To what extent are we humans, well aware of the fauna of our planet? Such a question will surprise the majority. In fact: there are many scientific papers that can fully satisfy curiosity in this area. It seems that in the XXI century there are no and cannot be secrets in the animal world. But it is not so. And nowadays, from time to time, there are reports that the animal world has not been studied as well as it might seem to us.
In the XX century, various kinds of studies of mysterious animals that look like dragons, or, in scientific terms, on dinosaurs that lived on Earth in prehistoric times, were very popular.
One should not think that a modern man, tired of everyday affairs and worries, suddenly suddenly believed in fairy tales, myths and legends in which dragons and other mythical creatures are mentioned. In fact, reports, for example, about plesiosaurs look quite convincing and are in the sphere of scientific interests of a number of zoologists.
Are all dinosaurs extinct?
Any modern man knows that prehistoric animals disappeared from the face of the Earth long ago, millions of years ago. The question of why this happened is very interesting. After all, dinosaurs became extinct in a very short period, although they lived on Earth for more than 150 million years. Over such a long period of time, the planet has repeatedly changed the climate and there were many other changes to which the animals were very successfully able to adapt.
The dinosaurs disappeared in about 5 million years, that is, very quickly. There are many hypotheses trying to explain this disappearance. One of the scientists, American geophysicist U. Alvarez, offered a very original version. In the second half of the 20th century, he studied an underwater canyon in Italy and discovered in a layer of clay that belonged to the end of the Mesozoic era (it was in that era that dinosaurs disappeared), an increased content of iridium - 30 times more than usually occurs in the earth's crust.
The fact is that there is not so much iridium in the bowels of the Earth, it is more often found in other cosmic bodies. The scientist suggested that at the end of the Mesozoic era, our planet collided with a large asteroid, the diameter of which was more than 10 km. The asteroid crashed into the Earth at great speed. As a result, the content of iridium in the earth's crust increased, which in itself, however, was not dangerous for dinosaurs.
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But when the asteroid collided, a huge amount of dust rose into the air. The surface of the planet was covered by a dust curtain from the Sun. Plants began to die due to the lack of sunlight. Many dinosaurs were herbivores and ate about 2 quintals of plants per day. They began to die of hunger, which means that the predators, in turn, began to lack food. As a result, all dinosaurs became extinct. Of course, this is just one hypothesis.
Prehistoric creatures - guests from the Mesozoic era
Meanwhile, cryptozoology assures us that many prehistoric animals did not disappear, but live in our time. Or, at least, they lived relatively not so long ago.
• XVI century - in Russia, served as Austrian ambassador S. Herberstein, diplomat, traveler and writer. In his diary, he described people who lived in the forests and kept large snakes, similar to lizards, with four legs and pointed black bodies as pets.
• In the Russian chronicles of the 16th century there is a record of how "crocodiles" came out of a river near Novgorod and ate many people. This record is dated 1582. Of course, it is possible to suspect the ancient chronicler of a hoax, but at that distant time, the chroniclers were just chroniclers, not fantasies. And maybe everything was exactly as it is said in the chronicle.
• A few years later, in 1589, the Englishman J. Garsey, being in Russia, saw a dead crocodile on the river bank. From the point of view of official science, crocodiles should not have lived in Eastern Europe. But we are talking about the 16th century. It can be assumed that these reptiles were then found in Russian water bodies. In the future, they could die both for natural reasons and as a result of aggression from people. Now it is impossible to find out whether those "crocodiles" were prehistoric lizards.
• There is one fairly deep lake in Scotland - Loch Morar. According to eyewitnesses, a creature unknown to science is found in this lake. In the 1970s, scientists conducted special studies on this lake, after which they stated that they had personally seen a large animal with a snake-like head. The size of the strange creature exceeded 13 meters. One of the researchers, Professor G. Vakhrushev, is convinced that the mysterious creatures that are talked about so much are in fact lacustrine plesiosaurs, today they may well live in lakes that originated from freshwater reservoirs of the Mesozoic era.
Unknown monsters can exist not only in water, but also on land. It is very interesting that the Irish mysterious animals in appearance are similar to the mythological creatures "kelpies", about which there are many legends in Western Scotland. Ireland and Scotland are very close, so there is nothing surprising in the fact that the legends and myths of these countries are similar.
Meanwhile, there is information about the mysterious creatures that were observed in Russia. For example, they say that Nessie's “relatives” live in the lakes of Yakutia, namely prehistoric animals that should have disappeared from the face of the earth a long time ago.
• So, in the middle of the XX century, some people were lucky enough to see a strange creature, according to the description, very similar to a plesiosaur. One of the eyewitnesses (who also managed to sketch a hitherto unseen animal) was an employee of the biological unit of the Yakut branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The fish-lizard was also seen by geologists working in Yakutia.
It is curious that the Yakuts have long been sure that monsters live in their lakes, feeding on fish and even birds that settle on the shores of reservoirs. The monsters did not disdain the people who went fishing to the lakes. Of course, local legends did not at all pretend to be "scientific". People only wanted to warn each other about the terrible danger and in no case chased a sensation.
• The stories about sea snakes are quite interesting. Aristotle and Euripides wrote about them. There is a legend that in the VIII century BC. e. King Sargon II saw a huge sea snake off the coast of Cyprus. The image of this creature was found during archaeological excavations in Assyria on the walls of the Korsadad palace.
Modern scientists do not deny the possibility that prehistoric animals may survive today. Some stories of witnesses who personally saw strange creatures are cited by the famous popularizer of science V. Mezentsev in one of his books.
• 1734 - Danish missionary P. Egene sailed on a ship along the shores of Greenland, and this is what he entered in the logbook: “We saw a terrible animal, unlike anything we had seen before. It raised its head so high above the waves that it seemed to rise above the tops of our ship. The monster breathed weaker than a whale; his head is narrower than his body, which seemed short and wrinkled. The animal moved with the help of huge fins under its belly. After a while, we saw his tail. The total length of the monster exceeded the length of our ship."
• 1848 - the captain of the British warship Dedalus wrote in the logbook: “When our attention was attracted by an object that appeared on the surface of the sea, we thought it was a huge snake. We did not notice any limbs that served the animal for movement in the water, and no signs of horizontal movement. It passed quickly at such a close distance that it could be seen with the naked eye. It moved at a speed of 12-15 miles per hour …
Behind the head, the diameter of the animal's body was 40-50 centimeters. For 20 minutes of observation, the snake head was above the water surface. It was brown on top and light yellow below. The animal had no fins, but on its back it had something like a mane or a bundle of algae."
From this description, the sea monster does not look particularly mysterious. There is nothing mystical about him. But science has not described such a creature. Rather, the sea snakes themselves are well known. They live in tropical seas, are dangerous to people, because they are very poisonous. But sea snakes are small, the largest individuals are not more than 2 meters. Eyewitnesses, however, report about real hulks, which, according to descriptions, are similar to prehistoric animals.
• Mezentsev quotes an extract from the ship's logbook of the Osborne ship for 1877: “The movement of the flat fins of the animal was like that of a turtle, and it looked like a huge seal … The ship was located at the latitude of the island of Sicily, and this is the only observation made in the Mediterranean Sea. Some believed that this animal is an ichthyosaur, others were inclined to see a giant turtle in it."
• 1904 - The French Academy of Sciences drew attention to the following message, which was discussed at a special scientific meeting: “In the afternoon of February 25, 1904, heading to the exit from the bay, Deside met a mysterious animal at the height of the Nua rocks … I saw all the parts an animal sequentially immersed in the water in vertical wave-like movements. It looked like a flattened snake and, in my estimation, reached a length of 30 meters with a maximum thickness of 4-5 meters."
XX century - the Belgian scientist B. Eivelmans was engaged in the study of sea monsters, which are described as similar to prehistoric animals.
He is sure that eyewitness stories are not fiction and such creatures actually live in the depths of the sea. The scientist wrote: "It seems to me that the legend of the sea snake was born because people had to meet various (it is not yet known which) very large snake-shaped animals belonging to different classes: fish, reptiles, mammals."
• 1915, July 30 - off the coast of Ireland, the British steamer "Iberion" was blown up by the German submarine I-28. The captain of the German submarine noticed that after the explosion of the steamer, a huge animal surfaced to the surface of the water. The length of its body was about 20 meters, in appearance it resembled a crocodile with four fins instead of paws. After about a quarter of a minute, the monster disappeared underwater.
• 1932 - an earthquake struck the Newfoundland area. Many bodies of marine life were thrown ashore. Among them was the sea serpent, a huge creature with a pointed head.
• 1947 - fisherman D. Zegers near Vancouver Island off the western coast of North America saw an unknown creature. He described this meeting as follows: “Suddenly I felt very strange. A shiver ran down my spine, and it seemed to me that someone was watching me. I looked around. To the left, about 45 meters from the boat, a head and neck more than a meter in length rose above the water, two jet-black eyes gazed intently. They stood out on the head like two rolls. I have not seen anything like this before.
The head was 40 centimeters in diameter. Looking at me, the animal turned away, and I saw his back. She had a sort of dark brown mane that consisted of tufts of warts rather than hair."
• In the same 1947, in North Carolina, near Cape Lookout, the crew of a Greek ship saw an amazing creature with a cylindrical body of dark brown color and a snake head. The creature was wounded, and the water around it was stained with blood. And in the late 40s, a skeleton was found off the western coast of North America. Scientists have decided that this skeleton belongs to a sea serpent. The creature's spine was 12 meters long.
• 1959 - Durban fishermen spotted a herd of sea monsters. There were at least 20 of them, the length of each creature seemed to be about 10 meters.
• 1963 - a sea monster was also seen off the coast of Iceland. A year later, in Massachusetts Harbor, the crew of a fishing boat spotted a 15-meter long sea serpent. Soon they managed to take several pictures of the sea monster. Its length, according to the description of eyewitnesses, was about 25 meters. The snake's head was massive and round, the width and length of the head were more than two meters. The animal had uneven skin, without scales. Body color - black with brown rings. But some of the scientists decided that the pictures were either a hoax, or captured, for example, a giant conger eel. The skepticism of scientists is understandable. But it makes no sense to dismiss the numerous evidence of the existence of sea monsters.
• 1977 - in the area of New Zealand, the Japanese trawler "Tsuiomaru" lifted the corpse of an unknown creature from a great depth (about 300 meters). The animal had a tail up to 2 m long, a small head, a long neck, its total body length was 13 m, and it weighed about 2 tons. Scientists did not fully investigate the corpse of the sea monster, because it was already decomposing and the crew did not dare to take the rotting carcass on board. He was thrown into the sea, having previously photographed and made the appropriate entries in the ship's log. One piece of fin was left and put in the refrigerator. Scientists are interested in the find.
Some Japanese experts stated that the creature was a plesiosaur, others believed that it was the corpse of a huge shark or a small whale. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the carcass was half-decomposed, so it was not easy to identify it. But after careful study of the fin, scientists found a protein in it that whales do not have. Such a protein is found in sharks, and was also once in the tissues of prehistoric animals, which included plesiosaurs. In favor of the belonging of the body to a prehistoric lizard, it is also said that its head did not look like a shark (it was painfully small). But the riddle was never solved.
• 1998 - A long-necked sea monster was seen at sea off the coast of British Columbia. Canadian newspapers wrote about this. The riddle was never solved. In Zambia, local residents are sure that a huge monster lives in one of the reservoirs, which feeds on large animals, in particular hippos. The jungle of the Congo also has a dinosaur-like monster according to the evidence.
In the 1980s, Professor of the University of Chicago R. McKel, who had been studying the Loch Ness monster for a long time, specially went to this country. He tried to find out more about the animal that is found in the Congo. The professor collected a lot of eyewitness accounts, their descriptions of the animal coincided. In length it reached 12 meters, had a huge tail, a long neck. The creature's skin was gray-brown, its tracks resembled those of an elephant, but differed in the presence of claws. The description of the creature perfectly matches the characteristics of a dinosaur.
The professor suggested that the dinosaur could well have lived in the local jungle, especially since the climate has not changed there over the past several tens of millions of years. Soon Makell organized another expedition to the Congo jungle. He was primarily interested in the poorly explored area of Lake Tele.
The lake is located among rugged forests. It has long attracted the attention of scientists. So, in 1913 a German expedition visited there. Researchers managed to find traces of an unknown creature in the lake. But the war began, and the expedition was curtailed.
McKel was also out of luck. His second expedition was thwarted by a conflict with the locals. A few years later, in 1983, one of the participants in this expedition, a graduate of the University of Havana M. Anyanha, decided to go in search again. He was originally from the Congo, so he knew the local beliefs well. The researcher interviewed local residents and wrote down a variety of stories about the monster.
Once he himself saw a dinosaur's head on a long neck in Lake Tele. The animal noticed people and began to submerge under water. With the help of binoculars, the researcher was able to examine the creature in sufficient detail and concluded that it was a prehistoric animal. It was not possible to photograph the monster.
There is evidence that such creatures live in Zambia and Mozambique. Dinosaurs could well have survived on the African continent, where the climate is so favorable for reptiles. Here and in our time there is a lot of unexplored territory.
In prehistoric times, animals, which we can rightfully call "monsters", lived everywhere - in the depths of the sea and on land. They swam, ran, flew. By the way, our contemporaries saw such flying monsters. True, flying prehistoric lizards were much less common than sea monsters. This is understandable. We humans were very poorly able to explore the underwater world, especially the deep one. But with land, the situation is different.
Here humanity has mastered vast territories. Nevertheless, the winged monsters remained in some places. Could it be pterodactyls?
• 1932 - the famous American zoologist A. Sanderson was on an expedition to Cameroon. One day he saw a small dragon flying in the air (at least, the creature looked like a dragon). The scientist carefully examined it and could swear that the "dragon" does not belong to the species known to science. After some time, Sanderson saw the dragon again. The lizard flew so fast that it knocked down one of the expedition members, made several circles, and then flew away.
The expedition had a local guide. He was very worried at the sight of the dragon and stated that the monster is a harbinger of death and the one who saw him must die soon. But Sanderson was not so pessimistic. He decided that the flying creature was a prehistoric pterodactyl.
It is not the only "ancient" lizard that supposedly lives in Africa. There is a belief that on the border of Zaire and Angola there is a huge - up to two meters in length - flying lizard with sharp teeth. They also believe that seeing her is a bad omen.
• 1970s - in the USA, in the state of South Carolina, incredible monsters have been repeatedly seen in the swamps. They were covered with green scales, their height reached 2 meters. The creatures moved on their hind legs. By description, they also resembled prehistoric animals.
• 1976 June - A 16-year-old adolescent saw a raptor running across a field towards him. The boy barely escaped in the car. Then the police received several more reports about this mysterious animal. But it was not possible to catch him, although traces were found.
Of course, this kind of message can be perceived as a kind of hoax. But we must remember that scientists to this day have not refuted the existence of prehistoric animals. In fact, the mystery of the "modern dinosaurs" has not yet been solved. And it may well be that in the future we will have to learn a lot of new and interesting things about this.
O. Larina