason. Claiming an animal or species of animals does not or did not recently exist because of assumptions about the unobserved past creates a hypocritical stance. If you need valid observational data to prove something happened or exists (real science), you can’t counter possibilities with beliefs in assumptions or the unobserved (pseudo-science).

The facts: Animals do go extinct. We do discover many new species of plants and animals a year. There are plenty of locations for animals and plants to hide on this planet that we are ill-suited to study in.

Opinion: There is much more we do not know than we do know. There is no reason to limit our learning while retaining a healthy balance between curiosity and skepticism.