When I was a child, I wanted so badly for dragons to exist. To be fair, I had a bit of an obsession with stories of man-eating reptiles and serpents after watching The Lair of the White Worm at too young an age. (Thank you for rocking my world, Ken Russell.)
Sadly... they don't. And if they did, I gather they'd probably pose a major national security risk!
People told us all about the mythical creatures they wish actually existed after Redditor Nymeria asked the online community,
"What creature from folklore do you think exists or once existed?"
"The animal..."
"Amphisbaena - two-headed snake, said to have been created from the blood of Medusa's severed head.
The animal is Amphisbaena vermicularis which is a legless type of lizard, and since it digs through earth most of its life, its head and tail look alike to the untrained eye, hence the misconception that it is a two-headed snake."
A likely story from the two-headed snake propaganda team!
"I mean..."
"Nobody mentioned Rocs or Thunderbirds? I mean I'm generally skeptical of cryptid stuff but of all the ones on the list, big ol' bird seems pretty plausible to me. I figure the whole elephant lifting, thunder flapping thing is big fish story stuff but I could see something like Argentavis surviving to the time of stone age man and god knows Quetzalcoatlus gives a pretty good idea how ridiculously large a creature can get and still be capable of flight. Who knows what's sitting in the fossil record with a Neanderthal clutched in its beak."
"So indeed..."
"The pouakai, a monstrous bird from Maori folklore, is more than likely a memory of the Haast's eagle from southern New Zealand. It's main prey were the also-unbelievably giant moa birds, but I imagine it would have little difficulty carrying off a small human child. So indeed, perhaps there are other long-gone giant raptor birds that posed a threat to early humans and then grew even larger in their imaginations."
"The family that lived there..."
"The mysterious so-called "flabby egg monster" at Glamis Castle, in Scotland.
I think it existed, but the mysterious and inaccurate folklore around it basically masked what it really was. It's far more likely that this was a highly disabled or otherwise deformed member of the family that was kept hidden from public view, with accounts from the time suggest something that sounds an awful lot like what we now know as Noonan Syndrome. People with Noonan Syndrome can have totally normal lifespans which explains why it went on for so long.
The family that lived there had a long history of genetic abnormalities, including one of the Queen Mother's own relatives who was hidden from public view and died in 2014."
"Since we didn't really start..."
"Definitely something in the sea. Since we didn't really start truly exploring underwater or polluting it except for the past 100 years or so. I definitely could've seen some near-extinct rare sea serpent-type thing living well beyond the rest of its race. Hell, even today we find new creatures once thought extinct in the depths."
I remember how much it blew my mind to learn about the discovery of the coelacanth, which were thought to have become extinct in the Late Cretaceous, around 66 million years ago, but were rediscovered in 1938 off the coast of South Africa!
"The current information..."
"The current information we have on different species of humans before ours won out really makes me believe that stories of dwarves and woodland elves might come from a place of truth."
This is exactly why I enjoyed watching Trollhunter.
"I think a lot..."
"I think a lot of folklore creatures were probably based on stories of real animals from far-off places, just heavily distorted with time and retelling by generations of people who'd never actually seen it."
"I think there was a species..."
"Humans have a fear or natural revulsion to things that look human but not quite human (think uncanny valley). Natural fears help keep us alive, for example, most people don't like spiders because they present a real danger to us and they move in a decidedly unhuman way. I think there was a species that almost looked human but was a predator to humans until we got smart enough to hunt them into extinction. It's probably the source of skinwalker legends."
Have you read a few skinwalker legends? They're terrifying stuff. Do not recommend reading about them late at night!
"But I certainly doubt..."
"Nessie is probably based off a real aquatic prehistoric animal. But I certainly doubt she actually exists in Loch Ness. If you wanted to take a picture of Nessie you are millions of years too late."
Sadly, Nessie continues to evade us. It just wants to be left alone!
"I honestly think..."
"I honestly think there's a solid chance Bigfoot or something extremely similar exists out there."
Where are you, mythical creatures?
If you're hiding out somewhere, I can't say I blame any of you. Humans will just find a way to capitalize off you.
Have some suggestions of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
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