Animals Unfound

No one believed the 17th century Dutch explorers who reported seeing an animal as big as a man, with a head like a deer and a long tail like an alligator, that stood on its hind legs like a bird and hopped like a frog. The kangaroo was real, nevertheless, and also real (probably or possibly) are other strange animals that have been seen only rarely by civilized man. This is the conviction of French-born Bernard Heuvelmans, and his book, On the Track of Unknown Animals (Hill & Wang; $6.95), makes fine reading for people who like to hear that new things can still be found without a spaceship.

There is the orang pendek, for instance --a smallish, hairy ape-man who lives (perhaps) in Sumatra. Natives take the orang pendek as a matter of course, and Dutchmen say they have seen them. Heuvelmans suspects that they are related to the nittaewo, the semi-aborigines of Ceylon, who were killed off about 1800 by the primitive Veddahs. Heuvelmans' theory is that much of southern Asia was inhabited long ago by small, hairy descendants of Java's Pithecanthropus erectus, who were largely exterminated by the invading humans. The orang pendeks, hiding deep in Sumatran jungles, may be the sole survivors.

Mountain Ape-Men. More famed are the "abominable snowmen" or "yetis" of the Himalaya and central Asia. Heuvelmans is almost sure that they exist, and he marshals elaborate evidence to prove it. There may be two kinds--a monstrous, hairy creature 8 ft. tall, and a smaller one no bigger than a man. The monks of one Tibetan monastery display to travelers the scalp of an alleged snowman, and Heuvelmans argues that its hair pattern, much like a gorilla's, proves it is not a fake made out of some animal's skin. The remains of giant ape-men have been found in southeastern Asia, and the yetis may be their descendants.

Heuvelmans believes that many parts of the earth have been explored so superficially that they may contain all sorts of creatures unknown to science. Explorers glimpse them, perhaps bring back a few strips of skin or a blurry photograph, and are greeted with skepticism or accused of attempting a hoax. The pygmy hippopotamus of West Africa has been seen repeatedly since the 1840s. Skulls were brought out for study, and a young one actually lived several weeks in the Dublin zoo. But for 50 years authorities refused to accept it as a real and new genus.

Mngwas & Mammoths. Heuvelmans presents evidence about dozens of shadowy creatures that are still waiting for acceptance. Africa swarms with unestablished animals, e.g., pygmy rhinoceroses, aquatic elephants and small, spotted mountain lions. Tanganyika has its mngwas, which are generally described as giant cats, big as donkeys, and striped like a household tabby. Natives of many parts of Africa believe in a 30-ft., dragonlike reptile with a long neck, that lives in swamps as did the long-extinct brontosaurus. Heuvelmans thinks it may be the strange, scaly creature shown in bas-relief on the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon.

In South America, giant sloths (Mylo-dons) as big as men survived long enough in the high wilds of Patagonia to be killed by ancient Indians. Their skins have been found in caves. A giant armadillo with a shell 12 ft. long was hunted too. The strange beasts reported by Indians living in Patagonia today may be giant sloths or armadillos that the ancient hunters missed.

The biggest of all animals--the mammoth--may still be hiding in the forests of Siberia; its remains are still being dug from frozen swamps. In the 17th century invading Cossacks encountered hairy elephants, which they valued as "mountains of meat." As late as 1920 a Russian hunter reported that he came on two "elephants" in the thick of the forest.

Heuvelmans points out that armchair zoologists have been announcing for nearly 150 years that no new animal would ever be found. But dozens have been found since then, including the Indian tapir, the Kodiak bear, the pygmy chimpanzee, the giant panda and the Komoda-dragon. Heuvelmans is confident that still more animals exist on earth than are dreamt of in the zoologist's handbooks.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.