My theme on Wordcraftjr is words about animals, and I was Googling around to find a new word because I had to alter my plan for today's word a day.

I found a site that discussed cryptozoology, which apparently is the study of a still unknown species of animals. Dictionary.com defines it as: "The study of creatures, such as the Sasquatch, whose existence has not been substantiated."

In one of the sites I read, it said: "These cryptids, as they are called, include not only the Loch Ness monster, sasquatch and other 'mega-monsters', but also many lesser known mystery creatures. (Some of these have more evidence going for them than the monster super-stars.) Cryptozoology often receives a bad rep because it is often practiced with little skepticism, or regard for scientifically supported facts and theories. Likewise, paranormal cryptozoologists do little to help the integrity of cryptozoology. It can, however, be a sane, interesting and possibly even scientific subject, if examined with open-minded skepticism and a scientific viewpoint."

Is this a legitimate field?

Certainly. There's nothing intrinsically impossible about many of the cryptid stories -- just very very unlikely, such as a colony of plesiosaur descendants having survived in Loch Ness for 65 million years without any fossil evidence anywhere else. But Nessie and the mokele-mbembe of Congo, for which there is slightly better eye-witness evidence, are still marginally possible. No major scientific theory is destroyed if they're found to exist.

In some cases you can put more reasonable stories to them. Gigantopithecus of the Himalayas died out, according to the known fossil evidence (which is always highly fragmentary and can seldom rule out surprises), only a few million years ago, and so would make a perfectly reasonable recent ancestor for yetis.

The one that I think strayed into real possibility recently is the orang pendek of Indonesia: now that it appears Homo floresiensis might have been alive 10 000 years ago, or a few centuries ago according to Flores native legends.

The coelocanth is a good example to prove aput's point.

Oh, thank you. That helps a lot.