With miles and miles of unexplored forest in places like the African wilderness, there is bound to be at least one new (or rediscovered) species to be found. There are legends of the sauropod-like Mokele-Mbembe, the ceratopsian Emela-Ntouka, and the tyrannosaurid Kassai Rex. While these could actually exist, it is unlikely. A more plausible location that prehistoric animals could thrive in is the sea. With up to 80% of Earth's remaining undiscovered species likely to come from the sea, a sea monster isn't impossible, not really unlikely. What inspired this post was a strange picture I found of a Liopleurodon-like creature, on top of civil war era photos of pterosaurs.
This is the Liopleurodon. Some would like you to believe it reached 80 feet, as in Walking With Dinosaurs, but that's false (closer to that size is the monster of aramberri. The juvenile found was 15 meters!). In reality, it was closer to the size of an Orca, around 30 feet. What strikes me about this picture is the accurate size...
While this isn't the actual photo, it is a re-creation. The original was fairly famous, but being that it was extremely old and handled frequently, it sadly fell apart. The soldiers had allegedly shot and killed a large, bald "thunderbird", now thought to be a pterosaur.
I am fairly two-sided on this one. I will begin with why it could be real: the creature in the photo appears to be a rhamphorhynchus. If someone was going to have claimed to kill a pterosaur, wouldn't they choose a well known one like a pteranodon or pterodactylus (often called a pterodactyl)? Why something so small and unknown?
Why it could be false? It's head doesn't hang limply like that of a dead animal.
This was also quite a famous one back in the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment