Cryptozoology: A playground in science

Oh, this is a fun discussion!

It's probably not real, but I've always considered the maltese tiger to be one of the more plausible cryptids. Tiger populations dropped drastically over the 20th century, meaning, a big loss of genetic diversity. If a color mutation for the maltese tiger ever existed, it could have been wiped out.
 
amur leopard said:
Imagine you are a settler in the Americas, having just entered Alaska. You are by yourself on a hunting expedition and see a black bear. You run back to the camp and report your sighting of a massive black animal with immense claws and big teeth. That animal is a cryptid, because it is exactly the same situation as for example the Nandi bear from their perspective - an unknown animal only spotted a couple of times. I don't really understand your last sentence, but clearly ever new species they see would be described and passed on by hearsay, each time slightly distorting it, so once again, a cryptid.
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I think this depends... and probably one of the worst cases you could pick as example. A black bear is quite literally... a black bear compared to the european known brown bears. So I don't think they would make it as much of a cryptid as you set your example to be.
A better example would be the original descriptions from Europeans entering South-east Asia or the African continent. Where there were indeed more like these descriptions for animals. Take for example the Dürer's rhinoceros. A not super accurate depiction of a rhinoceros that was drawn from a artist based on hear-say in 1515 but where Europe had never seen a rhinoceros till around like 1577. I'd wager this is a much better example.
 
I didn't mention it in my post, but recently I have been reading a book called Abominable Science. It's about cryptozoology and it goes into the history and origins of some famous cryptids, and it explains why the "science" of cryptozoology is so flawed, it's pretty interesting so far.
 
According to the Wikipedia article, “cryptozoology” refers to pseudoscientific attempts to prove the existence of animals known only from anecdotal evidence.

In most definitions, this does include animals that are confirmed to have existed in the past (the Thylacine, Mesozoic megafauna, etc.), but whose continued survival is not accepted by the general scientific community.

Several paleontology enthusiasts on the internet claim to have an interest in cryptozoology, but do not endorse pseudoscience or accept the existence or continued existence of cryptids. Rather, this is just a healthy interest in nonexistent creatures for their cultural and speculative value.
 
Only just found this thread, fascinating stuff. If anyone wants to delve a bit deeper into the weird world of cryptozoology ,I would highly recommend that you read material by Dr Karl Shuker,an internationally recognised zoologist who writes articles for the Fortnean Times and author of over 32 books. One book in particular Mystery Cats of the World, is.a book which I.read infact it was difficult to put down ,even if your not really into the subject of cryptozoology ,as I wasn't .Happy reading.
 
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