“Ironically, the skeptics are the ones who have given his tome almost biblical status despite the fact Heuvelmans was merely one of the better known milestone cryptozoological chroniclers.”

I too find it interesting that in their efforts to discredit crypto, debunkers don’t seem to think it possible that anyone in the field could ever be wrong! I’ve run into that attitude a lot here: Krantz said that; it was shown wrong; therefore the sasquatch does not exist.

Just like mainstream zoologists, those of the cryptid kind make mistakes. No scientist thought the coelacanth could possibly be real. So, does that mean they’re wrong about the sasquatch?

Sauce for the goose, as they say.

If I understand it (totally unlikely given the hot weather and ale consumed), then the question of the pigmy elephants in the book is not what they are but WHETHER they are. If Heuvelman’s book says that they exist, then he was right and the sceptics were wrong. They do exist, and to dispute their genetic makeup is to move the goalposts.

I showed a photo of a pigmy elephant mother and young to my little girl. She said they were baby elephants. When I told her one was the mother she said ‘then they must be some special type of tiny elephant.’

Ouit of the mouths of babes…

As Loren said up there, skeptical nay-sayers like to look at the big 4 and lump everything under that, and since there is no definitive proof (I’ll let that lie for the time being, even though I don’t agree with that supposed precept) for them, currently, they try to disregard Heuvelmans entirely.

Heuvelmans was a rogue questioning the validity of scientific thinking of the time, and now–the point of this entire website and its supporters. There are critters and creatures out there as yet undiscovered by mankind, and some of them bigger than a bird or a cat or even a person.

To bash at his hit/miss record only sounds like sour grapes from those who don’t want to explore such possibilities.

I’m not saying you have to believe…that’s your choice. But if you can keep an open mind, you can at least look at possibility. And that’s what Heuvelmans was, and is all about.

Comments: (1) I’ll have to re-read OTTOUA again, more carefully before i talk again!
(2) I’m not sure that verification of “survival into historic times” counts, since it was already known that species possibly described in native accounts were fairly recently extinct
(3) There’s a methodological motive for restricting the argument to Heuvelmans (or to some other published cryptozoological survey or surveys). The argument wasn’t meant to ve for scepticism about the existence of (large, “charismatic”) unknown animals: there have been a series of exciting discoveries in recent years (land mammals from Viet-Nam, Omura’s whale, Van Roosmalen’s South American stuff)! What I found sobering was that most of these were NEW: they had not been among the cryptids discussed by cryptozoologists. The induction (cheering for zoology as a whole, depresing for cryptozoology as a project) is that we can anticipate exciting discoveries in the future… BUT that they probably won’t be among cryptids currently generating discussion.

Anyway, thanks for your reply. And I should have reread OTTOUA carefully enough to note the King Cheetah before mouthing off on Darren’s blog!

In the case of the king cheetah I just wanted to say that there is no chance that it is an own subspecies (because some people think this is the case).

I may sometimes sound very critical, but I think this is very important in cryptozoology. There is a big problem with people in cryptozoology which are much too open-minded. Last week I found a book by a comparably well-known author who interpreted for example an ice-age cave-drawing from Southern France which shows a great auk, as a Plesiosaur, and there are much badder cases in the internet.

I do not and didn’t say that there were no spectacular discoveries of big mammals during the last decades, and I suppose more will come, as well as many discoveries of smaller but still impressive birds and reptiles.

Just to take the pygmy elephant. This is one of the very most probable cryptids which could find its way to a zoo (or better again), and it shows that there are still good possibilities for sensational discoveries. We have photos, videos and much more evidence, and the idea of some zoologist that they are too small because they don’t find enough food doesn’t work as they live in the same regions as normal elephants. I am no opponent of cryptozoology, and it would be really unfair to say I am not open-minded. There are a lot of possible cryptids, but to stay realistic, I think really most of the big popular “monsters” did never exist. We will surely never find a 80m long snake at the amazonian rain forest or 200 tons-squids, as well as Bat-people or plesiosaurs in scottish lakes. Many people just look for monsters without regarding that there are a lot of small but still very interesting cryptids, where the possibility to find out that they are or at least were real is much higher than in any alleged Dinosaur or hominid.

I own On the tracks of Unknown Animals, as well as Cryptozoology from A-Z, and also some very good books from Hans Schomburgk with first-hand-accounts of some african cryptids, so I know about what I am speaking.

The last chapter in On the tracks of Unknown Animals is especially interesting, as it deals with Madagascar. There is really a lot of potential for cryptids in this country, even if it turns out that many of them are really already extinct. This special topic will also have a main part in a book I want to publish this year. I made a lot of research about this animals, and it was often very hard, because you can find only very little information about this fantastic animals. After this study I came also to the conclusion that the tretretretre was very probably not one of the three Megaladapis species, and also not one of the Palaeopropithecus species, because it differs in many traits from them. The animal which would actually come closest in size, behavior and anatomy would be the giant Archaeoindris, the largest lemur of all times. Strangely it was not even mentioned by Heuvelmans, as well as many others who wrote about the tretretretre. Criticizing does not always have to be contraproductive, it can also help to come to new ideas. Just take the case of the armoured archaeoceti. As Darren Naish wrote, the idea of bony-plated Basilosaurs came from falsely identified turtle-shell-bones. There are also many similar cases, like (to take Darren again as example) the idea that Raven from the native american legends was a Titanis. Things change, and not everything which looked like a good idea some years ago still works with the actual knowledge.

Let me respond quickly to several, not just one person, as I have to go on to the museum talks here in Alberta.

1. As I noted above, this was directed at a 1955 yardstick (Heuvelmans’ book) that has unfairly been used by opponents of cryptozoology. It is difficult to deny that large mammals and other animals have been discovered since 1955.

2. The book is about land cryptids, so the comments about marine and freshwater discoveries are irrelevant. It is outside the realm of this discussion to relate that book to the marine cryptids sightings, and a few misidentifications and theories. See Heuvelmans’ In the Wake of Sea Serpents and other essays about those cryptids.

3. The specific point is the claim that the Heuvelmans cryptids in the 1955 book, totally, in whatever form, did not exist and have not been found. It is not about whether they were definite species or subspecies. It has been a total black and white view that cryptozoology is unproven and a pseudoscience using the absolute undermining of this one book. Absolute stances are always dangerously unreliable in zoology.

4. For example, in the case of the King Cheetah, Bernard Heuvelmans correctly predicted the outcome would only be of abnormally marked local individual cats. He said: “The abnormalities could be connected with the genetic ancerstry of a group of animals in a confined area.” (I mention this in my 1999 book, Cryptozooology A to Z, so the skeptics did not have to have a copy of the 1950s Heuvelmans’ book to understand this.)

5. Another example is that conservative zoologists still dispute the pygmy elephants, and thus you will have debates continue. But the point being made is that evidence supplied and accepted in some zoological quarters vindicates Heuvelmans’ words, in spite of the continuing disputes within zoological circles.

6. The very existence of the Atlas bear has been in dispute. Heuvelmans supported its existence based on the evidence mentioned above, and his passages have been confirmed. Ditto with the large cryptid lemur and the later, post-1955 carbon-dated proto-historical finds.

If folks get a chance, please read Bernard Heuvelmans’ work, which is usually held at the better libraries.

I haven’t read this famous tome (there - I admit it it - do with me what you will!!). Did he say that in his opinion the pygmy elephants were a different sub-species, or merely contend that they existed?

The Atlas bear was also long known to have survived for a long time. Around 1900 (or a bit later) bones of this animals were discovered in a cave associated with late roman artefacts, in it was even described by several people in the late 19th century as a living animal. The Jardin de Plantes in Paris even housed a specimen which was a present from the emperor of Morocco.