What Cryptids are the most likely to exist

[Infinity Blade]

Many cryptids are reported to be seen incredibly regularly, so the argument to "it must be rare" falls directly on its face. Given the fact that the Okapi is an endangered species, and was still proven to science, while the incredible majority of these dubious "species" still have no:

- skeletal remains
- Valid DNA evidence
- A living individual of the species
- Actual close up videographic evidence

I think it is incredibly humorous when people go to " noone believed that the komodo dragon, coelocanth, okapi, etc existed but they were shown to be real" argument. While those animals have all been proven to be valid species, these popular cryptids still have exactly 0 credible evidence to their existence. That includes your ambiguous report of the Mngwa, which hasn't been reported in 100 years. Probably, because as Kekistani correctly pointed out, was probably just an aberrant color phase of a known species.

Those are really good points, actually. Now that I think about it, Komodo dragons, for instance, apparently first came under European radar in 1910, and they were formally described, photographed, and had skins collected just two years later. Compare this to something like say, Bigfoot, whose earliest sightings go as far back as 200 years ago, with still no conclusive evidence for it existing.

EDIT: even the okapi, which was first brought to European attention in 1887, was formally described in 1901, meaning it took no more than 14 years for it to go from a "cryptid" to a confirmed species. All when it never had a wide geographic range->.

[creature386]

Thanks for taking action, Infinity Blade. My schedule was busy today and this thread kinda fell under the radar.

I agree that Ceratodromeus' list of criteria is excellent. If there is a good analogy to be made to all's cryptids, dubious eyewitness accounts but no physical evidence, the analogy is not okapis nor platypi, but rather the long list of mythological and folklorical creatures whose existence hasn't been confirmed in millennia (I'm sure there is more of them than all can name example of science being supposedly wrong).

My favorite examples got to be aliens. According to many UFOlogists, fairy abductions were really misidentified alien abductions which would mean that alien sightings go back to the Medieval Ages. Yet despite making no fuss about hiding their existence to peasants, these aliens have somehow hidden their interstellar starships so well that not even SETI's efforts can uncover them.

[kekistani]

Jun 12, 2020 22:56:38 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

Many cryptids are reported to be seen incredibly regularly, so the argument to "it must be rare" falls directly on its face. Given the fact that the Okapi is an endangered species, and was still proven to science, while the incredible majority of these dubious "species" still have no:

- skeletal remains
- Valid DNA evidence
- A living individual of the species
- Actual close up videographic evidence

I think it is incredibly humorous when people go to " noone believed that the komodo dragon, coelocanth, okapi, etc existed but they were shown to be real" argument. While those animals have all been proven to be valid species, these popular cryptids still have exactly 0 credible evidence to their existence. That includes your ambiguous report of the Mngwa, which hasn't been reported in 100 years. Probably, because as Kekistani correctly pointed out, was probably just an aberrant color phase of a known species.

Those are really good points, actually. Now that I think about it, Komodo dragons, for instance, apparently first came under European radar in 1910, and they were formally described, photographed, and had skins collected just two years later. Compare this to something like say, Bigfoot, whose earliest sightings go as far back as 200 years ago, with still no conclusive evidence for it existing.

I think it can be safely said any animal, especially large, that supposedly has gone undetected in a heavily-occupied and heavily explored, heavily populated, and technologically advanced area, probably doesn't exist.

This effectively rules out:

.Bigfoot

.the majority of lake monsters (as unidentified species, at least)

.A lot of the large apelike creatures reported in india and the surrounding area (too many and too similar to count)

.Flying humanoids (if we were to be EXTREMELY liberal and include that with cryptozoology)

.Dogmen

However, just because an animal is rare does not mean it cannot be seen regularly, as if local people live in the same place as a population of a rare animal they can see it regularly, i.e. the Okapi itself, which was well known to local people because they lived in the same area their populations do. The argument presented, however, certainly applies to things like the bigfoot or nessie.

[creature386]

all
In case you're reading this, stop making alt-accounts to bypass a ban (which is going to expire tomorrow anyway)! I just had to reject an account called bbb which had the same IP address as all.

[Infinity Blade]

Oh, I almost forgot.

creature386 and I have decided that all will be suspended for an extra month, agreeing that there was simply no good reason for him to have created multiple accounts other than to bypass a ban. He will be able to start posting again on July 18th...if he does not make an extra account or somehow break our rules again, that is. If that occurs, that will result in a permaban.

[Infinity Blade]

This preprint recently came out. I posted it in the thylacine profile, but it's relevant to here too.

Extinction of the Thylacine

Abstract

The Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), or ‘Tasmanian tiger’, is an icon of recent extinctions, but the timing of its final demise is shrouded in controversy. Extirpated from mainland Australia in the mid-Holocene, the large island of Tasmania became the species’ final stronghold. Following European settlement, the Thylacine was heavily persecuted and pushed to the margins of its range. The last captive animal died in 1936, but numerous sightings were reported thereafter. Here we collate and characterize the type, quality, and uncertainty of over a thousand unique sighting records of Thylacines since 1910. We use this novel and unique curated database to underpin a detailed reconstruction and mapping of the species’ spatio-temporal distributional dynamics, to pinpoint refugia of late survival and estimate the bioregional patterns of extirpation. Contrary to expectations, the inferred extinction window is wide and relatively recent, spanning from the 1980s to the present day, with extinction most likely in the late 1990s or early 2000s. While improbable, these aggregate data and modelling suggest some chance of ongoing persistence in the remote wilderness of the island. Although our findings for this iconic species hold intrinsic value, our new spatio-temporal mapping of extirpation patterns is also applicable more generally, to support the conservation prioritization and search efforts for other rare taxa of uncertain status.

Significance statement Like the Dodo and Passenger Pigeon before it, the Thylacine has become an iconic symbol of human-caused extinction. Even today, reports of the Thylacine’s possible ongoing survival in remote regions of Tasmania are newsworthy and continue to capture the public’s imagination, with much debate over whether the extinction event has yet occurred and if so, when? We show, using a unique and robust spatio-temporal mapping and modelling approach, underpinned by the world’s first sightings database (from 1910-present day), that the Thylacine likely persisted until the late 20th century, with some possibility of ongoing survival.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.427214v1

[kekistani]

Jan 26, 2021 21:52:53 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

This preprint recently came out. I posted it in the thylacine profile, but it's relevant to here too.

Extinction of the Thylacine

Abstract

The Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), or ‘Tasmanian tiger’, is an icon of recent extinctions, but the timing of its final demise is shrouded in controversy. Extirpated from mainland Australia in the mid-Holocene, the large island of Tasmania became the species’ final stronghold. Following European settlement, the Thylacine was heavily persecuted and pushed to the margins of its range. The last captive animal died in 1936, but numerous sightings were reported thereafter. Here we collate and characterize the type, quality, and uncertainty of over a thousand unique sighting records of Thylacines since 1910. We use this novel and unique curated database to underpin a detailed reconstruction and mapping of the species’ spatio-temporal distributional dynamics, to pinpoint refugia of late survival and estimate the bioregional patterns of extirpation. Contrary to expectations, the inferred extinction window is wide and relatively recent, spanning from the 1980s to the present day, with extinction most likely in the late 1990s or early 2000s. While improbable, these aggregate data and modelling suggest some chance of ongoing persistence in the remote wilderness of the island. Although our findings for this iconic species hold intrinsic value, our new spatio-temporal mapping of extirpation patterns is also applicable more generally, to support the conservation prioritization and search efforts for other rare taxa of uncertain status.

Significance statement Like the Dodo and Passenger Pigeon before it, the Thylacine has become an iconic symbol of human-caused extinction. Even today, reports of the Thylacine’s possible ongoing survival in remote regions of Tasmania are newsworthy and continue to capture the public’s imagination, with much debate over whether the extinction event has yet occurred and if so, when? We show, using a unique and robust spatio-temporal mapping and modelling approach, underpinned by the world’s first sightings database (from 1910-present day), that the Thylacine likely persisted until the late 20th century, with some possibility of ongoing survival.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.427214v1

Wait.

A SCIENTIFIC STUDY promoting late extinction and possible survival? Damn.

[bodleyfludes]

I am open to the idea of occasional exceptionally large freshwater eels, and just possible the Caddy on the west coast of Canada. In passing, it seems likely to me that if (say) a clump of Sasquatch hair were to be submitted for expert analysis, rather than admit what was actually discerned from the sample (unknown primate, perhaps) it would be claimed untestable, or something vague, or said to have been contaminated (and then lost), and therefore undetermined. It is a similar case with the sphinx, and its vehemently argued dating - either the worn condition of the thing is down to rainwater weathering, uniquely and unequivocally, or there are other possibilities (and please state precisely what - and make it believable and testable). Also, why is the face so entirely different from the pharaoh it is claimed to portray, and why is the great sphinx the ONLY sphinx ever found (of the many) whose head is out of proportion, being much too small, with the body (ie. was it at some point re-carved?).

[nila13]

I think all cryptids do exist, and it's entirely because of the Coelacanth. It was once a cryptid.