I have written several posts on the more impressive eyewitness reports describing large aquatic reptiles. Most of these were gathered in the early twentieth century and war and other upheavals ended public curiosity by the forties. Little has been seen since and few are matching the apparent quality of these earlier articles. It is very much as if these eyewitnesses felt a driving need to describe events as carefully and as personally as possible for the benefit of posterity.
I got my education regarding such reports reading old mining reports, and then a very few reports on the Sasquatch. What came through were attempts by skilled practical men who knew their environment to properly describe the local context. They usually got it more or less right when we dealt with mining reports. The several historic published reports of the Sasquatch have since been repeatedly confirmed by thousands of separate independent reports. That tells me that they were getting it right also.
With our reports on dawn age reptiles, the story is no different except for the sparse recent observations as yet. This is a direct result of decolonization in the later half of the twentieth century where a large body of foreign observers largely left the scene and it became difficult to report events at all.
Today the pendulum has swung back and the Internet is helping locals become observers. What is still missing is good journalism and sites like BFRO set up to collect specific eyewitness reports. Google BFRO for an example of how it should be done.
I have already explained why these reptiles can be still extant. They are aquatic and rely on water immersion to control body temperature. That means that they stick to swamps and related rivers. The sea going version may also be around but obviously having no pressing need to spend time on the surface at all.
Their present populations are likely at low ebb, but that merely reflects the present paucity of swamps. We are missing most of the Saharan swamps and those of the Outback. Both these would have compared to the Congo. We are also missing the coastal swamps caused by the Northern Ice age that circled the continents.
Another characteristic of these animals is their nocturnal nature. It we want to see them, it has to be at night through the predawn when they are most active. After that these animals den up to avoid the discomfort of overheating caused by activity in the daytime. That may mean sunning themselves where they cannot be disturbed. However lack of any but rare observation mitigates against that.
My key point here is that the phenomena is global and the critter assemblage is dawn age aquatic reptile believed to be extinct except for the crocodile since the emergence of dinosaurs able to leave their swamps. The evidence is sufficient to suggests that they are not extinct.
I got my education regarding such reports reading old mining reports, and then a very few reports on the Sasquatch. What came through were attempts by skilled practical men who knew their environment to properly describe the local context. They usually got it more or less right when we dealt with mining reports. The several historic published reports of the Sasquatch have since been repeatedly confirmed by thousands of separate independent reports. That tells me that they were getting it right also.
With our reports on dawn age reptiles, the story is no different except for the sparse recent observations as yet. This is a direct result of decolonization in the later half of the twentieth century where a large body of foreign observers largely left the scene and it became difficult to report events at all.
Today the pendulum has swung back and the Internet is helping locals become observers. What is still missing is good journalism and sites like BFRO set up to collect specific eyewitness reports. Google BFRO for an example of how it should be done.
I have already explained why these reptiles can be still extant. They are aquatic and rely on water immersion to control body temperature. That means that they stick to swamps and related rivers. The sea going version may also be around but obviously having no pressing need to spend time on the surface at all.
Their present populations are likely at low ebb, but that merely reflects the present paucity of swamps. We are missing most of the Saharan swamps and those of the Outback. Both these would have compared to the Congo. We are also missing the coastal swamps caused by the Northern Ice age that circled the continents.
Another characteristic of these animals is their nocturnal nature. It we want to see them, it has to be at night through the predawn when they are most active. After that these animals den up to avoid the discomfort of overheating caused by activity in the daytime. That may mean sunning themselves where they cannot be disturbed. However lack of any but rare observation mitigates against that.
My key point here is that the phenomena is global and the critter assemblage is dawn age aquatic reptile believed to be extinct except for the crocodile since the emergence of dinosaurs able to leave their swamps. The evidence is sufficient to suggests that they are not extinct.
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