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A pterodactyl in the Civil War - Notes on a Strange World
Skeptical Inquirer, May, 2002 by Massimo Polidoro
Most people know about the plot of Jurassic Park, the Steven Spielberg movie inspired by the Michael Crichton bestseller: dinosaurs are brought back to life thanks to the wonders of genetic engineering. The dinosaurs were so real that the movie instantly became a huge success. It was obvious that a new Crichton book and subsequent Spielberg movie, The Lost World, would be produced. Again a fantastic success and more sequels to come (though with Crichton and Spielberg still more or less involved, but not in the limelight anymore).
Lost World
Not many, however, know that the original idea for dinosaurs still living in the modern era and interacting with humans dates back to 1912 when Arthur Conan Doyle, then already a worldwide celebrity thanks to the adventures of his cool private detective Sherlock Holmes, published one of his most famous novels, The Lost World. It was not a coincidence--nor a theft--but a tribute to the old master, then, that Crichton would give the same title to his own book.
In Doyle's book, a group of explorers, led by the energetic Professor Challenger, sets sails for a lost land in South America (a place where Crichton would stage his stories as well) and discovers that dinosaurs, long believed to be extinct, still live. The group survives a million adventures and then is able to make it back to London. At a public lecture at Queen's Hall they try to convince a skeptical audience of the wonders they witnessed but words, drawings, and fuzzy pictures are not enough. The only thing that could have an effect would be the presence of a real creature.
And the creature is there: "[A] large square packing-case was slowly carried forward and placed in front of the Professor's chair. All sound had hushed in the audience and everyone was absorbed in the spectacle before them. Professor Challenger drew off the top of the case, which formed a sliding lid. Peering down into the box he snapped his fingers several times and was heard from the Press seat to say, 'Come, then, pretty, pretty!' in a coaxing voice. An instant later, with a scratching, rattling sound, a most horrible and loathsome creature appeared from below and perched itself upon the side of the case. The face of the creature was like the wildest gargoyle that the imagination of a mad medieval builder could have conceived. It was malicious, horrible, with two small red eyes as bright as points of burning coal. Its long, savage mouth, which was held half-open, was full of a double row of shark-like teeth. Its shoulders were humped, and round them were draped what appeared to be a faded gray shawl. It wa s the devil of our childhood in person."
Lost Creatures
That's the description of a pterodactyl, the ancient prehistoric winged reptile that lived between 144 and 65 million years ago. When Doyle wrote his hook, dinosaurs and pterodactyls were of course long gone. Imagine how fantastic it would be if, somewhere, somehow, some dinosaur were still alive; that's exactly what many believe the Loch Ness or the Ogopogo "monsters" are, or what other mysterious creatures could be. Animals that lived when dinosaurs roamed are still with us and will probably still be here for a long time, such as sharks, crocodiles, and turtles, for example.
Yes, you'd say, but there's a huge difference between a lone, mysterious, gigantic creature that is said to live in a lake--but of which nobody seems to be able to take a decent picture--and animals that any school kid can meet at an aquarium. Okay, one could answer, but what do you say about the fact that prehistoric creatures that were thought to be extinct are still found to be alive? That's what happened with the coelacanth, for example, of which a living specimen was discovered only in 1952. And, surprisingly, "new" animals can still be found in our small world: animals such as the okapi, the Komodo dragon, the mountain gorilla, the Manchurian brown bear, or the giant panda, were all discovered only in the twentieth century. Even to this day, huge and unexpected new creatures can be found: What would you call, in fact, the chance filming by an underwater expedition in May 2001 of a big, strange-looking, and never-seen-before squid (more than seventeen feet long)? (Vecchione et al. 2001)
Now, you'd probably admit that the possibility of finding an unexpected "dinosaur," or at least some creature that lived millions of years ago, appears to be more plausible. But, would you be ready to stretch your willingness to the point of imagining a real, living pterodactyl, flying through North America? Some people did.
Lost Picture
It all began in April 26, 1890, when the Tombstone Epitaph, an Arizona local newspaper, published a sensational story: "Found in the Desert--A Strange Winged Monster Discovered And Killed On The Huachuca Desert." In it the monster was described as "a huge alligator with an extremely elongated tail and an immense pair of wings." The monster had been sighted and shot by two ranchers who were returning home from the Huachuca Desert. When the creature was certainly dead, they proceeded to make an examination and "found that it measured about ninety-two feet in length and the greatest diameter was about fifty inches." The wingspan, "from tip to rip," was about 160 feet. The wings, as in the pterodactyl, were "composed of a thick and nearly transparent membrane and were devoid of feathers or hair, as was the entire body."
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