Under the Microscope/Prof William Reville: Cryptozoology is the term used to describe the search for mysterious animals that have not been formally recognised by mainstream science to-date but whose existence is supported by human testimony.
Cryptozoology is not recognised as a science. Cryptozoologists search for proof of the existence of mysterious large animals such as Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman or Yeti, the Lough Ness Monster, and miscellaneous other less well-known creatures.
While these topics are undoubtedly fascinating to contemplate, cryptozoology has been remarkably unsuccessful in recent times in identifying mysterious new animals. One credible explanation for this is that the animals being pursued are mainly phantoms of the imagination.
No scientist could deny that there is much to be discovered about the natural world. New biological species are constantly being discovered, some of them quite large and interesting. For example in September 2003, two new species of dolphin were found off the island of Samoa. New finds such as these quickly become established and accepted in mainstream science because the evidence is unambiguous. A body can be produced, allowing the newly discovered animals to be studied and classified by professional zoologists.
The zoological find of the 20th century was made in 1938 when the first living coelacanth was discovered off the east coast of South Africa. The fish was caught in a shark net and the fishermen thought it was bizarre enough to alert the local museum. This find led to the discovery of a population of coelacanth between Madagascar and mainland Africa.
In 1998 a second coelacanth population was discovered off the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The two populations of coelacanth are different species of fish. Coelacanths are distinctly different from all other living fishes. For example, the coelacanth has paired fins that move in a similar fashion to our arms and legs.
Coelacanths are present in the fossil record dating back over 360 million years. Before 1938 it was thought they had gone extinct about 80 million years ago when they disappeared from the fossil record. How could they vanish for 80 million years and reappear in the 20th century? The answer is simple. The coelacanths that appear in the fossil record lived in environments that favoured fossilisation. The modern coelacanths are found off newly formed volcanic islands and live in an environment that does not favour fossil formation.
Part of the reason I include details on the coelacanth is to contrast the story of their modern discovery with the typical cryptozoological scenario. The search for creatures such as the Lough Ness Monster and the Abominable Snowman is spurred almost exclusively by human testimony of sightings. Almost no physical evidence of the existence of these creatures has been produced with the exception of the occasional, and entirely ambiguous, fuzzy photograph (above, apparently depicting the Abominable Snowman) and jerky film. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
The cryptozoologists who hunt "Nessie" are hopeful of finding a surviving plesiosaur - a huge marine reptile known to have lived 150 million years ago having a long neck, short tail and paddle-like limbs. However, for Nessie to be a plesiosaur, it would probably have to be part of a colony. There is good reason to suspect that Loch Ness could not provide enough food for such a colony. Also, if such a colony exists, why has a dead body never been found?
Loch Ness is only one of many lakes worldwide where strange large creatures have been "sighted". For example, locals have been reporting sightings of a large serpent-like creature in Seljord Lake in southern Norway since 1750. An international team of cryptozoologists recently examined the lake with sophisticated equipment, including echo sounding and sonar apparatus. No large creatures were detected.
The hallmark of a science is that it makes hypotheses that are refutable by experiment. By this criterion, cryptozoology is not a science. It rarely generates fertile hypotheses. Sightings of strange creatures are not proved to be mistaken by subsequent failure to find them. Much cryptozoology is fuelled by eyewitness testimony of amateur observers, observations made under uncontrolled conditions, and such evidence is notoriously unreliable and difficult to verify. Of course, the case for cryptozoology is not helped by the occasional hoaxes that are perpetrated.
Nevertheless, the efforts of the cryptozoologists should not be dismissed out of hand. Successful discoveries have been made in the past, based on local anecdotes, for example the gorilla in 1847, the giant panda in 1869, the Komodo Dragon in 1912, the megamouth shark in 1976 and the giant gecko in 1984. But, as time marches on, the hit rate of new discoveries is dramatically declining. Local anecdotes may seem to warrant investigation, but, until a body is produced, scepticism would seem to be the appropriate response of the wider community.