Many mysteries of the previous century had been unraveled by the beginning of the current century. The Loch Ness Monster has been officiakky recognized dead (video, article), those who still believe in the existence of Big Foot (article and photo gallery) and Chupacabra (read articles here and here) make the minority. The term ‘cryptozoology,’ which Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans introduced at the end of the 1950s, becomes history slowly but surely.
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Both common people and scientists used to be greatly interested in the existence of mysterious animals. A photograph or a video tape would always make headlines in many newspapers and provoke vivid discussions all over the globe.
In addition to widely recognized “stars” like giant apes and lake monsters, there also were sea lizards, giant squids, snake-birds and even dinosaurs.
The extensive list of cryptids – the animals, which no one has ever spotted – particularly includes the Jackalope – a hybrid of an antelope and a rabbit, the Jersey Devil – a winged creature with a long neck, as well as numerous analogues of the Loch Ness Monster – the Mokele Mbembe reptile from Africa, the Champ and the Ogopoga (lake animals) from North America.
All these stories seem to be nothing more but modern fairytales. However, there is a reason, which makes official science pay attention to cryptids. Serious biologists have made quite a number of real discoveries on the base of anecdotes and folklore of residents of various countries. The list of such successes includes the discovery of gorillas in 1847 (the mountain gorilla was discovered in 1902), the giant panda in 1869, the okapi (a short-necked type of giraffe) in 1901, the giant monitor lizard, or the Komodo Dragon in 1912, the bonobo (the Pygmy Chimpanzee) in 1929, the megamouth shark in 1976 and the giant gecko in 1984.
The capture of Latimeria, or Coelacanth - the oldest living lineage of gnathostomata known to date – became an outstanding achievement of the kind in 1938. It was previously believed that the ancient fish had become extinct during the Cretaceous period.
Discoveries of previously unknown species of insects and bacteria are published in scientific magazines on a regular basis, although this does not seem to be that interesting to the general public.
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