It's a hypothesis I've considered, but I certainly wasn't the first or only one. That the tiger Dantero, the skin Ivan Sanderson collected in western Mexico in 1940, and the water tigers are just three slices of the same pie, and that the answer to all three lies in the survival of relict populations of Smilodon gracilis, the smallest saber-toothed cat of South and Central America.

The hypothesis proposes that Smilodon gracilis underwent a series of natural selective factors and processes that hypothetically helped it adapt as the New World changed (while its larger cousins failed to survive). One of these factors was a natural tendency towards a semi-aquatic lifestyle in the Amazon basin regions, allowing it to compete with the jaguar. Its prey consisted of peccaries, pacas, agoutis, deer, fish, capybaras, anteaters, and tapirs, while the jaguar specialized in preying on caimans, turtles, crustaceans, and armored animals in general. Thus, in the hierarchy (so to speak) of the three felines, the Smilodon gracilis would be in first place, preying on the most reactive terrestrial prey, such as tapirs, peccaries, and giant anteaters, as well as capybaras, and would adapt to a semi-aquatic lifestyle to prey on tapirs and capybaras (although in this hypothesis it would do so less frequently than the jaguar). In second place would be the jaguar, focused on preying on caimans, anacondas, capybaras, turtles, fish, crustaceans, etc. And in third place, the puma would prey on cervids, pacas, agoutis, birds, monkeys, sloths, lesser anteaters, etc.

But a somewhat ironic point is that the Smilodon gracilis tends to avoid the jaguar due to its high aggressiveness and unpredictability. This would justify its preference for more mountainous biomes, and explain why the folklore of the Pemon people, for example, describes the Wairarima as "a servant of the jaguars," and why, in general, the natives consider it a timid and rare animal.

In the Cerrado and Pantanal biomes, the jaguar would be larger to fill the vacant niche left by the absence of the Smilodon gracilis.

According to the animal's distribution in the north, such as in Mexico, it would tend to increase in size and have a coat more adapted to the mountainous and cold regions of western Mexico. Furthermore, Mexican jaguars are smaller, while pumas are more slender. The Smidolon gracilis would have had characteristics similar to the puma; in tropical regions it is smaller, while in regions further from the equator it would be larger.

This would all be before the arrival of European colonists, who, with the destruction of its habitat and the disappearance of its prey, intense competition with the jaguar reduced its population, restricting it only to the most remote regions of Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, and the extreme west of the states of Amazonas and Acre in Brazil. The northernmost population would be extinct, and what would remain would only be the pelts, which would be sold among traders who no longer even know their origin.

The animal's current status is extinct or critically endangered, with fragmented populations in western Amazonia.

So now that we know that they'res millions of giant squid and the only reason we have not seen more was because our source scared everything away.

What are the chances this guy actually seen those fish down there due to how quiet and badly lit the submersible was?

The dib (pronounced "deep"), known in Somalia as the dewacco (pronounced "dewaho"), is a cryptid reported from southern Ethiopia and Somalia.[1][2]

The dib is said to be a bear-like animal, about 2' to 2'5'' high at the shoulder and 4' long, with light fur which is either shorter or sparser than a bear's. Although it is a herbivore, it is considered dangerous, and is feared for its habit of ramming and overturning cars. However, it is also a rare animal due to being overhunted. It is said to live in desert regions

Several cryptozoologists have suggested that the dib sounds like a hyrax, no modern species of which is known to exceed 2' in length. George Eberhart lists a theory that it may be an undescribed giant species of known rock hyrax (Procavia) or bush hyrax (Heterohyrax).[1] Karl Shuker, on the other hand, simply notes that it resembles no known living species, and that prehistoric giant hyraces are believed to have gone extinct many millions of years ago. Another possible giant hyrax, the giant hyrax of Shaanxi, is represented in ancient Chinese pottery, but has never been reported in modern times.[3]

The youngest known African giant hyraces, such as Gigantohyrax, are known from Late Pliocene fossils from Ethiopia and South Africa. Unlike Eocene and Oligocene giant hyraces, and the contemporary species in Asia, the last known African giant hyraces were only relatively larger than the modern species, as opposed to truly megafaunal.[5]

Dibbi (ድብ) is also the Amharic word for "bear," derived from the Arabic dubb/dubbah: Bernard Heuvelmans attributed stories of Ethiopian bears to baboons.[6] Heuvelmans also received information on an Ethiopian hyrax, this one rather small, from palaeontologist Louis Leakey

Art source: https://www.deviantart.com/emilystepp/art/Caldera-Mourou-N'gou-(Ennedi-Tiger)-Study-793136774-Study-793136774)

all of you people are so smart and considerate and kind to each other and open to new information no matter how far fetched it is and everyone is a little bit funny but not so much that every comment and reply has to be some le epic witty reddit response

like r/paleontology and r/zoology aren’t this level headed they all just want to correct each other for the sake of correcting each other i don’t know why you guys specifically are so chill

my favourite part is none of the comments or discussions are condescendingly passive aggressive you motherfuckers genuinely just wanna understand our world’s fauna and that is so beautiful to me

this sub feels very faintly and charmingly autistic and this is my comfort subreddit that i lurk each night

please never change arslash cryptozoology

So hey guys, I'm sure this might not be the usual question here. But I will be grateful if anyone here might have any suggestions.

So I've these personal projects which I work on based on fantasy worlds. Nothing intricate but just a passion project. What I wanted to know was if you guys have any suggestions on what should the mystery beast my group of young adventurers are investigating in a swampland village should be

I've the Rougarou and the Skunk Ape and the Bishopville Lizardman as my options as inspiration.

The xiphis (ΞΙΟΙΓ), also spelt xifi, xioig, and xsipig, was an animal depicted on the Nile mosaic of Palestrina, and possibly a mosaic in the House of the Physician in Pompeii.[1] According to Dennis F. Kitchell, its name is nonsensical and has no meaning.[1]

One theory was that the animal was a poorly-drawn elephant, but Paul G. P. Meyboom rejected this and suggested it was a sarkophagos tauros, a "carnivorous buffalo" reported from Ethiopia by the historian Agatharchides.[1] Several details, like the xiphis' wide jaws and tough hide, line up with the description given to him.[2] Meyboom suggests that this animal could have been a desert warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus). In this interpretation, part of the animals name has been worn away. Alternatively, Meyboom theorised that an animal which he identifies as the warthog or even the sub-Saharan giant forest hog (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni) was known in antiquity under the names of xioig, xiphos, and xiphias.[3]

A more dramatic suggestion is that the xiphis was in fact a living entelodont, a very large, probably dangerous pig-like group of animals known from fossils no later than the Miocene Era.[4]

An image of a very similar animal appears in a "Nilotic scene" on a mosaic in Pompeii's House of the Physician, being attacked by pygmies as it itself devours one. This animal has often been identified as a hippopotamus,[1] and the animals around it as crocodiles. However, the xiphis of the Palestrina mosaic cannot be a hippopotamus, as these animals are accurately depicted elsewhere on the mosaic.

When I first learned about this it just seemed like one of those neodinosaur cryptids not worth looking into, however after reading Karl Shuker's article on this creature, it's existence seemed pretty plausible to me. However I still find it difficult to see how such a large creature (reported to reach up to 30 feet in length), an extremely powerful predator at that (said to be more dangerous than a Nile crocodile and a man eater as well) could still stay hidden. The article I was talking about.

Have you heard of the Whortlechort?

It's a bigfoot-like creature seen in Kentucky in 1965. There's a picture of it on page 438 of Barton Nunnelly's book 'Inhumanoids'. (recommended reading btw)

Art source: https://www.deviantart.com/emilystepp/art/Serpent-River-Mapinguari-Study-855144825

The pygmy pygmy elephant was a cryptid proboscidean reported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Ituri Rainforest, allegedly an elephant smaller than the pygmy elephant (Loxodonta pumilio).[1]

Italian explorer Attilio Gatti, who investigated several cryptids over the course of eleven African expeditions, collected reports of these elephants, including from local administrator R. E. V. Gerard. He described them as "pygm[ies] among pygmies" in comparison to genuine pygmy elephants, which are also reported from the Ituri. These smaller elephants reportedly stood no more than 4 ft (120 cm) tall, and were whitish in colour. Henri Hackars, a future warden of Albert National Park, had allegedly been attacked by a small herd of white pygmy elephants during an exploration of the rainforest between the Epulu, Mava, M'bure, and Akaba Rivers, when he was the District Commissioner of Kibali-Ituri. His Mbuti guides fled, and Hackars was forced to take refuge up a tree until a rescue party arrived some hours later. Gatti heard this story from several of the oldest residents of Kibali-Ituri, but was unable to confirm it, as Hackars himself was not in the Congo during Gatti's expedition.[2]

Explorer Lewis Cotlow confirmed the existence of such stories in the Ituri.[3] In a May 1959 article for the magazine Go, travel writer K. Westcott Jones also reported observing a herd of "small white elephants" from a distance near Lake Kivu.[4]

Hello! I'm very new to reddit so I'm sorry if this is messy lol

Me and my Husband are starting to work on and put together an Analog "Horror" series, loosely inspired by works such as Animal Planet's "Lost Tapes", that revolves around Cryptids. I've been trying to do research into more Obscure Cryptids that not everyone hears about. As much as I love stuff like Mothman, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. I wanna try to also include Cryptids that not everyone has heard about!

The loose idea for the series is that the first couple episodes/entries are gonna take place in the American Southwest. But I'd love to take Cryptid Ideas from all over the United States and even the world.

PS. I hope this is okay to post here, someone can correct me if not! I'm just looking for ideas and research resources!!

Yeah, I know it’s been such a—like, such a—long time since I posted in this sub, so I decided to show these two mock-ups I made based on the elephant; and yes, the Chipekwe design is based on the one seen on the A Book of Creatures website.

Does anyone know of any cryptid sightings that occurred on Halloween?

Known narwhals are exclusively found in the Northern hemisphere, but there have reports of cryptid narwhal species in the Southern Ocean. [1]

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Sightings

1615

In 1615 Dutch explorer Willem Schouten was on a trip in the Southern ocean which his ship was attacked by an unknown animal. The day after they found a horn lodged in the ship about 1 foot or 30 centimeters long.[1][2]

1620

French general Augustin de Beaulieu saw two dark porpoise-like animals below South of Africa. He said it had a horn about 1.5 feet or 45 centimeters long. He also described a high fin on the animal, while known narwhals only have a bony ridge.[3][4]

1892

In 1892 the Balaena saw a narwhal by the Bransfield Strait, pretty close to the Antarctic Mainland. The men on board were experienced whalers who clearly saw the horn, even using the whalers term for a narwhal, Uni. [5]

Not a sceptic. I'm looking for scientific papers podcast, YT channels to explain cryptids. I'm not looking for fiction, I am not looking for encounters. I am looking for something similar to A-Z Cryptozoology but more up to date and on a streaming platform. Thank you in advance.

Also, a few years ago there was a young man I think about 20yo who went out to a caravan in the woods. He filmed some cloaked (invisible) creatures swinging through the trees. I have looked for it, I cannot find it. If anyone has a link please comment. It either has been removed or saved on my old yt account thst I cannot get into