Thursday, July 01, 2010

LINDSAY SELBY: Living Dinosaur reports mistaken

There have been reports of living dinosaurs being seen on some islands in Papua New Guinea. Here is the first one:

“Since the 1990s, a large ‘reptilian’ creature has been sighted occasionally on Umbungi Island in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Umbungi Island is located on the south coast of West New Britain between Kandrian and Gasmata. The creature has also been sighted on Alage Island, about 1km to the south of Ambungi Island. The creature was described as having a long tail and a long neck and was 10–15 metres in length, with an appearance like a ‘very large wallaby’ and having a head like a turtle’s head. It walked slowly on two legs and had smooth, shiny brown skin. The top of the head was estimated to be as high as a house and the underbelly of the creature was as high as an adult. The creature was described as being fearful-looking, with the sighting being made from a distance of about 50 metres. The sighting was made in the late afternoon and was observed for a considerable length of time.Nine people have seen the ‘reptile’ since the early 1990s, with sightings occurring every 4–5 years, usually around Christmas time. Perhaps the creature is primarily nocturnal, which might account for the small number of sightings. Two women from Ambungi Island observed the creature from a boat on the south (unpopulated) side of the island as it was standing on some rocks at the bottom of a cliff. The animal has also been sighted swimming between Ambungi Island and Alage Island with its head above the water.”

These sightings have only been found on certain religious websites, I could find no newspaper articles etc. that you would normally expect. I suspect it was in fact a large wallaby that was seen. The people were apparently shown pictures of dinosaurs in a book. but not a natural history book with pictures of different indigenous creatures. This creates a problem as if you are only shown pictures of dinosaurs you will chose what looks closest to the animal you saw , even if it isn’t the animal because that is the only choice you have , when someone says which of these does it resemble. Kangaroos and wallabies are most active at night, dusk and dawn Generally a solitary animal unless they have a mate and a family. There are several varieties of kangaroo and wallaby in that area and vary in sizes from the very large (15 feet or 5 metres to the small 18 inches or 45cms). For example Doria's tree kangaroo Dendrolagus dorianus is described as follows :Head and body length 20–31 in (51.5–78 cm); tail length 18–26 in (44.5–66 cm)( overall largest length approx 5 feet or 1 . 7 metres); weight 10–32 lb (4.5–14.5 kg). It has a brown coat and a paler, shorter tail . You can see from the photo(attached) it doesn’t look quite how you would expect a kangaroo to look. As the animal was seen in poor light, at dusk it could easily be misidentified and the size wrongly estimated. It is also seen at certain times of the year which suggests that is it life cycle to be seen solitary and feeding at those times in the calendar. These animals are also known good swimmers. Then there is this report also from the same sites:
One afternoon late in 2005, three people from Awrin Island, near Gasmata in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, were on the beach on the south side of the adjacent unpopulated Dililo Island when they observed an amazing creature moving in the water. Simon Patolkit (lay preacher for the Catholic Church on Awrin Island) and his wife Margaret described their sighting of the reptilian creature. The creature had a long neck and a long tail and had a total length of about 20 metres and a width of about 2 metres. The head was described as being ‘like a dinosaur’ with an ‘oval-like face’. The top of the legs of the animal were visible above the water, with the water being used to support the weight of the animal’s body. The skin of the animal was described as being ‘like a crocodile’ and was khaki green in colour. Dermal frills could be seen on the creature’s back, extending to the back of the head. Something was observed protruding from the back of the creature’s head. The creature’s neck was almost horizontal during the sighting. Details of the creature’s eye and mouth could not be determined, as the observers were about 30 to 40 metres from the animal. The sighting occurred for less than 30 seconds, until the reptile sunk into the water. No sound could be heard from the creature by the observers. The creature has not been observed since this sighting in 2005.
Again we have another problem as the report was passed on through an interpreter who only spoke pidgeon English which makes me wonder where terms like “dermal frill” came from. If the animal were as described walking through the water , it must have been shallow, so how in 30 seconds did it sink without moving very far? The idea of large dinosaurs walking in water to support their bulk went out after the 1950s when it was discovered they were quite capable of walking themselves. I wonder if perhaps the ideas from what they observed were based on old books as it may be the island is a bit behind on text books. There were no newspaper reports I could find.
Could they have actually seen a Crocodile Monitor Lizard.? They have been recorded as reaching 15 feet (5 metres) in total length. with stories of 19 footers being told by tribesman of the Papua New Guinea jungles. Its head and neck are long, and are both covered by overlapping polygonal shaped scales which could look like a dermal fin. Some live in swamps so I presume they can swim. The appearance of being supported by water could just have been the way the animal was swimming. I may of course be completely wrong but it just seems the more logical explanation. It may be that am sceptical because of where the reports come from, the creationist websites, and I am perhaps being unfair but it seems to me that it is a case of making the descriptions fit dinosaurs rather than compare them with indigenous species to the area. What do you think?

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:29 PM

    Heuvelmans refers such reports to an unknown monitor lizard NOT a crocodile monitor. In his book On The Track of Unknown Animals, he has a chapter on "The Surrealist Dinosaur from New Guinea", The supposed Row. Heuvelmans disbelieves in it because he says it combines traits of unrelated dinosaurs, it has a brontosaur body, stgosaur back plates and a frill around the back of the head. In his checklit he DOEs support an animal called Au Angi-Angi, which actually is also reported with the same features. And here we see the same description repeated.

    It is quite possible that the natives are reporting what was represented in the 1940 film One Million BC and in the 1960 version of The Lost World, monitor lizards with fins pasted on them blown up by special effects and passed off as dinosaurs. That would be to say that they were "seeing" what they expected to see. They could actually be seeing a type of large monitor lizard and reporting it badly in that case. Monitor lizards are also capable of rearing up on their hind legs.

    Then on the other hand, there are reports of Longnecked Sea-serpents in many parts of the world that are otherwise reported to have triangular projections (humps) on the back and a frill or ruffle at the back of the head where it joins the neck. Both things have been reported at Loch Ness.

    I DO believe that a type of large monitor lizard is involved in reports-but it would never be the thing reported as 15 to 20 meters long. Incidentally I also suspect from what I have read that reports of the crocodile monitors constitute two species, the tree crocodile monitor which is the known species and never recorded as over ten feet long and the True crocodile monitor which is said to reach lengths of 15 to 20 feet long. The latter is also commonly given the name Ngarana or Naga Rajah, and it is seen in other places from South India to Fiji to Northern New Zealand: and there is a native name in New Zealand that is also related to Ngarana linguistically. We may or may not actually have specimens of it in museum, asumed to be the known species or tree crocodile lizard, which is much smaller. We may or may not also have preserved specimens of a species of crocodile much like Crocodylus porosus but even larger, there seems to be a difference in the overall skull anatomy in the largest specimens.

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  2. An original source at the time of posting would be good. It seems synthesized from a number of places. The spelling change from Umbungi to Ambungi being a clue.

    An article written by Brian Irwin, the name which come across in some of the sites, on creation.com seems to be the most comprehensive and balanced. While it describes a lot of details in travel reporting style, it specifically indicates that this is not purported to be a sighting confirmed to the satisfaction of the scientific fraternity.

    Creation.com article: http://creation.com/theropod-and-sauropod-dinosaurs-sighted-in-png

    Real pictures would indeed be good :-)

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  3. Well all we have to go on are the sightings and eye witness accounts until someone goes in there and takes a photo or something...and so the descriptions from the different sightings that match (i.e. everyone seemed to have seen a 'reptile looking' creature)would be the most accurate information to go on. So the creature is 'reptile looking' (no fur then as the skin was described as shiny) and it was big (everyone agrees it was big...huge even). Most sightings observed that the creature could swim (however slowly)...Also, we must take into consideration that if it IS a reptile, it'll definitely need Sun light. I'm very curious to keep looking and finding more information. Regardless of whether it's a dinosaur or not...if there's a frequently observed never before documented creature lurking about, it has my interest :)

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