Re: Living dinosaurs?

[João Simões Lopes Filho <jodan99@uol.com.br>]

1) What's a bunyip?

2) Where can I find the list of mammal species newly discovered in Vietnam?
There are Pseudoryx, Megamuntiacus, Pseudonovibos, and  what more?
Joao SL
Rio de Janeiro
----- Original Message -----
From: Ronald Orenstein <ornstn@home.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: Living dinosaurs?


> At 03:17 PM 09/08/00 -0400, ELurio@aol.com wrote:
> >Indeed that's true. But there is a large difference between, say, a
largish
> >forest antelope and a bunyip. The weirder the large animal the less
likely it
> >is to be found.
>
> I would alter this somewhat.  It is not that the saola (which is actually
> closer to cattle than to antelopes) is more or less "weird" than a
> bunyip.  The big difference here is that the saola is simply not a
> cryptid.  It is not an animal rumoured to exist for years, reported by
just
> about everyone except scientists, without specimen evidence.  The saola
> (though it was certainly known to local villagers) was not even a glimmer
> in a cryptozoologist's eye on the day that John MacKinnon's team arrived
in
> the Vu Quang area and found, on their first day, horns and skulls of the
> animal hanging on hunters' walls.   It moved from total unknown to
> confirmed, specimen-backed discovery in one day.
>
> That is usually the way discoveries like this are made.  I am fond of
> saying that despite all the discoveries of the past half-century not one
of
> Bernard Huevelmans' cryptids has turned up.  That leads me to the belief
> that cryptids by their very nature are the least likely creatures to
really
> be discovered, because, paradoxically, they are seen too often.
Scientists
> aren't, by and large, idiots, and the more an animal collects rumours
> without scientific confirmation the less likely it is to be real.
>
> BTW, it seems that every time I challenge cryptozoologists on this point I
> get the giant squid tossed in my face.  If the best story they can come up
> with is over 120 years old, though, it doesn't say much for cryptozoology!
>
>
> --
> Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886
> International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
> 1825 Shady Creek Court
> Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2          mailto:ornstn@home.com
>
>