This
is an excellent survey of past global sightings of the genus pterosaur that is
surprisingly extensive. I have posted
extensively on this in the past, but this seriously opens up the operating
range and potential habitats.
1
It
appears to roost in swamps.
2
It
is normally a nocturnal hunter and thus daytime sightings become rare.
3
It
eats fish and has the capacity to enter the water to capture prey and then fly
out of the water, all at night.
4
Globally
we are seeing a range of species.
5
New
Zealand, New guinea and by inference all Australasia, the Americas and now
African swamps. It appears to range
throughout the tropics for likely habitats, but also through even temperate
regions in terms of real flying range and season.
Again
it appears to have the general sense to avoid our presence quite easily. Yet we still have many individual sightings,
enough to be certain that it exists.
After all, it is unmistakable, and not ever looked for.
I THOUGHT I SAW
A TERROR SAUR! - DO PREHISTORIC FLYING REPTILES STILL EXIST?
MONDAY, 7 OCTOBER 2013
Those iconic winged reptiles of prehistory known as
the pterosaurs died out alongside the last dinosaurs over 60 million years
ago…didn’t they? Most mainstream zoologists would say that they did. Then
again, most mainstream zoologists have probably never heard of the kongamato,
the ropen, the duah, or a veritable phalanx of other winged mystery beasts
reported from around the world that bear a disconcerting resemblance to those
supposedly long-vanished rulers of the ancient skies. Could these
cryptozoological creatures possibly be surviving pterosaurs? Read their
histories here, and judge for yourself.
THE KONGAMATO – AN AFRICAN ANOMALY
The Jiundu marshes of western Zambia’s
Mwinilunga District comprise a huge but remote expanse of densely-foliaged,
forbidding, near-impenetrable swampland rarely visited even by the native
people, let alone Westerners. This is due in no small way to the persistent
local belief that this foetid morass is home to a frightening horror of a
creature whose very name strikes terror among the neighbouring populace – the
kongamato. It first attracted popular attention in 1923, when documented in
traveller Frank H. Melland’s book In Witchbound Africa. Discussing it with
the local Kaondé people, Melland learnt that this greatly-feared entity
allegedly resembles a reddish-coloured lizard with membranous bat-like wings
measuring 1-2 m across, a long beak crammed with teeth, and no fur or feathers
on its body, just bare skin. When shown books filled with pictures of animals
living and extinct, every native present immediately selected pictures of
pterosaurs and identified them as representations of the kongamato. And
indeed, there is no doubt that the above description of a kongamato bears a
startling similarity to that of certain early, medium-sized pterosaurs known as
rhamphorhynchoids, typified by their toothy beaks, as well as their long tails
(the later pterodactyloids lacked teeth and tails). Nor were reports of such an
animal limited to Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia).
At much the same time, accounts of an identical
mystery beast were also emanating from a comparably dense, inhospitable swamp
in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and during the 1940s game warden Captain
Charles R.S. Pitman referred to the reputed existence of a pterodactyl-like
creature amid swamp forests near the border of Angola and the Belgian Congo
(now the Democratic Congo). So-called flying dragons were even mentioned by
celebrated South African ichthyologist Prof. J.L.B. Smith – immortalised as the
co-discoverer of another prehistoric survivor, the lobe-finned coelacanth fish
back in 1938. In his book Old Fourlegs (documenting the coelacanth’s
discovery), he noted that the descendants of a missionary who had lived
near Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa had long heard
reports and claimed sightings of such beasts from the local people. Prof. Smith
was even bold enough to state: “I did not and do not dispute at least the
possibility that some such creature may still exist” – and, as someone who had
recently resurrected another prehistoric lineage from many millions of
‘official’ extinction, his opinion could not be readily discounted.
During the 1950s, there was much correspondence in
Rhodesian newspapers on the subject of living pterosaurs, in which several
zoologists, but most notably Dr Reay Smithers – director of Southern Rhodesia’s
National Museum – attempted to dismiss such a notion by offering various
modern-day candidates as the identity of these winged wonders. The most popular
one was the shoebill Balaeniceps rex - a large superficially
stork-like bird with an enormous beak, and a very impressive wingspan, which
can indeed appear deceptively prehistoric when seen in flight, especially by
someone not familiar with this unusual species. However, also on file are
reports of natives claiming to have been attacked and severely wounded by the
kongamato when it has stabbed them with its long beak - something that the shy
shoebill, whose beak is in any case the wrong shape to accomplish such a deed,
is unlikely to do.
In one instance from the 1920s, a native boldly
decided to penetrate a vast Southern Rhodesian swamp traditionally deemed by
his tribe to be the abode of demons, from which no-one who entered it ever
returned alive, and see for himself just what did inhabit this accursed realm.
Happily, he did return alive – but only just, having been badly injured,
resulting in a major chest wound. When a civil servant for the region asked him
what had happened, the native told him that he had encountered a huge bird of a
type that he had never seen before, with a long sharp beak. Shown a book of
animal pictures, he flicked through it in a desultory manner – until he came to
an illustration of a pterodactyl, whereupon he let out a terrified shriek and
ran out of the civil servant’s house. A comparable incident was reported
from Zambia’s Lake Bangweulu swamps during the 1950s, and when
the wounded native, who was taken to a Fort Rosebery hospital, was
given some paper and a crayon to sketch the creature that had attacked him, the
result was a silhouette that corresponded precisely with that of a pterodactyl.
Moreover, at much the same time, while working in
the Zambezi Valley, Daily Telegraph correspondent Ian Colvin not only
saw but actually photographed what was later claimed by one observer to be a
pterodactyl. Zoologists disagreed, some stating that it was a shoebill, others
a saddle-backed storkEphippiorhynchus senegalensis – a tall bird with a
very long beak that could certainly cause the kind of chest injuries noted
above but which bears no resemblance to a pterosaur (or, incidentally, to a
shoebill). Nor can a mammalian identity, such as a bat or gliding rodent,
provide a convincing answer.
Attempts have also been made to explain away native
beliefs in pterosaurian monsters as the result of cross-cultural contamination
– their beliefs influenced by the discovery in those African regions of
pterosaur fossils. However, cryptozoological researches have shown that such
beliefs considerably predate any palaeontological discoveries made there.
Today, Africa’s neo-pterosaurs have been largely
forgotten in the wake of other, newer cryptozoological stars, but the Jiundu
swamps and similar ‘monster-haunted’ terrain still exist, awaiting exploration
by anyone enthusiastic, and brave, enough to venture into their shadowy realms
in search of their mysterious, potentially deadly inhabitants.
WINGING ACROSS THE AMERICAS
Amazing as it may seem, some of the most
compellingly pterosaurian mystery beasts on record have been reported not from
the remote wildernesses of tropical Africa but from the supposedly
well-explored heartlands of North America, with Texas as the epicentre of such
sightings.
Perhaps the single most dramatic modern-day
pterosaur report from the New World is that of ambulance technician James
Thompson, who was driving along Highway 100 to Harlingen, midway between
Raymondville and Brownsville (two Texas towns that had both previously hosted
pterosaur reports), on 14 September 1983 when an extraordinary creature flew
across the road about 50 m ahead of him with distinct flapping wingbeats. He
was so amazed by what he had seen that he stopped his ambulance and got out to
get a better look at it. In his subsequent description, Thompson stated that
the creature was 2.5-3-m long, with a thin body and a long tail that ended in a
fin, a wingspan at least equal to the ambulance’s width (roughly 2 m), a
virtually non-existent neck, but a hump on the back of its head, a pouch-like
structure close to its throat, and a rough, featherless, blackish-grey skin
Attempts by others to identify what Thompson had
seen with mainstream identities such as a pelican (suggested by its throat
pouch but not explaining its tail fin or lack of feathers) and even an
ultralight aircraft (since when have these been able to flap their wings?!)
failed miserably. The only creature living or extinct that resembles it is a rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur, known to
have possessed a long tail terminating in a fin.
A remarkably similar beast was sighted during much
the same time period, flying roughly 40 m away at a height of about 16 m off
the ground, by Richard Guzman and a friend, Rudy, one early evening in Houston.
A sketch produced by Guzman appears in Ken Gerhard’s book Big
Bird! (2007), and depicts an indisputably pterosaurian entity – complete
with a prominent bony head crest and a long finned tail (crests are
traditionally a pterodactyloid characteristic, but at least two fossil
rhamphorhynchoids are now known to have been crested too).
In his book, Ken notes how, after interviewing
Guzman personally (on 9 October 2003), he then read out loud from his copy of
my own book In
Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995)
my documentation of Thompson’s sighting to an enthralled Guzman who,
inexplicably, had not seen my book before (what?!!), and had not previously
known about Thompson’s encounter.
Another notable Texan sighting had taken place back
on 24 February 1976, when three school teachers driving along a lonely road
southwest of San Antonio saw a huge shadow fall across the road, and when they
looked up were shocked to spy a monstrous flying creature soaring overhead with
a wingspan estimated by them to be 5-6 m. Its body was encased in a grey skin
and its wings were membranous, seeming to them to be distinctly bat-like. They
were unable to name what they had seen until, after perusing several
encyclopedias, they finally came upon a creature that resembled it – America’s
giant Cretaceous pterosaur, Pteranodon.
Perhaps the most controversial case involving a
reputed modern-day American pterosaur was supposedly reported by the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper
on 26 April 1890, six days after the event in question had occurred. Two
ranchers riding through the Huachuca desert not far from Tombstone had
allegedly encountered a gigantic monster stranded on the ground and flapping
its leathery featherless wings frantically as it attempted to become airborne.
With a gargantuan total length of 30 m and a colossal wingspan of around 50 m,
not to mention a massive beak filled with teeth, this terrifying entity
petrified the ranchers – until, that is, they opened fire with their Winchester
rifles, killing it outright. To confirm their story, they cut off one of the
creature’s wingtips and took it back home with them, but what became of it is a
mystery – just like the story itself, because no-one has so far succeeded in
tracing the elusive newspaper report describing it.
However, in 1969, an elderly man called Harry
McClure read about this alleged incident in a magazine, and announced that he
had actually known the ranchers in question as a young man, and remembered the
incident well. Even so, he claimed that it had been greatly exaggerated,
stating that the beast had ‘only’ been 6.5-9 m long, possessed a single pair of
sturdy legs and very large eyes, and had twice tried to become airborne before
being shot at (but not killed) by the ranchers, who finally abandoned it, still
attempting to take flight.
Pterosaur reports have also emerged from Mexico, and
from South America. The late J. Richard Greenwell, onetime secretary of the
International Society of Cryptozoology, had a Mexican correspondent who claimed
that there are living pterosaurs in Mexico's eastern portion and was (still
is?) determined to capture one, to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that they
do exist. Worthy of note is that certain depictions of deities, demons, and
strange beasts from ancient Mexican mythology are decidedly pterodactylian in
appearance. One particularly intriguing example is the mysterious
'serpent-bird' portrayed in relief sculpture amid the Mayan ruins of Tajin, in
Veracruz's northeastern portion - noted in 1968 by visiting Mexican
archaeologist Dr José Diaz-Bolio, and dating from a mere 1000-5000 years ago.
Yet all pterosaurs had officially become extinct at least 64 million years ago.
So how do we explain the Mayan serpent-bird - a non-existent, imaginary beast,
or a creature lingering long after its formal date of demise? Although neither
solution would be unprecedented, only one is correct - but which one?
Around February 1947, J.A. Harrison from Liverpool
was on a boat navigating an estuary of the Amazon river when he and some others
aboard spied a flock of five huge birds flying overhead in V-formation, with
long necks and beaks, and each with a wingspan of about 3.75 m. According to
Harrison, however, their wings resembled brown leather and appeared to be
featherless. As they soared down the river, he could see that their heads were
flat on top, and the wings seemed to be ribbed. Judging from the sketch that he
prepared, however, they bore little resemblance to pterosaurs, and were far
more reminiscent of a large stork - three of which, the jabiru Jabiru
mycteria, maguari Ciconia maguari, and wood ibis (aka wood
stork) Mycteria americana, are native here.
In any case, it is North America, which was once
home to such prehistoric giant versions
as Pteranodon and Quetzalcoatlus, where most alleged pterosaur
sightings have been claimed within the New World, leading some cryptozoologists
to speculate whether these latter forms have undiscovered descendants existing
here. It seems exceedingly unlikely, but the sightings remain on file to
tantalise and bemuse, with conservative identities such as pelicans and condors
failing to match eyewitnesses’ descriptions.
Having said that: one early evening in 2007, I was
standing at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when,
looking upwards, I was startled to see a number of superficially pterosaurian
creatures circling high above in the sky overhead. Raising my trusty
birdwatching binoculars to my eyes, however, swiftly dispersed the illusion, as
these putative prehistoric survivors were instantly exposed as frigate birds
(specifically the magnificent frigate bird Fregata magnificens).
These long, angular-winged relatives of pelicans do
appear positively primeval on first sight, and might well deceive
ornithologically-untrained eyes into believing that they had truly witnessed a
phalanx of flying reptiles from the ancient past.
NOT IN NEW ZEALAND, SURELY…?
New Zealand, a land of many indigenous birds but few
reptiles and even fewer mammals, is surely the last place one might expect to
encounter any kind of 20th-Century pterosaur, let alone a multicoloured one.
Nevertheless, according to Whangarei resident Phyllis Hall, some time prior to
the early 1980s she had been walking along a new motorway, not yet opened to
traffic, when a strange creature that looked to her like a pterodactyl flew
“out of nowhere”. Its under-wings were blue, but the rest of it was red, and it
flew with an undulating motion. This description does not fit anything known to
exist anywhere in New Zealand.
CRYPTO-CRETE
Greek mythology tells of many winged monsters,
including the harpies and the Stymphalian birds, but I don’t recall any mention
of pterodactyls. Nevertheless, Crete was the setting for the appearance of just
such a creature, it would seem, when, one morning in summer 1986, three young
hikers passing by a river in the Asterousia Mountains saw a bizarre creature
flying overhead. They described it as resembling a giant dark-grey bird but with
bat-like wings that sported finger-like projections at their tips, long sharp
talons, and a pelicanesque beak. It reminded all three of them of a pterodactyl
(though it is true that boys do tend to be more clued-up regarding dinosaurs
and other prehistoric monsters than birds), and certainly their description
sounds more pterosaurian than avian. Conversely, it hardly need be said that a
colony of modern-day pterosaurs on Crete would surely have been uncovered by
science long ago.
NEWS FROM NEW GUINEA
The most recent pterosaur-lookalike to attract
attention is not one mystery beast but two. During the late 1990s, stories of a
gigantic luminous pterodactylian creature termed the ropen emerged from
missionaries based in Papua New Guinea. With a 6-7-m wingspan,
a Pteranodon-like bony crest on its head, and a glowing underside
(highly-reflective scales?), it had been seen circling over a lake, and resting
in a mountain cave.
However, when field cryptozoologist Bill Gibbons
later contacted me with full details, he revealed that this beast was actually
known as the duah, and that a second, much smaller mystery pterosaur was the
true ropen, which was found only on two small offshoreNew Guinea islands –
Rambutyo and Umboi. Sporting a 1-m wingspan, a slender tail tipped with a
diamond-shaped fin, and a long beak brimming with teeth, this ropen seems much
closer in appearance to the rhamphorhynchoids. It is said to inhabit caves, but
is greatly attracted by the smell of rotting flesh – so much so that it has been
known to attack funeral gatherings – and will also snatch fish out of the boats
of native fishermen (a trait reported for the Zambian kongamato too).
####
The ventrally-aglow duah (William Rebsamen)
Investigator Bruce Irwin visited Papua New Guinea in
summer 2001 and interviewed several native eyewitnesses, who confirmed that
back in the 1970s the duah had been much more common and used to be seen flying
together in small groups at night, but nowadays only solitary specimens were
observed. Visiting the nearby island of Umboi to investigate ropen sightings
there, Irwin interviewed a policeman and other locals who had seen it, and on
nearby Manaus Island he spoke to a school headmaster who saw one in a tree on
Goodenough Island, but he did not succeed in doing so himself. Fellow
investigator Jonathan Whitcomb also interviewed eyewitnesses on Umboi,
including some who claimed to have spotted a huge specimen (a duah?) while
hiking near Lake Pung as boys in or around 1994, - as revealed in Jonathan’s
bookSearching For Ropens: Living Pterosaurs In Papua New Guinea(2006), which is
the first of several authored by him on the subject of living pterosaurs there
and elsewhere around the world.
There seems little doubt that something very
unusual, which cannot be readily dismissed as either a bird or a mammal, is
being seen in various far-flung regions of the world. Whether it is truly a
living pterosaur is another matter entirely. After all, there are no pterosaur fossils
on record from beyond the end of the Cretaceous Period, 64 million years ago.
Then again, many modern-day reports come from areas such as tropical forests
where fossilisation is rare, or from inaccessible mountain ranges where fossils
have not been sought. Ultimately, only physical evidence can confirm just what
these winged wonders are, but in view of what happened to the brave native
investigator who sought one such creature amid Southern Rhodesia’s nightmarish
swamplands, only to re-emerge with a serious chest injury, such an undertaking
is clearly not for the fainthearted.
As veteran cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans
once wrote: “The trail of unknown animals sometimes leads to Hell”.
For more information on putative living pterosaurs,
check out my book In
Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995).
###
Keeping my distance from a life-sized, unnervingly
animatronic Quetzalcoatlus (Dr Karl Shuker)
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