Another victim of the mysterious grammar monster that terrorizes much of the internet...

Just what happens when you let Neanderthals do your editing. The Neanderthals I know claim their spacing has deep spiritual meaning that we Cro Magnons just don't get. I'm not saying I agree with them, I'm just saying I don't argue with anyone whose 9 year old could bench press me. . .

Whole piece needs some editing but I am pretty sure those chimpanzees weren't in New Guinea.

Orang Pendek should stay crypto.

the supposedly extinct coelacanth in '38. These "fossil" fish are very light sensitive so stay deep below the surface, often in caves during the day or on moonlit nights, making them very hard to find.

"Monster Quest" actually does take a scientific approach to cryptozoology. It never makes any ridiculous claims, and always points out when a particular "discovery" turns out to be nothing.

Even better, there have been episodes about "fantastical" things that really do exist - bull sharks swimming up the Mississippi and being found in Illinois, or non-native species of large snakes (boa constrictors, anacondas, etc.) being released in the Everglades and thriving like kudzu, growing to increasingly large sizes due to the lack of predators and the abundance of food, etc.

And the show has made a strong case for the possibility of the existence of creatures like Bigfoot, Nessie, etc.; i.e., a large enough habitat and sufficient food supply to support a small breeding population of creatures that don't particularly want to be found by humans. (Or, in the case of Nessie, a creature that may have continued living in the incredibly large, murky Loch Ness for countless years, but is in the process of dying off, for whatever reason.)

And hell, the show is just so much damn fun. Between "Monster Quest" and "UFO Hunters" (another topic for another time), Wednesday night is my favorite TV night by far.

There is also a literary search for the soul of the cryptid, as in G.R. Clooney's short story, "A Yeti Reminisces":

http://electricstorytime.blogspot.com/2006/07/yeti-reminisces.html

How can you talk about Bigfoot and Cryptozoology without at least namechecking Loren Coleman?

http://www.cryptomundo.com/

http://www.lorencoleman.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Coleman

Loren is both a scholar and a gentleman but also probably the world's top non-institutional crypto scholar. You do your readers a disservice by not mentioning him!

Here is recent video evidence from his native Northern California that the hairy hominid lives....and loves. http://redwoods.info/bigfoot

...and NOT the turn of the 20th Century. Admittedly, SOME English scientists who had never ventured to Australia suspected the specimens sent to them were fraudulent, but even those stay at home intellectuals were convinced within a very few years.

That thing is weird.

Doesn't seem to know which way is up, for one thing- they're often observed swimming sideways, and upside down.

A New Guinea Chimp would be a cryptid, alright.

I also take issue with lumping the Chupacabra in with "classic" examples of legendary cryptids. As a non-believer who is just fascinated by the field of cryptozoology, I know that this supposed critter hasn't been around for more than a couple of decades.

Bryan is right, "Monsterquest" is awesomely entertaining.

Many oceanic fish do that in the denser water. I used to own an Undulate Trigger Fish (mean little bastard) & he/she would swim all kinds of wierd ways, sideways, backwards, etc.

With a freshwater fish, when they start swimming like that you soon will have a dead fish.

I can't believe the article doesn't even mention the "father of cryptozoology", Bernard Heuvelmans, author of "On the Track of Unknown Animals" (which has a LOT of material on the orang pendak) an "In the Wake of the Sea Serpent". Both are classics on the subject. And what about the thylacine, the only-recently "extincted" marsupial of New Zealand and Tasmania? Lots more material to be covered, and not all of it of the "laugh and point at the rubes" level.

He does agree with the "hide and seek" concept of missing primates. 
"Thirteen new species of primates were found just in Brazil in the 
last decade," Beehler says. "Those are small 
animals, but those are almost hominids. They are clever and they do 
hide and they probably know how to make 
themselves hard to see." He then quickly adds: "In terms of 
discovering a
 hominid, of course, scientists are naturally skeptical. I have a 
residue of that skepticism."



Although I never did it with a Yeti

I made it lots of times with Betty

Also big of Foot was she

That smelled when off she took her boot

And curly hairs she had down to her knee

That twirled and dangled like spaghetti

Of course bigfoot exists. Didn't you know the George Bush has a pair of crocodile skin boots he got as a gift from Warren in Australia. Since then George Double-Yah has really left his mark. He put his foot in it all over the place & dogshit stinks for ever & ever.