Comments on: Ropen: Flying Reptiles Alive Today

by: 1975everett

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:18:16 +0000

I have a photo of a Ropen my friends shot and killed in Mexico. I assure you it is 100 % real. Unfortunately I cannot release the photo and the whereabouts of the corpse is unknown.

by: borntofightdinosaurs

Thu, 03 May 2007 05:26:23 +0000

maybe i’m just as blind as a giant gorilla-faced bat here…but it looks like an airborne manta ray to me.

bet you didn’t know THOSE existed, did you?

…

well, they don’t. but it would be cool if they did.

by: Spinach Village

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:27:29 +0000

It looks like the pictures in this video.

by: kittenz

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:21:00 +0000

It’s interesting that people always try to correlate sightings of mysterious creatures with known fossils. The animals known from fossils are just the tip of the iceberg. For the vast majority of species, no fossils have yet been found. So the chance of a living creature belonging to any known fossil species is slim. That being said, there are many animals that have survived, apparently little-changed, from remote prehistoric times. Ahools or ropens could be pterosaurs or giant bats. I think giant bats are more likely than pterosaurs, for the simple reason that there is a whole range of bat sizes and species, some very common, but no one has seen flocks and roosts of small pterosaurs. The probability of a giant species surviving, where smaller ones has failed, seems unlikely.

by: Spinosaurus

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 10:42:13 +0000

I read about living Dinosaurs. The ropen might a Pteranodon longiceps or a Quetzalcoatlus.

by: crypto_randz

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 13:59:08 +0000

What this always comes down to, like my dad always tells me if me and him have discussions about cryptozoology. My dad says show me a good clear convincing photo then maybe he will believe it. This photo here is kind of hard to describe. It’s great that everybody has a different opinion on what it might be?

by: Loren Coleman

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 10:16:11 +0000

“UFO” means “unidentified flying object.” There is no direct connection between the object photographed and it being a known craft from outer space. It could be cryptozoological in origin.

Please see “Mystery Flying Cryptid Photo” for further discussion of this photograph. Thank you.

by: Brian Gaugler

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 04:43:29 +0000

Again, it was originally a UFO photo, it was never supposed to be a photo of a Ropen.

by: Mnynames

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 01:29:33 +0000

I am wary of claims of pterodactyls, if only for the many occasions I have witnessed where people see herons and claim pterodactyl. I conduct field trips in the local salt marsh, and although I deal primarily with school groups, most of the people who have said this have been the adults, not the kids. I believe herons to be responsible for several Jersey Devil reports as well. These people misinterpret the long legs for a tail and the curled neck for a head crest.

That having been said, pterosaurs are at least a more plausible survivor of the Xiculub impact than the really big beasties. After all, birds DID survive, as did the sizeable alligators, crocodiles, and varanids (Although perhaps it was only the smaller species that survived, eventually branching off into larger forms again once the environment healed itself). Pterosaurs are small, and of course we would expect to find adaptation and speciation to have continued over the past 65 million years.

On the other hand, we could just as easily have an incidence of parallel evolution. Pterodactyls were very successful, and nature uses (and re-uses) the tricks that work. I actually think it would be MORE interesting if we discovered not an existing pterosaur, but something completely new that evolved similar anatomical features.

As for the photo- so now we have blobdactyls too?

by: crypto_randz

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:22:33 +0000

Great job in writing this story Loren.The photo is very intresting great picture it does show apicture of an unknown huge bird.Great comments on this subject.In my opinion it does look like a Pterosaur.Wish i hope itis probably not.The only way you prove its existence once again take acloser photograph or some how capture one.