DALE DRINNON: The Buru

On August 6th Richard Freeman posted an article about Chinese lake monsters, and I'm going to say the dreaded word again: some of those Lake Monster reports from Richard sound like Burus and especially the mention of the forelimbs with five distinct digits....

The reason I say "Buru" is because it seems that the Tibetan reports are from off the Bramaputra River and just north of the region of the regular Buru reports. And when I went through my home files for Lake Monster reports in Tibet, Yunnan and Sichuan, I got a distinctive pattern: lizard-shaped creatures; usually about 10-12 feet long, with a head the size of a horse's; long neck about that long again; body as long as head and neck together; and tail about as long as head, neck and body together; with four regularly-shaped legs, with five distinct clawed toes on the feet. All of this is in agreement with the Buru and Meikong River Monster (One of the Yunnan reports is on the upper Meikong River) and those Chinese reports from Charles Gould's Mythical Monsters quoted here before (records allgedly from 200 BC to 1500 AD at the very least).

And once again, there is a sightings mockup of the types on file in this group, which has a photo of a Komodo dragon representing the Buru: that photo has the lizard in mud up to its elbows and knees, if an explanation for the one report of "Flanges not legs" still needs to be accounted for. That file is named 'Scale Mockup for Unknown Monitor Lizards.'

Not only are there adequate local fossils for Komodo-dragon-sized monitor lizards in India, their ancestors were in the Himalayan region at the same time as the highlands were building. Populations of them could conceivably have stayed put and adapted to the highland conditions. Viviparous lizards in Northern Scandinavia live under a similar climate and hibernate a long time, and the Burus could have become viviparous in parallel to them. I imagine the creatures ordinarily derive much of their diet from grubbing up crustaceans and molluscs out of the muddy bottoms, but that the will take fishes when possible and the old Chinese records speak of such creatures greedily eating birds and eggs when they can be had. They may only swallow solid food under water. I don't think that they are ambush predators like crocs, although that has been alleged, but that they would gladly eat carrion of drowned corpses. In other words, I doubt if they would drag a yak into the water but if there was the body of a drowned yak in the water, surely then they would be seen eating it.

Chinese Buru Dragon, from

Charles Gould's Mythical Monsters

APPENDIX VII.

EXTRACTS FROM THE "PAN TSAOU KANG MU."

THE KIAO-LUNG. (The four-footed coiled Dragon. The Iguanodon.
—Eitel.)

This animal, according to Shi Chan, belongs to the dragon family. Its eye-brows are crossed, hence its name signifies "the crossed reptile." The scaled variety is called the Kiao-Lung, the winged the Ying-Lung. The horned kind are called K‘iu, the hornless kind Li. In Indian books it is called Kwan-P‘i-Lo.

Shi Chan, quoting from the Kwan Cheu Ki, says: “The Iguanodon (?) is more than twelve feet long; it resembles a snake, it has four feet, and is broad like a shield. It has a small head and a slender neck, the latter being covered with numerous protuberances. The front of its breast is of a red colour, its back is variegated with green, and its sides as if embroidered. Its tail is composed of fleshy rings; the larger ones are several. Its eggs are also large. It can induce fish to fly, but if a turtle is present they will not do so.

“The Emperor Chao, of the Han, when fishing in the river Wéi, caught a white Iguanodon. It resembled a snake, but was without scales. Its head was composed of soft flesh, and tusks issued from the mouth. The Emperor ordered his ministers to get it preserved. its flesh is delicious; bones green, flesh red.”

From the above it may be seen the Iguanodon is edible.