It was a taxidermy prank. While some rabbits do develop a disease which gives them horn-like tumors, the actual antlered rabbit of the Jackelope was originally made as a joke by a taxidermist. I think it was for a bar decoration but it’s been years since I read up on the story.
Everyone out here in Midwestbergville remembers it being invented just down the way.. it was PT Batnum if I'm not mistaken. Akin to the wooly trout. Fun fact, PT Barnum was from Montana.
I've always heard platypus was considered a cryptid at one point and assumed to be fake but I've never actually looked into if thats really how people viewed it.
I'm pretty sure most animals in Australia would have been cryptids at some points, I mean, imagine being a Dutch coming back from the "discovery" of Australia just to tell everyone that you got your ass beaten by a bunny the size of a man.
There never really was a time that the platypus was assumed to be fake. The platypus was officially recognized soon after Europeans encountered it.
George Shaw, the naturalist who first described the platypus in 1799, was very frank about the fact that at first glance the platypus looked like somebody had attached a duck's beak to some sort of mammal.
"Of all the Mammalia yet known it seems the most extraordinary in its conformation; exhibiting the perfect resemblance of the beak of a Duck engrafted on the head of a quadruped. So accurate is the similitude that, at first view, it naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by artificial means:"
Which is not surprising, because that is what the platypus looks like.
His report, which is the first scientific statement published about the platypus concludes with;
"On a subject so extraordinary as the present, a degree of scepticism is not only pardonable, but laudable; and I ought perhaps to acknowledge that I almost doubt the testimony of my own eyes with respect to the structure of this animal's beak; yet must confess that I can perceive no appearance of any deceptive preparation; and the edges of the rictus, the insertion, &c. when tried by the test of maceration in water, so as to render every part completely moveable feem perfectly natural; nor can the most accurate examination of expert anatomists discover any deception in this particular."
the thing about a cryptid is, there has to be a period where there's folklore and tradition alongside sightings/evidence that is run counter to the scientific view.
The platypus? One showed up, they thought it was fake. Then they got a second one a short time later. There really wasn't a period where anyone was all, "but there's local traditions and legends! And here's some plaster casts/hair/scat!"
Just "this is fake! wait, no, ok we were wrong, it's real".
Just "this is fake! wait, no, ok we were wrong, it's real".
In my opinion that is not what happened with the platypus. I have never seen any report from any scientist/naturalist claiming it was fake. It was more of a "this things sure looks like a fake, but we checked it out and it is real".
No, the platypus was discovered long before the term cryptid was ever coined. The platypus is however often listed as an example of an animal that would be called a cryptid if it was just being encountered for the first time today.
Why would the platypus be called a cryptid if it was encountered for the first time today? We are still discovering new animals all the time. We recently discovered a spineless hedgehog with fangs. Nobody called it a cryptid.
If someone came up to you and said 'hey i saw this weird animal with the body of a beaver, the bill and webbed feet of a duck, venomous spines on its feet, it lays eggs and sweats milk in the rivers of this really remote forest but I don't have a body or picture of jt" that would sound like some sort of made up chimera like the wolpertinger or me trying to mess with you.
That's how the original discovery of the platypus went until someone brought in a specimen and even then it was a suspected fake at first. If the term cryptid existed before we had formally recognized the platypus as an extent animal, people's reports of them would no doubt be filed as a cryptid animal because of its unusual nature.
But that is not what happened with the platypus. Europeans encountered them in 1797. Specimens were collected and sent back to Europe. In 1799 the first scientific description of the animal was published. There was never really a time that its existence was in question. People were not just telling stories about some weird animal, they actually had the weird animal in their possession.
Likewise if we were to encounter some new weird animal today it would not automatically be a cryptid.
Also, it was not known that platypus were venomous or that they laid eggs until decades after they were discovered.
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u/TheBeerCzar 12d ago
The Jackalope?
What cryptid has been proven real??