Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Real Life Cryptids

Starting point is 00:00:00 For centuries, people have believed in animals whose existence remains unverified. Creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are often cited in folklore and alleged sightings, yet they lack any scientific validation. However, while most of these creatures remain unproven, there are rare occasions when some are eventually discovered and recognized as new species. Learn more about real-life cryptids and their discovery on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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Starting point is 00:01:43 A while back, I had an episode on mythical creatures. These are creatures such as unicorns and dragons that people believed actually existed for thousands of years, but turned out not to be real. In this episode, I want to do the exact opposite. I want to look at creatures that were thought to be legends, but actually existed. The truth about them may have been exaggerated by stories passed down from person to person over the years, but it turns out they were all based on something real. But before we do that, we first have to know what a cryptid is. A cryptid is any creature whose existence is supported

Starting point is 00:02:22 by eyewitness accounts, folklore, or local legend, but lacks scientific recognition. The word cryptid comes from the Greek word cryptos, which means concealed or hidden. For a creature to be considered a cryptid, it must meet specific criteria. For starters, it has to be a physical animal. This means supernatural folklore is out of the question. The creature also has to be physically plausible, despite the lack of scientific evidence. People who study cryptids are known as cryptosologists. This field is considered by academics to be a form of pseudoscience, and is composed mostly of amateur investigators.

Starting point is 00:03:01 Many people remain skeptical of cryptosologists, and for good reason. But that doesn't mean every cryptid is fictitious. Historically, animals once deemed to be imaginary have been discovered, leading credibility to some research. One of the most famous real-life cryptids is the platypus. When Europeans arrived in Australia in 1606, they were told of the platypus by the Aboriginal people. However, their descriptions of the animal were unbelievable to the new arrivals.

Starting point is 00:03:34 It's understandable that Europeans doubted the existence of the platypus. The creature's very existence contradicts everything that they had previously known and understood about mammals. Some features of the platypus aligned with those of other creatures. It had fur, lived in rivers, had otter-like feet, and a beaver-like tail, all of which could be found on other mammals. However, these conventional traits contrast with its unique ones. The platypus lays eggs, possesses a duck-like bill, and produces venom. At the time, all mammals were believed to give birth to live young. Additionally, bills were observed only in ducks, and venom was something that was usually found in snakes.

Starting point is 00:04:17 This made the idea of a platypus seem far-fetched. As more Europeans moved to Australia, some of them began to see platypus and tell tales of this unique creature. However, the rest of the world was still doubtful of their existence, convinced that the story was a tall tale and that a creature with these traits, simply was not possible. For many Europeans, it was believed that the platypus specimens they occasionally saw were just an elaborate ruse by Asian taxidermis, who would attach a duck bill to the body of a mole. Eventually, in 1798, a British governor named John Hunter sent back a platypus specimen for examination. The keeper of the British Museum's Natural History Collection, George Shaw, looked at the creature and once again assumed it was fake. However, upon inspection,

Starting point is 00:05:05 he was surprised to learn that the creature was real. Shaw published his findings the following year. Overall, it took almost a century for Europeans to accept the fact that the platypus was real. The next example of a real-life cryptid is the Okapi. Unlike the platypus, you might never have heard of the Okopi, and the animal's elusive nature contributes to this obscurity. An okapi looks like a cross between a horse and a donkey, but has two horns on its head. and it also appears to have zebra stripes on its legs. Despite the resemblance to horses, Okopis are actually more closely related to giraffes. Ocopi are native to the Eturi Forest, which is located in the northeast corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Starting point is 00:05:53 The forest is known for being dense and undisturbed and the environment is difficult to navigate. So if an animal is sly enough, it can be difficult to confirm their existence because of the difficulty in exploring the region. Despite these features being relatively normal compared to those of the platypus, they were still perceived by many Europeans as a myth. This is because Europeans had explored much of Africa and its forests, but they had never seen any Ocampi's. Ocampi's were known throughout the 18th and 19th century in Europe as the African unicorn, because they were nearly impossible to find in the wild. Ocompi's are known for being elusive and hard to see. therefore, despite native Africans knowing and telling stories about the existence of Ocopies, they were viewed as a legend.

Starting point is 00:06:41 The myth of the animal became a European sensation in the 1880s and 1890s. During this period, an explorer named Henry Stanley of Stanley in Livingston fame, wrote an account of his travels through Central Africa. During this time, he wrote about a creature that natives called the Ati, which resembled a donkey. This was the first written report of the animal, but Stanley never was. saw an occopy with his own eyes. The animal was not confirmed to have existed for another decade. This occurred when Sir Henry Johnson, the British governor of Uganda,

Starting point is 00:07:15 saved some of the native pygmy population from being put on display. As a thank you for being safely returned to their home, the group showed Johnson the tracks of an occopi. Johnson had previously heard of the creature through Stanley's travel logs. Despite not physically seeing the occopy, Johnson found the creature's skull and skin. The discovery of the skins and skull was enough for scientists to formally declare Ocampi's as a species in 1901. Although classified in 1901, Ocopis were not actually filmed in the wild

Starting point is 00:07:49 until 2008, providing evidence of just how rare and delusive they are. The next animal on the list is the giant squid. Interestingly, many people still consider this creature a cryptid because of its incredible size. Stories of the giant squid originated as Sailor's Tales. One of the earliest interpretations of a giant squid was the Cracken in Norse mythology. Many of the Cracken's descriptions matched that of the giant squid. Many people heard sailors' stories about the giant squid and believed that they had to be exaggerated. Sailors came back home telling tales of monsters with tentacles that were attacking their ships.

Starting point is 00:08:29 It took years for scientists to determine whether or not giant squids were actually real. As there were no cameras, there was no evidence that the squids existed. Many scientists believed that the giant squid sightings were likely sailors confusing other sea life for squids. There are two main reasons the giant squid was so difficult for scientists to confirm. First, their habitat presented a challenge. Giant squids live in the deep sea. Humans have only explored a small fraction. of it. The deep sea is considered to be one of the least accessible places on the planet.

Starting point is 00:09:05 Being thousands of feet below sea level, there's no sunlight, and there is no way for fishing nets to reach down that far to possibly pull up such an animal. The second reason is simply the enormous size of the giant squid. Seeing as they're literally called giant squid, they are predictably rather large, reaching 13 meters or close to 43 feet in length, and reaching an estimated weight of 600 pounds. However, the reported weight and size are based on the specimens that we have found, which are rather limited in number. The giant squid was declared an official species in 1857 through the research of a scientist named Yappitus Steenstrup. Using the reports of giant squid throughout the 17th century

Starting point is 00:09:48 and the remains of one large squid beak, Steenstrup was able to confirm that the species existed. Despite evidence of the animal, the first recorded discovery of a giant squid didn't actually occur until a decade later. The first recorded discovery of a giant squid occurred in Newfoundland, Canada in 1873. The squid's carcass had washed up on shore, was brought home, and was photographed by a local reverend. Around this time, other sightings of the giant squid were reported, and more and more sailors were coming back with parts of the specimen. The carcass of a giant squid was eventually transported from Canada to New Haven, Connecticut. There, science. scientists A.E. Verrilli and James Emerton examined and illustrated the squid's biology,

Starting point is 00:10:35 and their findings were published. During the early stages of study, zoologists could research giant squids only from the occasional carcass that washed ashore. This situation was less an ideal because other hungry animals ate the sample as it washed ashore. Additionally, the squid corpses tended to rot quickly, leaving little for scientists to work with. Because of this, there's not much that we know about the giant squid. The giant squid has only been seen alive a few times. The first confirmed live sighting was in 2004. This sighting occurred off the coast of Japan. Footage recorded at the scene showed the squid swimming off into the depths. Since the giant squid's existence was confirmed, only 500 reports have been recorded worldwide.

Starting point is 00:11:23 Of those, only 50 were complete specimens underscoring just how much we have yet to learn. Our final real-life cryptid is one that you may be shocked to hear that people didn't believe in. The gorilla. Today, we can see guerrillas in person in zoos and in countless documentaries. But for centuries, people considered gorillas to be nothing more than an exaggerated tale. The first reported discovery of a gorilla by a non-African was reported by a Greek explorer named Hano in the 5th century. While exploring the African coast, Hano reported encounter. a tribe of violent, monstrous humans whom he called gorilli.

Starting point is 00:12:04 While many historians believe he may have encountered a different type of great ape, such as chimpanzees or baboons, the term guerrilli and the legend of terrifying humanoid creatures stuck. Reports of the humanoid creatures continued to be made over the course of centuries. People described the great ape visiting their villages and wreaking havoc or visiting campfires at night. But these reports were not taken seriously by scientists. Gorillas were considered to be cryptids until 1847, when a scientist named Thomas Savage began an expedition in Africa. While searching the continent, he found a skull belonging to a creature that had never been

Starting point is 00:12:44 seen before. Upon finding the skull, he declared that a new species existed and began searching the surrounding area in the hopes of finding it. But he was not successful. Nonetheless, this led to other scientists who read the research to travel to Africa in hopes of finding the secret species. One of these expeditions was led by a French explorer named Paul Du Chayu between 1855 and 1859. While exploring modern-day Central Africa and Gabon, Chayu encountered a gorilla and took photographs, further cementing the animal's existence. The first physical gorilla captured and brought back for research was in 1902. A German explorer and hunter named Robert von Beringa wanted to track a hunk a gorilla to bring back its carcass as evidence of its existence.

Starting point is 00:13:33 Beringa succeeded on this mission, and what is now known as the mountain gorilla was confirmed to have been discovered. In his account of the expedition, he reported on the strength of guerrillas, describing how they kept moving despite being shot, and commented on their massive size. However, this was not the end of scientists searching for guerrillas. After the discovery of the mountain gorilla, the scientific community sought to find and research more of them. In 1904, a German zoologist named Paul Mastey found the remains of a new type of gorilla, now known as the Cross River Gorilla. Mashdie reported his findings, but never found a living specimen,

Starting point is 00:14:09 leading the scientific community to believe the creatures were extinct until the 1980s. There were a few reasons why it was hard for scientists to confirm the existence of gorillas. To start, gorillas live in very remote areas, often in dense forests at high altitudes. This makes the terrain difficult for humans to traverse without having years of prior experience. Additionally, gorilla coloration makes them hard to see. As their fur is black, they're camouflaged in the natural shadows of the dense forest. Given that gorillas are pretty much always moving, it's extremely difficult to see one, even when tracking them. While it's true that some creatures that have been considered legends have been

Starting point is 00:14:49 proven to be real, it doesn't mean that every cryptid is real. In almost every example, the animal's remains were found before it was seen alive. And to date, we haven't found any remains of yetis, saskwatches or reptiles lurking in Loch Nass. But that doesn't mean there still aren't undiscovered animals out there, most probably lurking somewhere in the deep ocean. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel, the association producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Researching and writing for this episode is provided by the Olivia Ash. I want to remind everyone that the sixth anniversary episode of Everything Everywhere Daily is coming up on July 1st. And I'm going to turn the show over to all of you. You can record

Starting point is 00:15:39 a brief audio message at speakpipe.com slash everything everywhere and tell me who you are, where you're from, and what your favorite episode is. There's a link to the site at the top of the show notes. Today's review comes from listener Ferris Mueller on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, thanks for the classroom help. Thanks for the help. I'm an American teaching English conversation in the Czech Republic. The students have been learning English their whole lives, but don't have any practice using it. I've been having my students listen to an episode and talk about it with their classmates. They can practice their listening and speaking English, and it provides them with something interesting to talk about. It's been really successful. Also, I

Starting point is 00:16:19 accidentally wrote the instructions to listen to the podcast in Permanent Marker on one of our whiteboards, so you have a permanent advertisement that hundreds of students see every day in a classroom in Prague. Well, thanks, Ferris. I'm glad to see that I've gained a permanent place in the land of defenestrations. I will raise a Czech Pilsner in honor of you and your class. Remember, if you leave a review of the podcast on any of the major podcast apps, you too can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Real Life Cryptids

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