Bigfoot DNA analysis: How often do scientists discover mythical creatures?

Scientists at Oxford University and Switzerland’s Lausanne Museum of Zoology plan to use DNA evidence to determine once and for all whether Bigfoot is real, Reuters reported Tuesday. The ancient Greek naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote of an enormous squid with arms “knotted like clubs.” These references predate the first credible discovery of a giant squid carcass in Iceland in 1639, and the widespread acceptance of the animal’s existence in the 19th century. English sailor Andrew Battell, who was held captive by the Portuguese in West Africa around 1600, claimed to have seen a monster on the Dark Continent: “The Pongo is in all proportions like a man; for he is more like a giant in stature than a man … They cannot speak, and have no more understanding than a beast.” In all likelihood, Battell was describing the gorilla, although the animal would remain just a rumor to Western scientists until an American missionary brought a gorilla skull to an anatomist in the mid-19th century. As evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins notes, “where other animals such as cats or deer could be seen as beautiful in their own way, gorillas and other apes, precisely because of their similarity to ourselves, seemed like caricatures, distortions, grotesque.” It should be noted that the overwhelming majority of new species are not cryptids.