Cryptids – The Ropen

Image via naturalplane.blogspot.com

The pterosaurs where a group of ancient flying reptiles that came in a vast variety of forms and sizes. Many believe these fascinating extinct animals are dinosaurs, but the fact is that they aren’t but they DID exist during the same era as the dinosaurs called Mesozoicum. The Mezosoic era ended with the cretaceous period 65 million years ago where the last dinosaurs and flying reptiles went extinct.

There exist quite a few cryptids that seems to resemble pterosaurs such as rhamphorynchus or pteranodon and one of the most plausible of these is probably the ropen. The ropen is said to live in the undiscovered jungles of Papua New Guinea. The idea of a living fossil might not seem so far off considering that over the last decade 1000 new species have been found in Papua New Guinea alone…

The ropen is said to have a very weird yet fascinating ability. It is said to glow at night and the native people will tell you that it will do this to attract pray and to communicate with other individuals. There have been quite a few expeditions for the ropen but they have all turned back with no definite proof, though blurry photographs have been taken and weird lights have been filmed. A few TV shows have also searched for the creature including the popular SyFy Channel program Destination Truth featuring Josh Gates you can check that episode out somewhere if it’s something you’d like to watch! The native people of PNG often gets scared when mentioning the ropen, since according to them it has nothing against feasting on human corpses…

Naturally there are also skeptics that provide a more down to earth explanation for the ropen phenomena. Some argue that the ropen could be a form of undiscovered bat, which would make sense since some of the 1000 new animals discovered in PNG recently are bats. A bird called the frigatebird is also sometimes suggested as the culprit for ropen sightings because of this birds long tail feathers, which gives it an overall prehistoric look if seen from a distance. But all these animals can’t explain the mysterious light this animal is said to emit. There is no proof that any species of pterosaur was able to produce any form of light but the light could of course be explained by aircrafts or other similar stuff. The trouble with this is that the lights are usually seen at night and airplanes in many cases aren’t allowed to fly there. In addition some of the lights filmed or witnessed are stationairy so none of these explanations are 100% satisfactory.

Therefore the ropen remains a mystery. But think about it; how cool would it be if a species of pterosaur has survived the cruel fate of extinction? If a live pterosaur would be caught anywhere in the world Papua New Guinea would be the place. Check out the other fantastic creatures that may or may not inhabit out planet in the links below:

El Chupacabra
Loch Ness Monster
Nandi Bear
Mokele Mbembe
Bigfoot
Beast of Gévaudan
Megalania
The Mothman