Biologists in Taiwan are discussing whether or not to re-introduce the Formosan clouded leopard, a creature so mysterious that some have claimed it may never have existed.
It’s not an entirely unusual state of affairs. Explorers have claimed to have seen bizarre animals over the centuries, only to be exposed as hoaxers. But not always. Sometimes the most outlandish creatures turn out to be extremely real.
Advertisement
Duck-billed platypus
It is perhaps no surprise that the platypus was once thought to be a hoax. It looks a bit like a mole but has a duck’s bill. Not only did this strange-looking mix of mammal and bird not fit with what was then known of biology, it was also immediately obvious how the hoax might have been achieved, with little more than scissors, thread and a sewing needle.
The platypus was scientifically for the first time in 1799 by the British naturalist George Shaw, based on a skin sent by John Hunter, then the governor of Australia. Shaw admitted to being suspicious: “it naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by artificial means,” he wrote.
But Shaw couldn’t find any tell-tale stitching. Over the years more specimens followed, as well as descriptions of the animals in the wild. By 1823, the anatomist (and grave robber) Robert Knox could write that, while the extraordinary nature of the platypus had been “sufficient to rouse the suspicions of the scientific naturalist”, nevertheless “these conjectures were immediately dispelled by an appeal to anatomy”.
Since then the story of the platypus has only grown stranger. Its genome is deeply peculiar, it lays eggs much like birds do, has venomous spurs on its hind legs, and it is descended from “King Kong platypuses” that were a metre long.
Okapi
For centuries, European travellers in West Africa – particularly in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo – reported seeing glimpses of a mysterious animal in the forest.
The descriptions were sketchy. It was hoofed, perhaps looked a little like a deer, but had stripes on its rear end that suggested it might be a forest-dwelling zebra. Nobody could catch one or even get a good look at one. For want of a better name, people began referring to it as the “African unicorn”.
From 1871 onwards, the British explorer Henry Morton Stanley undertook several expeditions to Africa. In his 1890 book , he mentioned that a group called the Wambutti knew of “a donkey” called the “”. There the matter rested until 1901, when explorer and colonial administrator Harry Johnston mounted a determined search. Local people had told him about a forest animal called the “o’api” – the name Stanley had evidently misheard. He managed to obtain some skins, which he sent to London where they caused a great deal of confusion and were briefly skins.
Eventually it was recognised that the okapi belonged to a new genus, and it was given the name . It remains incredibly elusive. Very few photographs exist of them in the wild. It is a threatened species, due to illegal logging and the continuing unrest in the DRC. Unexpectedly, its closest living relatives are giraffes.
Giraffe
Speaking of giraffes, there is a much-repeated canard that when Europeans first found out about giraffes, they thought they were , not a species in their own right. They didn’t, but there is a tale of confusion here nonetheless.
The scientific name of the giraffe is Giraffa camelopardalis. The latter part of the name dates back to the Roman Empire, when Julius Caesar brought a giraffe back to Rome from Alexandria: the first time in recorded history that a giraffe visited Europe. described the animal in terms of camels and leopards. The Roman senator and historian Cassius Dio, in his Roman History, described ”.
But it seems Dio didn’t think the giraffe was any kind of cross. Instead, he was just helping his readers picture what it looked like using animals they would have known. He describes the animal as “like a camel in all respects” except for its unusual height and proportions, and notes that “its skin is spotted like a leopard, and for this reason it bears the joint name of both animals”.
Camelopard, then, is not so much a misidentification as a neologism.
Modern science has revealed that giraffes hum and that baby giraffes are inveterate milk thieves. It has also found answers to the long-standing mystery of how giraffes got such long necks.
Colossal squid
For centuries, sailors told tales of enormous tentacled creatures that could drag entire ships down to Davy Jones’ Locker. The Scandinavian legend of the kraken is just one example.
Such things remained mythical until 1925, when G. C. Robson published a description of a squid called Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. Robson based his description on two tentacles found in the stomach of a sperm whale. Only a few specimens have been found in the intervening 90 years, so our knowledge of this squid is still sketchy.
What is clear is that M. hamiltoni is the largest known species of squid, with at least one specimen measured at 4.5 metres long. It has been given the moniker “colossal squid”, not to be confused with the jumbo squid and giant squid, which are different species.
However, the idea that it could sink a ship or pose any kind of threat to humans on the surface appears to be a fantasy. Colossal squid live deep underwater where the pressure is intense, and they have adapted accordingly. If they find themselves in surface waters their bodies become floppy and incapable.
Narwhal
Thanks to their huge tusks, narwhals are often called “unicorns of the sea” and for a long time people seem to have thought that was literally true.
The earliest attempt at a scientific description may have been that by Nicolaes Tulp, a doctor and anatomist working in Amsterdam in the 1600s, who was .
Tulp wrote a monumental medical book called Observationes Medicae, in which he included a few snippets of natural history. The book contains what may be the first Western illustration of an orangutan, and a drawing of the horn of a “”, or “marine unicorn”. It is almost certainly a narwhal tusk. These were often presented as belonging to unicorns, and were popular in cabinets of curiosities.
It was not until 1758, more than 100 years after Tulp’s description, that Linnaeus described narwhals for the first time in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae. He correctly identified them as related to whales.
Today narwhals are classed as “near threatened” because of continued hunting and the risk that climate change will melt the pack ice where they live.
Bonus beast: King Louie
Disney gave King Louie an upgrade it its 2016 remake of The Jungle Book when it reimagined the king of the jungle as an impossibly large orangutan. In fact, the creature was closer to reality than might first appear.
Once upon a time, the forests of east Asia were home to the largest of all apes. Gigantopithecus reached 3.5 metres tall and weighed 540 kilograms. At that size, it wasn’t quite as large as King Kong, but would have looked down on Chewbacca from on high.
Read more: The plan to reintroduce a big cat that might never have existed
