I like cryto creatures, love hearing the stories and tales of sightings, as I'm sure many of you do as well.

BUT...has there ever been one of these cases absolutely proved? Any 'hidden' creature that lived up to the 'legend'?

I'm not talking about finding a new deer species, or an new type of bug (while those fall into the 'cryptozoology' definition, they are still rather mundane) but a real legend brought to life?

The giant squid case, while mildly interesting, is really just a 'big' version of an existing animal.

The Mountain Gorilla is another one folks will bring up. But, we KNEW about gorillas beforehand. That was just a subspecies of Gorilla. While still fascinating, just not the 'find' it is made out to be.

So, can anyone point me to just ONE case, where the legend of a creature turned out to be scientifically proven true?

With that reasoning would bigfoot be just another subspecies of ape? and not count as a find?

I do agree that having a new worm discovered labeled as a "crypto find" is disappointing.

I would put it more of people saw something and the imagination creates the monster.
The Kraken - Giant squids
Mermaids - manatee
Sea serpents - waves or maybe just a whale.
Big foot - hippies from the 60's

There's one actually, The RODS, oh wait, it's just any ordinary bugs photographed in slow shutter camera.

Click to view attachment



The Okapi.

The pygmy rhino.

http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/i...m?uNewsID=72120

yes

the mountain gorilla
okapi
komodo dragon

please dont change ur words from the past when u denied these animals as even existing

For a while the 'winged' cat was a crypto myth. But it was explained...

Winged Cats

And of course, the king of the fast lane land animal, Marozi and the King Cheetah


Too bad, they are either extinct or critically endangered.

kraken has been caught a few times now.


fail.

look up japan kraken, they have a vid of them killing one trying to capture it

When the first platypus specimen was sent back to England it was believed to be a fake, that no such creature could exist.

- Giant forest hog
- King cheetah (as capoeiranger said)
- Giant palm civet
- Onza
- Pygmy elephant

These were all considered to be myth until someone bothered to look for them.

While most of what you all listed would seem to be very important to biologists, none of them really live up to a legend.

And again, most if not all, were just different offshoots of already known existing animals. I agree the Okapi is something special, and the platypus would seem very bizarre, but they still miss that emotional punch....I daresay their finds are boring to me (in a 'cryptozoological' mindset)

A bigfoot for instance (from eyewitness reports) would be the find of the millenium. Sure, it would seem to be part of an ape family, but radically different from any we've seen before.

Imagine if they finally did find a 'Loch Ness Monster' and it was what folks reported they saw....or Mokele Mbembe (sp)...or a Yeti.

I guess it's just frustration on my part. While the stories are intriguing, just to have one of the 'legends' prove true, instead of a ho-hum letdown would go a long way.

I have never heard of the Onza so I did a little reasearch and was unable to find a photo. Can anyone provide one? I read that they had an actual body to examine, so I would think there should be photos.

Thank you.

I think your looking, as you said, for legendary critters, rather than unknown critters or variations of existing critters. I can't think of any either, other than the gorilla as you mentioned. That really was mythical, as at the time, the locals insisted that a man-like creature bigger than a human existed, while the Europeans dismissed it as myth.

Reality usually doesn't live up to legend. But legends are almost always based somewhat in fact. Once you know all about something it stops being mystical or legenary.

How about the Lion-Killer Ape? AKA the billi/bondo ape. That one's pretty interesting.

Oh yeah, saw that too.
I meant then,
Giant Octupus, hydra or 8 headed monster - Giant squids.

got any link ?

It is a chimpanzee, it is just a subspecies, not a new one.

As far as "living fossils" are concerned, we do have coelecanth and the mega mouth shark.

Why is the megamouth a living fossil exactly? It is in a large and relatively new family in the Lamniform sharks.
Hexanchiformes are far older.

panda bears were considered a myth until they were discovered

How long ago was this though?

When was the platypus first recognized by science as not a hoax? Would that qualify for the op's question?

This body was examined and classified as being a likely subspecies of puma. Analysis of a frozen corpse in the '90s led to the conclusion that the onza is a genetic variant of the puma but not a species in its own right.

The final theory as to the onza's identity is that it diverged from the puma in order to fill the niche filled by Miracinonyx, the American cheetah.

You can see in the photo that this thing is thinner and has longer legs than a puma. Examination showed that it had eaten recently and possessed adequate amounts of body fat, so it was thin for a reason other than hunger.

Thank you Samael,

Looks like a skinny long legged cougar, with the body of a cheetah, except the tail isn't as long as a cheetahs . The material I read said they had spots like a jaguar, maybe they are not showing up in this photo.

Thanks again

I'm not quite sure exactly somewhere in the 1900s. What does it matter? the creature was thought to be a myth until they were found alive. Some people thought they had supernatural powers.

Unless making you go AWWWWWWWWW is a supernatural power, I'ma have to look at that sideways.

It was classified in 1869. However you can not compare the 19th century to the present. We have moved on an extremely long way since then.

yes, a giant gorilla-sized chimp. yet despite their size, we have little evidence

We have photo's, we have scientific studies and this is in an area far, far, far, far, far, far more remote than the PNW.

remote? come on, more people study africa than the remote lands of the unexplored northwest,

take away the sahara, and africa is smaller. bili apes are only in a small section of africa, and in which that section is tiny to the nw

Negative

doesnt matter, investigation of sightings can lead to discoverys

Sightings, which has been stated over and over again, are not even close to enough reason to look into something.

I guess scientists should just drop what they're doing and go look for every thing somebody claims they see.

You are a complete idiot, do you really believe the crap you have just spewed there? Seriously that is total nonsense. You really think the Congo basin (a massive area of rainforest and FAR more remote than anywhere in North America), do you really think the DRC is less remote than the US and Canada. There are far more scientific studies in the PNW than in the Congo basin. It is more of the most unexplored areas left in the world. Sub-Saharan Africa is a massive area of land you know, the majority of the continent is not the Sahara and the centre of the continent (nations like Congo, D.R. Congo, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi) are so underdeveloped, have been through decades of civil war and have remained some of the most difficult area's of the world to access and you think the PNW is more remote?
The Bili chimp does have a small range yes, and in one of the most remote parts of the world and yet they could still find it.

I Think Tia has hit the nail on the head most squarely.

Tha Playtypus, even when specimens brought back was still though a hoax as the specimens were dead. It was assumed the clever work of a taxidermist.

Not only is the Congo one of the most remote regions in Africa it is also one of the least explored areas in the world. Like I have repeated several times for makaya325 (who completely ignores me) who claims it is almost impossible to find dead animal remains in the wild.

THEY HAVE FOUND SEVERAL BILI APE SKULLS IN THIS VERY REMOTE, LITTLE EXPLORED or VISITED, EXTREMELY HOT and HUMID, DENSE TROPICAL JUNGLE.

IF THEY CAN FIND THE SKULLS OF THIS RARE APE IN THIS ENVIRONMENT THEN WE SHOULD HAVE FOUND THE REMAINS OF BF IN NORTH AMERICA BY NOW!!!

If there is anything like Bigfoot on this earth the Congo is where you should be looking, not the PNW.

Are you insane? Seriously, glance at a globe sometime. There is no place in North America that is considered unexplored by modern standards. There are still vast land areas of Africa, particularly the Congo basin, that have almost none, if any, exploration in the last 200 years. Haven't I already proven to you again and again through endless maps and other avenues that NA is quite well explored and surveyed? There is no place logging doesn't reach. The entire continent has been surveyed for oil. Even the most remote areas of Canada are ecotourist and hunting/fishing destinations. Every mountain peak has been climbed. You're view of what is unexplored and what isn't is quite warped.

NZ mose.

Though it was an known animal, was just scoffed at even the though had been their for nearly a century until hairs where found

Some people need to learn Geography again...

how about the komodo dragon or a better example, the okapi

Yeah but they aren't cryptids in the classic sense.

if we didnt ever go to africa, the mountain gorilla would still be considered a legend. we listened to the natives and found one, proving that the natives testimony should not be dismissed. here in dense forests of north america, their might just be an animal that was supposed to be a legend, but is alive.

if bigfoot isnt real, its amazing a mythical creature has footprints, non-human hair, poop, vocalizations, videos. its not like lake monsters, which arent consistent, but sasquatch sightings describe normal behaviors found in great apes today

I saw that one of you mentioned the coelacanth. i really like them ive studied them(via. wiki) they are pretty intresting. everyone thought they were extinct untill hey were found by an Afircan
coast!

i thought the chupacabra was solved

Did you bold that on purpose?

the coelacanth wasnt surprisng at all, since they are shallow water fish. natives killed many of them and sold them before the 1938 specimen was found

the okapi, a large animal, was a startling discovery, and so was the megamouth shark. the mountain gorilla tops the list on animals once thought to be mythical. i know, ur gonna say "we always knew it existed", but u dismissed native accounts of large hairy apes, and u were proven wrong

But 'mountain gorillas' were just a larger version of a known gorilla species. It wasn't a ground breaking 'cryptozoological' find. And if that's the best evidence we have, its rather flimsy. My point with this thread is that there has never been 'one' creature found that has 'shocked the world'--just variations of known creatures.

I realize that myth is always going to be more 'romantic' than the real item, but until one Bigfoot, or Nessie, or Mothman, or Yeti, or mkole mbembe is found, and people come forward and say "yes...that is what we've been seeing!", then I'll have to say Crytozoology is a flop.

Instead, the findings have been mundane, like 'oh here is another spotted deer, but this one has spots only on its rear end.' Quite frankly...big whoop. While those findings are exciting for zoologists, they are pretty boring for the mysterious creature lovers.