Help me find some books on Cryptozoology

[Wrymouth3]

Hello!

Ever since I graduated from my undergraduate studies 2 weeks ago, I've gotten more and more interested in psuedosciency stuff like scientific hoaxes in history and so on. However, Cryptozoology is something historyesque related (Nessie, Beast of Gevaudan) I have gotten into very recently. Can someone recommend me a couple books on the said subject, it can be about any specific case or even a general overview. Thanks everyone!

 

[sydhe]

Willy Ley wrote a lot of essays both on cryptobiology and on things that were true but just plain weird. It may take some doing to find them, but they're all worthwhile. "Exotic Zoology" has essays on unicorns, the kraken, yeti, and the barnacle goose. My favorite essay of his was on the Man-Eating Tree of Madagascar, which I think is in "Salamanders and other Wonders."

Ley died in 1969, so you'd probably have to look in a history of science collection, at amazon.com or maybe at an on-line collection. He's still about the best on the subject, and isn't even dated. After all, there hasn't been much to add on Nessie over the last fifty-four years.

Edit: I have to correct myself. I think Ley's essays on the kraken predated the discovery of the colossal squid, which may well have given rise to some of the legends of the kraken.

 

[sydhe]

David Quammen has a few things as well. He discusses the possibility that the thylacine still exists in "The Song of the Dodo."

 

[Lord Baal]

Australia is populous enough that we would have Lund the thylacine by now of it still existed. We are still encountering new or presumed-extinct species in our desert regions, but the thylacine lived in the densely populated southeastern parts of Continental Australia and the island-state Tasmania. It couldn't have gone unseen this long.

Most cryptozoological beasts are known to be false, either hoaxes, like Nessie, or misrepresentations, both intentional and accidental, of existing animals, like the kraken (colossal squid), mermaids (dugongs) and sea serpent (orefish). I just noticed while thing this that most cryptids that are actually based on fact are oceanic in nature. It's harder to find a creature in the ocean than on land.

 

[sydhe]

The speculation is that it's in areas of Tasmania that are hard to access. Quammen's very skeptical, but the story of the thylacine's extermination is a natural one for a book on island biogeography.

To tell the truth, the evidence sounds a bit like that for Bigfoot, except that the thylacines really did exist once.

 

[Lord Baal]

The speculation is that it's in areas of Tasmania that are hard to access. Quammen's very skeptical, but the story of the thylacine's extermination is a natural one for a book on island biogeography.

To tell the truth, the evidence sounds a bit like that for Bigfoot, except that the thylacines really did exist once.

Fair enough. As long as he's sceptical. Having travelled through Tasmania on several occasions, I can assure you that there is absolutely nowhere on that island that is both difficult for humans to access and with enough food to support an animal the size of the thylacine, let alone enough for a century-old community to survive in isolation.

Now, there are far less-interesting Australian animals which are being rediscovered in our less-populous regions, specifically the Simpson Desert, on a seemingly weekly basis these days. Several species of gecko (lizard) that live underground, for example, as well as some native frogs and small mammals.

 

[Plotinus]

On the Loch Ness Monster, Steuart Campbell's book is a classic. It really tells you everything you need to know.

 

[Kyriakos]

Now, there are far less-interesting Australian animals which are being rediscovered in our less-populous regions, specifically the Simpson Desert, on a seemingly weekly basis these days. Several species of gecko (lizard) that live underground, for example, as well as some native frogs and small mammals.

I prefer to hear about Bunyips though

Spoiler :

Link to video.

 

[Lord Baal]

I prefer to hear about Bunyips though

Spoiler :

Link to video.

There are several theories about bunyips. It's pretty much accepted that the "bunyips" the European settlers came across were actually just platypi, and they overreacted due to the Aboriginal legends. The origin of the Aboriginal bunyip myth was likely due to a garbled oral history of the Australian megafauna encountered by the ancestors of the Aborigines when they first arrived in Australia. It seems to share traits of the Australian marsupial lion, giant kangaroo and the platypus.

 

[Kyriakos]

There are several theories about bunyips. It's pretty much accepted that the "bunyips" the European settlers came across were actually just platypi, and they overreacted due to the Aboriginal legends. The origin of the Aboriginal bunyip myth was likely due to a garbled oral history of the Australian megafauna encountered by the ancestors of the Aborigines when they first arrived in Australia. It seems to share traits of the Australian marsupial lion, giant kangaroo and the platypus.

I do not like this explanation A platypus is generally a small creature, on the "cute" side of things:

Compare with this actual image of a Bunyip painted by one of the survivors of an attack by it:

That man was so frightened that he just forced himself to study painting and sketching for the next few years, in his desperate attempt to limit the pain, through therapeutic painting of the thing, from his constant recurrent memories of the hideous Bunyip!

(ok i made most of that up- anything apart from the actual image, whose authenticity in depicting a Buynip is on the dodgy side too- by i just meant to say i would have liked the Bunyip to have existed as something more interesting...)

 

[Masada]

Platypus have a poisonous spur that can causes intense pain and can induce nausea/hallucinations sometimes. That's not an awful explanation for it.

 

[Lord Baal]

Platypus have a poisonous spur that can causes intense pain and can induce nausea/hallucinations sometimes. That's not an awful explanation for it.

This. I've seen two people who've been scratched by that spur on separate occasions. It's not lethal to humans - or if it is, I've never heard of it - but it caused both the people I've seen stung to scream in pain immediately, drop to the ground and clutch at their arms (they were both stung while stupidly trying to pick a platypus up). Later on they developed a fever, a rash around the sting - which may just have been due to their constant scratching - and started shouting at things that weren't there. The second person I saw stung, a teenage girl, told me she saw a werewolf eating her feet. The former threw up so much his throat bled. I was told by the hospital staff in both cases that these were particularly bad reactions, but not unheard of.

So yeah, the platypus explanation is eminently believable. Especially when one considers the alleged habitat of the bunyip and the known habitat of the platypus are exactly the same. Early settlers wouldn't have been able to sit in a hospital bed and be pumped full of fluids. Platypi are also known to sting multiple times if they feel threatened, and some European idiot trying to eat one or just being unlucky enough to set up camp on top of a platypus' nest shortly after her eggs had hatched might just get a few doses.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ok, i did not know of those powers of the Platypus... Seems like Australia is indeed full of dangerous creatures

 

[Traitorfish]

This. I've seen two people who've been scratched by that spur on separate occasions. It's not lethal to humans - or if it is, I've never heard of it - but it caused both the people I've seen stung to scream in pain immediately, drop to the ground and clutch at their arms (they were both stung while stupidly trying to pick a platypus up). Later on they developed a fever, a rash around the sting - which may just have been due to their constant scratching - and started shouting at things that weren't there. The second person I saw stung, a teenage girl, told me she saw a werewolf eating her feet. The former threw up so much his throat bled. I was told by the hospital staff in both cases that these were particularly bad reactions, but not unheard of.

That is an oddly specific thing to hallucinate.

 

[Lord Baal]

That is an oddly specific thing to hallucinate.

The nurses kept strapping her legs down because she was kicking them. I guess she saw one of them near her feet, then decided they were a werewolf that was eating them. I once hallucinated a talking animated penguin while on laughing gas at the dentist. I guess the brain does weird crap sometimes.

 

[Verbose]

Hello!

Ever since I graduated from my undergraduate studies 2 weeks ago, I've gotten more and more interested in psuedosciency stuff like scientific hoaxes in history and so on. However, Cryptozoology is something historyesque related (Nessie, Beast of Gevaudan) I have gotten into very recently. Can someone recommend me a couple books on the said subject, it can be about any specific case or even a general overview. Thanks everyone!

This is a pretty serious historian of science writing about the delimitations between zoology and cryptozoology, science and non-science:
http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Sasquatch-Crackpots-Cryptozoology-Technology/dp/0230111475
He was apparently going to entitle the book just "Crackpots and Eggheads", but his publisher said "No".

 

[Wrymouth3]

This is a pretty serious historian of science writing about the delimitations between zoology and cryptozoology, science and non-science:
http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Sasquatch-Crackpots-Cryptozoology-Technology/dp/0230111475
He was apparently going to entitle the book just "Crackpots and Eggheads", but his publisher said "No".

I picked this up at Barnes and Noble today, thank you for the recommendation! Science history is whiggish in nature which really irks me, but he truly does a good job treating the subject as a history more so than a science. I do like that he points out that science history is not science in the text too!

 

[Verbose]

I picked this up at Barnes and Noble today, thank you for the recommendation! Science history is whiggish in nature which really irks me, but he truly does a good job treating the subject as a history more so than a science. I do like that he points out that science history is not science in the text too!

Whiggish, really? You sure you're getting hold of the proper academic stuff? Not the popular science mush that sells copy, that is.