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Tuesday 27 March 2012

More on US Neodinosaurs

I found some interesting versions of description about "Neodinosaurs" on an internet site which is converting the reports into gaming statistics. In this case the base data seems to be drawn from any of a number of Living Dinosaur sites, all of which tend to have much the same data.  Here are a couple of examples:

Mountain Boomer Max Height: 7ft (2.1 metres)
Max Length: 18 ft (5.5 metres)
Max Weight: 660lb (300 kilos)
Diet: Herbivore
Agressiveness: 1 [inoffensive]
Rarity: Common
Appearance:
user posted image user posted image
Background Info: The Mountain Boomer is a small sized (by dinosaur standards) bipedal dinosaur evolved from a Thescelosaurus-like ornithopod.
Female Mountain Boomers are generally 6 to 7 feet tall while smaller males are usually 3 to 5 feet high. The males have a more vivid coloration than the females.
The Mountain Boomer are found everywhere ... but tend to nest in the more remote mountain regions where they sleep lives in caves or burrows.
Its is extremely fast, swift and agile, easily being able to outrun a human or other predator. Additionally, it has a tremendous leap.
The creatures are shy and reclusive, fleeing as defence.
They have a strange wolf-like howl. [This last can be discounted as a mistaken actual wolf howl]

The "Kangaroo-Lizard Chupacabras" generally falls into the "Male" range of sizes here but some can be larger. The males have red eyes (red irises). The spiny back crest would go all the way down the back in both sexes but it is larger and more prominent on the male.

Later on there is a similar entry for "River Liz",
River LizardMax Height: 3.5 ft (1 metre)[to five feet]
Max Length: 5 ft (1.5 metres)[to 2 meters/ 7 feet long]
Max Weight: 33 lb (15 kg)
Diet: Omnivore, Insectivore
Agressiveness: 1
Rarity: Very common
Appearance:
user posted image user posted image
Background Info: The River Lizards, as they have come to be known, are a genus of small theropod dinosaur. Their exact evolutionary history is not known at the current time, although a veriety of primitive ornithomimosaur similar to Pelecanimimus or Harpymimus is the most widely accepted theory. Other suggestions have been made that they are perhaps descended from a member of the Troodontidae, or Dromaeosauridae families...[Afterwards bogging down in the Taxonomy]

Both of these models can easily be combined into a description of one kind of "Minidinosaur" and the size given for the "River Liz" matches the"Mountain Boomer" male. In fact there is no reason to make the size differences into sex differences rather than growth stages. The "River Liz" head should similarly be shortened and roundish, and the coloration of both being in basically a green background shading to gray in parts like the belly, overlaind by large irregular brown bands or splotches. The back has a sort of a crest on it and there may be hornlike structures on the head. All of this is in agreement with the actual reports. Whereas originally I was unwilling to allow the "Female" sizes indicated here in the reports I saw, they are actually in the reports that way, and so my disallowal was more a matter of opinion than anything else.


Recently, reportsof "Minidinos" in the Southwesten area of the USA have tended to resemble "Dilophosaurus" out of the movie Jurassic Park, or the modern frilled lizards of Australia. since this is a fancy of the filmmakers and a misrepresentation of the actual dinosaur named, these sightings are unlikely to be of the animal genus so named, but some could be of actual escaped-exotic-pet lizards (Which were all the rage in Japan a few years back)
There has been a recent rash of soghtings of the "MiniRex" lizards that resembled this in the Four Corners area around Hogsback NM. The reports in general (With or without mentioning the frill) are comparable in scale to the dinosaur comparisons made on the charts below:



-Which is just about comparable for the estimates made for the (Texas) "Mountain Boomers" given above. There is also the possible explanations that "Mountain Boomer" reports in the past have specified large flaps of skin above and below the headead of horizontally, such as can be found in other types of known Iguanid lizards living today. Some lizards have the flaps in both places, like some anole lizards ("Chameleons"):



Then there is the South American "Iguanodon" of Heuvelmans:
SaruMax Height: 9.8 ft (3 metres) [9 ft?]
Max Length: 33 ft (10 metres) [24 ft? As per reports]
Max Weight: 3.5 tons (3.0 metric tonnes)
Diet: Herbivore
Agressiveness: 4
Rarity: Medium
Appearance:
user posted image user posted image
Background Info: The Saru is an bizarre herbivorous dinosaur of which has been subject to an extreme amount of evolutionary adaptability. Surprisingly descended from a sauropod, like the Mokele-Mbembe... This adaptation seems to have occurred in order for the animal to fill the ecological niche of the Iguanodonts and Hardrosaurus which are surprisingly absent ....
Behaviour: A herbivore often seen browsing on mid-height vegetation. The Saru can be aggressive if attacked and can kill small predators but prefers to flee in most circumstances.
It is terrestrial but can swim if need be. It moves very slowly, balancing with its long tail.

--I find it interesting that the native name for this is supposed to be "Saurus". Perhaps in South America the Cryptological counterpart is actually called Lagarto? The term "Big Iguana" or "Biguana" has some adherants, and at least one Cryptozoological site refers to it as a "Giant Basilisk Lizard": it is also what Eberhart refers to as the "Venezuelan Monitor"
Venezuelan Monitor
Unknown LIZARD of South America.
Physical description: Large monitor lizard.
Distribution:Galeras de El Pao, in Guárico and
Cojedes States, Venezuela; near Angel Falls, Bolí-
var State, Venezuela; the Cerro Santa Ana, Penin-
sula de Paraguana, Falcón State, Venezuela.
Significant sightings: A prospector from Cara-
cas told ecologist Léon Croizat in 1972 that a
large lizard resembling a Komodo dragon lived
in the Galeras de El Pao. Herpetologist J. B. Graham saw a large, unknown lizard near the base of the Cerro Santa Ana in 1976 or 1977.
Sources: Silvano Lorenzoni, “More on Extant Dinosaurs,” Pursuit, no. 47 (Summer 1979):
105–109; Silvano Lorenzoni (letter), Pursuit,no. 50 (Spring 1980): 95.

http://www.angelfire.com/bc2/cryptodominion/cryptosaurs.html


  • Mountain boomer (West Texas NA): A 6 foot tall dinosaur-like animal reported from areas of western Texas. If it exists, think it is some kind of large, bipedal lizard, perhaps related to the Trimble County lizard, but more strongly bipedal.


  • Colorado "dinosaurs" (Pagosa Springs region of Colorado NA): A woman from this area claims to have seen many dinosaur in her life. She says that she saw 5 babies once when she was little, and that a local farmer killed a 7 foot tall one a couple months later. She also claims to have run across a green one in a local cave, and to have seen one many years later while driving on a road near that same cave. Personally, I think she needs help, and soon, but anyone is welcome to follow up on her reports. I'm sure not going to.


  • Colorado "river lizards" (The area around and islands on the Fountain River NA): A long-standing local folklore in this region includes things like the prairie devil and "evil river spirits", and recent reports from a local boy concurr that there may be something strange living on and around the Fountain. The boy claims to have watched a greenish coloured lizard with black markings and a yellow-orange belly running on it's hind legs away from him. Anoter local took a series of pictures, but they are indistinct and could be easily faked. However, there is one very good picture, showing a man holding up a 3 foot long lizard with small front legs and long, strong hindlegs. If that was faked, it was done with a very good model. My personal opinion is that these are bipedal lizards, like the mountain boomer but smaller.





  • Amazonian "duckbills" (Northwestern Amazon SA): This is a case showing how much wishful thinking can really effect what we find to be "true". For the longest time, the "duck-billed dinosaurs" were considered to be semi-aquatic, and generally like giant ducks. Thus, living dinosaur fanatics often talk about aquatic reptiles being sighted in South America, which just *have* to be hadrosaurs. It is now well known that, not only were hadrosaurs fully terrestrial grazers, but they were not even bipeds; facultative bipeds perhaps, but primarily quadrupedal. Their fingers and toes had thick hoof-like nails on them, and they probably lived an overall bison-like lifestyle. So, then, what about these "aquatic reptiles" that are sid to exist in the Amazon? Well, short of calling all the dino-freaks liars, I'll suggest an enormous species of basalisk. But that's just being courteous.
  •  http://z15.invisionfree.com/primordialpredators/index.php?showtopic=4
    :http://s15.invisionfree.com/primordialpredators/ar/t140.htm



    In this case I think we have a fair assumption that we are dealing with one wide-ranging species of Iguanid lizard, blamed for "Chupacabras" crimes in something like its "Mountain Boomer" form, and in which the tropical form in South America could be larger than the subtropical, drier-climate forms in the US SW and in Northern Argentina. The largest ones are really big (20-30 feet maximum is alleged, half of that is probably much more common and more nearly the maximum of the subtropical form) but can still rear up on their hinder legs to about ten feet tall (also alleged in the first instance I heard as being on record in the USA, but I still doubt that report) The smaller ones are omnivores and insectivores but the larger ones are more often herbivorous (but may also take carrion or else perhaps root around in the stomachs of freshly-killed sheep and cattle, eating out the stomach contents?)

    39 comments:

    1. Hi. On one of your blog posts, I saw a picture of several 'Neodinosaurs', and one of them said, 'Raptoroid/Zupay'. I really want to see that picture, again, but I can't find the post! So, which picture was it? Thanks! :)

      ReplyDelete
    2. It should be here, near the top
      http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/search/label/Zupay

      If that wasn't what you wanted, we can try other places.

      ReplyDelete
    3. No, that wasn't it. You see, it was a picture showing several American 'neodinosaurs', together. And there was a picture of a creature that resembled a prehistoric Velociraptor, next to two humans.

      ReplyDelete
    4. OK, easily in the same ball park, the creature you named COULD be reconstructed as looking like that. I shall continue looking.

      ReplyDelete
    5. Never mind, I found it. Thanks! :)

      ReplyDelete
    6. Dale, I don't understand how it would be possible for lizards to evolve a theropod-like bipedal stance, since they have sprawling limbs. Would it be possible for them to evolve erect locomotion? Thanks! :)

      ReplyDelete
    7. You are missing the point. The candidate lizards we are talking about already do run on their hind legs

      ReplyDelete
    8. No, I am talking about an erect leg structure, like that of dinosaurs, birds, and mammals. Would that be possible?

      ReplyDelete
    9. Also, I am asking if it is possible for them to be completely bipedal, rather than just running on 2 legs for short distances.

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    10. The problem is that we cannot verify if they ARE fully bipedal: they could also be the same as the other types more commonly seen as quadrupeds (as stated above). They are only seen running on their hind legs for short periods, invariably when they are running away -Now if it could be determined that we have one type that is a habitual biped and different fromthe quadruped that is much like it and seen over the same general geographic range, then we could talk about anatomical adaptations to bipedalism, and the possibility that they really are small dinosaurs. Against that, artistic representations usually show specific markers for iguanid lizards.

      ReplyDelete
    11. My name is Rick Charles. I'm a developer on the project you're discussing here, Primordial Predators (http://z15.invisionfree.com/primordialpredators/index.php). I want to clarify that our creatures our entirely fictional and were only based on actual dinosaur-like cryptids just for kicks, so any discrepancies between our creatures and actual dinosaur-like cryptids is moot. Primordial Predators is set on a fictional island in the Indian Ocean where a secluded population of extant non-avian dinosaurs continues to thrive. Interesting discussion, though. I wasn't aware there were dinosaur-like cryptids in the United States.

      ReplyDelete
    12. Yes, I understood that part. Defining Cryptids is sometimes an iffy thing. In this case the categories you mentioned along with the associated statistics DO correspond well enough to the reports as they exist. I was not saying you were making a true representation of the zoological reality in this case, but merely that what you said was a good reflection of the reports we have in such cases.

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    13. Hi, Dale. Do you think that a bipedal, 10-foot-long creature similar to the Colorado 'River Dinosaurs' exists in the southeastern United States (Florida, Georgia, etc.)? Thanks! :)

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    14. That is one thing I am trying to determine. If all of these giant lizards are the same species, then the small bipeds are the young of the big "Dinosaurs" and the big "Dinosaurs" are said to get up to 20 feet long in South America. I doubt they get that big in the USA myself, but that would mean a big one could look like it was 10 feet tall if it rose up to its full height. At this point I don't know if that is so, but actual reports seems to point that way. I would rather be cautious and say they are about the size of a Komodo dragon-even that much is going to be hard for most experts to accept.

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    15. Do you think the ones in the southeastern USA could grow up to be as long as Komodo Dragons? Also, do you think that they might be different from other reptiles?

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    16. It is extremely difficult to say exactly how many kinds we might have spread over parts of North and South America and what their exact determinative characteristics might be. One thing for sure is, we don't have as many variant types as we have alleged types reported. Some Cryptozoologists prefer saying "Only one species". At that point I begin to see problems. There is a problem with presenting the idea of one kind of wide-ranging "Super-Reptile" and there are problems with suggesting there are more than one species-and the resistance becomes much greater for every individual species you add, so that the experts look dimly enough on the possibility of two or three species but much worse at the suggestion of six or more. its a quandry.

      For the evidence as I see it, we have something about the size of a Komodo dragon that lives in Southern North America and Northern South America. It is most likely a very large iguanid lizard, more than twice the length (and probably ten times the bulk) of the largest known iguana lizards. Besides that there are smaller ones. At that point it gets more difficult to say. Personally I very much believe in a range of intelligent humanoid dinosaurs which include small to large variations, The problem is that in the early part of the 20th century and even before then, you get pretty much non-threatening reports of small biped lizards 3-4 feet tall, and then the witness will say "But I have a friend who says she saw one ten feet tall".It makes all of your attempts at organizing reports seem futile.

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    17. What I am asking is do you think that a 10-foot long neodinosaur that closely resembles a Troodon in physical appearance might exist?

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      Replies
      1. My problem is that it certainly could be true. However, the evidence to say so definitely is not firm enough to say so definitely. If you feel like taking the evidence to indicate that idea, I imagine you would be far from alone: as far as my part, I do not care to say that I know well enough to be able to say that. The evidence is confusing and contradictory. My feeling is that if a creature is upright and tailless it is a reptoid, but if it has a long tail and runs in a more or less horizontal stance, it is an ordinary reptile. Once again it is basically a matter of 'Let your conscience be your guide'

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      2. What do you mean when you say, "You would be far from alone"? Could you, perhaps, show me where to find the work of other cryptozoologists who have researched this topic and have come to the same conclusions as me about a Troodon-like neodinosaur in North America? Thank You! :)

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    18. I don't remember any names offhand, but we do have a discussion group on Facebook:
      https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/479506358769626/?fref=ts

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      Replies
      1. Okay, I will now look at that link. Thank You! :)

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    19. I looked at the link on Facebook, and I read your post about the possibility of reptoids having longer tails. I have some questions. Do you think that reptoids are endothermic? Also, in addition to having longer tails, do you think there might be some reptoids which have longer, pointier snouts and look and act less like a human, and more like a regular animal? Thanks!

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    20. I would say that the determination has not been made yet and that it is possible, and what we are doing right here is part of attempting to make the determination. What you suggest could be true, but it is hard to know where to draw the line with the evidence we have.

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    21. In conclusion, do you think that a bipedal warm-blooded 10-foot-long predatory iguanid lizard with forward-facing eyes that closely resembles a Troodon exists in the southeastern United States?

      ReplyDelete
    22. No, I do not say that. YOU say that. I think there is a ten foot long iguanid lizard but I do not add the other specifics, YOU did. I said we are talking about two different things. I was noncommittal about the forward facing eyes and the presumed warm-bloodness but I allowed that the Lizardman sightings show those features but do not specify the long tail. At this juncture you are going on the assumption that the small-dinosaur reports are accurate enouh that you can tell that they had such dinosaurian reports. And the reports we have to go on simply are not good enough that we may infer those features with any confidence. We don't KNOW that part yet.

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    23. Which specific characteristics did you use to identify these animals as being iguanid lizards, in the first place?

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    24. There is one thing in particular besides less certain things as a crest of spines down the back and the dewlap under the chin, and that is the large circular boss at the angle of the lower jaw. Go back up the page and look at the photo of the green iguana: it has that circular boss there and it is characteristic of the genus Iguana At several different locations in both Noth and South America, witnesses mention that scaly feature on the face and Native artwork also consistently shows it. So for as far as I am concerned, they are Iguanas.

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    25. If they are members of the genus Iguana, then they must be different from other members of that genus. They are omnivorous, rather than herbivorous, and they can walk and run bipedally. Is it possible for members of the same genus to differ that much from each other?

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    26. Im not actually saying that. What I am saying is that the young ones are mostly herbivorous but will eat eggs and insects, while the adults are normally completely herbivorous but will poke around carcasses of herbivorous mammals. This could well be that they are eating the stomach contents. The adults are blamed for eating livestock but I don't think it can be true or we would be seeing much greater damage being dome generally. In the case of the Congo Dragons, they are said to be capable of killing people but they normally do not eat the bodies

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    27. So, you think they're mostly herbivorous?

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      Replies
      1. I have just told you that was what I thought, yes. And its a common enough thing for many species of reptiles to do it that way.

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      2. To eat more animal matter when young and then to be more generally herbivorous as an adult.

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    28. I cannot disagree with you on that, since all of the reports of predatory behavior describe the smaller ones. However, I tend to think that the smaller, bipedal ones are probably a different species than the giant, water-dwelling herbivorous ones. You may also turn out to be right, and they could all be just one species. However, as of now, I prefer to think that there are at least two species.

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      Replies
      1. Since that was my original stance I cannot blame you for saying so. I should take pains to say that it is twice as hard for a Cryptozoologyst to push for the existence of two species than it is for that same Cryptozoologist to push for one.

        My amended checklist to the unknown animals checklists of Heuvelmans and Shuker did indeed count them as two separate species. And we won't know for sure until the animals themselves become "known"

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      2. Why is it harder for a cryptozoologist to push for two species than for just one?

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      3. The more unidentified species you push for, the more the establishment types look down on you. This is purely a psychological reaction and obviously, not all cases are going to be the same anyway

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      4. Well, wouldn't the establishment types look down on you for one species, too?

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      5. Most assuredly. However, I have gotten favourable comments for my attempt to say reports refer to a large lizard in the existing genus Iguana And I have been told the idea makes a lot of sense and is much more plausible than any of the alternatives.

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