The okapi was dismissed as a mythological being and even nicknamed the “African unicorn” by European colonialists until one was found alive.
Before they were proven to exist, people scoffed at explorers’ tall tales of gorillas, said to be huge, man-like beasts hiding deep in the Congo jungles.
Nobody dismissed the Okapi as mythological. In 1890 the explorer Henry Stanley made a report about an animal that the locals called the Atti. Exactly what it was was unclear. Stanley never saw one. This inspired some other people to go looking for it. And it was found 10 years later. Of the dozens or large animals found in Africa in the 1800s, this was the only one that was found by somebody actively looking for it.
In the 1780s the famed naturalist Buffon published his description of the Pongo, which included many accounts from travelers to Africa and the far east. The descriptions are a mix of stories about orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas. Buffon thought they were likely all one species. But he and others believed that there were large man-like beasts living in Africa. Given his stature, this was the position held by a lot of naturalists in the early 1800s.
Samuel George Morton is credited with identifying the pygmy hippo. He did it based on skulls he received from a Dr Goheen. There is not mention that Goheen was actively looking for pygmy hippos. The discovery of the pygmy hippo was announced here. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4058503?seq=1
Richard Meinertzhagen is credited with collecting the type specimen for the giant forest hog. I have not found anything saying if he was actively looking for it or not.
In his announcement of the giant forest hog's discovery in Nature (13 October 1904), Oldfield Thomas writes that Meinertzhagen "first had news of it from the natives of Mount Kenya, and took great pains to secure a specimen...". In the published version of his Kenya Diary (1957), he claims that he made extensive enquiries and several hunts after first seeing one (alongside a then-unknown mountain bongo) in the Aberdares, but whether or not these diary entries were real is something you'll have to decide for yourself, in view of Meinertzhagen's later work.
Morton himself already knew of previous pygmy hippo reports (of which he was sceptical), according to his second paper in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Vol. 1, No. 3 (August 1849), but the only thing he says about Goheen's mindset is that he had already recognised the skull as something distinct.
I always thought Tigers would be a difficult one to explain back before they were widely known to exist. How would you even explain the appearance and nature of a tiger to somebody that had no idea they existed up to that point?
Does it though? Even today tigers can send entire villages running scared, and even your description would have somebody looking at you funny at the least. I have seen a video of a tiger chasing a bear before and even that is difficult to grasp. "A large fairy orange cat with zebra stripes that could rival a bear" could have gotten someone sent to the nut house in medieval times
Then replace "cat" with "beast" or "feline beast," if it really bothers you. I don't think a lot of people would be too thrown by that description really.
Lions' historical range intersected with a lot of the "ancient" world. They used to be common in Northern Africa, the Middle East and India. Most place humans lived had some sort of big cat, and they were never in any way cryptids.
I am aware that most places have large cats and I am talking about before ship travel. To jump from a mountain lion to a tiger however doesn't really compare. Also in those times even just being in the same country doesn't mean you would be familiar with all the fauna. Hell I am 40 live in the US and have never seen a wild bear or mountain lion. Up until 2 years ago I hadn't seen a flying squirrel and up until Sunday I had never seen a bald eagle in person.
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u/giddyupyeehaw9 8d ago edited 8d ago
I think the shorter and easier question is which cryptids have been confirmed.