How the search for mythical monsters can help conservation in the real world

Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Get our free Climate email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. However, while there are strong ecological and evidence-based reasons to doubt the existence of charismatic cryptids such as Nessie and Bigfoot, conservationists should not automatically dismiss enthusiastic searches for “hidden” species. More recently, when specimens of a species named Homo floresiensis were found on the island of Flores in Indonesia in 2003, Henry Gee, an editor at Nature, wrote: “If animals as large as oxen can remain hidden into an era when we would expect that scientists had rustled every tree and bush in search of new forms of life, there is no reason why the same should not apply to new species of large primate, including members of the human family.” open image in gallery Homo floresiensis went extinct around 50,000 years ago Given conservation’s haunting relationship with the problem of absence, is it time to bring cryptozoology, in some form at least, in from the cold? A “post-monstrous” outlook might aid in forging new coalitions, and a stronger focus on plausible undiscovered species than on charismatic, but highly unlikely, cryptids. Other examples of wonder zoology include the descriptions of new primates by Marc van Roosmalen in the Amazon, and the “lost world” of new species found in or near Vietnam’s Vu Quang nature reserve in the 1990s.