An Amazing Coincidence

Holy Shit! I recently purchased this book on mythological imagery. As I paged through its weird contents, little did I know that I was about to discover a wonderful, and slightly unnerving similarity between the worlds of natural history, speculative evolution and North American Indian iconography.

This picture, number 401 A, in Chapter 8; Indian America, literally made me gasp. Labeled "The giant bird Kaloo, the most terrifying of all creatures," it bore a more-than-passing resemblance to...

Ok, this part is going to need some explaining to my non-zoology-nerd readers, who constitute about %90 of my readers and %99 of the real world. You know about ancient flying reptiles, right? Well, they are called pterosaurs. Pterosaurs were a really diverse group, and among their members were the Azhdarchids, gigantic flyers with wingspans up to 10-meters wide.

Azhdarchids had enormously extende, fishing-rod like necks, giraffe-like long legs and huge heads, not to mention gi-normous wings. No one was certain on how these animals lived, until famous zoologist and my close friend Darren Naish (and co-worker Mark Witton,) worked out a comprehensive review of their lifestyles. Now we know that these animals lived like gigantic storks, foraging on all-fours for small prey, and flying from one food-rich location to another. You can see Darren's blog post on the subject here, or read the technical paper here.

Anyways, the story here is: The picture in the book looked frighteningly simillar to the revised Azhdarchid postulated by Darren and Mark. The stilt-like legs, the long, curving head, the stubby tail, the straight, fishing-pole like neck with hints of lengthened vertebra inside, are all the same. Hell, even the fingers and the toes are there in the correct number and order.

But it gets even weirder. "Kaloo" does not seem to have any wings. This would have seemed odd and unlikely, had the possibility of Azhdarchid pterosaurs evolving into flightless forms not been considered after Darren and Mark's anatomical revision. Darren even wrote a follow-up in his blog, speculating on what a truly flightless Azhdarchid would have looked like. The drawing you see above is from Darren's blog. Compared with the old indian drawing, the convergence becomes even more evident. (Click on it to enlarge!)

Could this mean that a relict population of Azhdarchid pterosaurs had survived the K-T extinction, evolved into truly flightless forms, and survived until historical times to face the early American Indians? North America already has folkloric myths about giant "Thunderbirds". Could these be flightless Azhdarchids?

I think not. Although I can imagine conspiracy theorists, over-the-top cryptozoologists and of course, creationist scum having a field day with the idea of giant flying reptiles surviving until the present day, the entire prospect is highly unlikely.

To begin with, the book that contained the illustration, "Mythology Pictures," is a seriously artsy-fartsy book. Artsy-fartsy means only one thing: ambiguity. The publishers have conveniently decided not to include any sources or bibliography for the illustrations inside, so we are in complete darkness over the exact age, location or even the authenticity of the "Kaloo" image. Even the word "Kaloo" might be made-up or distorted, a search on the internet does not reveal anything simillar.

Secondly, it is very unikely that something as big as an Azhdarchid, flightless or not, to survive until the present and not leave any fossil remains during the intervening 65-million-years.

In conclusion, we are left with several options on the identity of "Kaloo" as an Azhdarchid. It is either:

1-) A bona-fide memento of a surviving animal. (Highly unlikely.)
2-) A myth started by the chance discovery of Azhdarchid fossils by Native Americans. (Still very unlikely, for such animals do not fossilize easily.)
3-) A complete co-incidence. (My opinion, despite the eerie resemblance of the drawing to the real thing.)
4-) A mistake or a forgery caused by the carelessness of the artsy-fartsy book publisher. (Seems possible, but artsy-fartsy publishers generally know jack shit about natural history, and even if they did, what would be their motive? Furthermore, Darren and Mark's revised Azhdarchid model was published after the book.)

So, dear readers, pick your choice, and feel free to add theories of your own. Probably it's all nothing, but... weird, huh?

UPDATE!

Thanks to the help of fellow blogger Leonardo Ambasciano, we now know that "Kaloo" is indeed a true Native American myth. The drawing apparently is authentic, and was labeled "Culoo" on a book called Picture-Writing of the American Indians.

In the book, Culoo is defined as the one "who caught up the mischievous Lox in his claws and, mounting to the top of the sky amog the stars, let him drop, an fell dawn to sunset." In the illustration Culoo is soaring among the stars, and appears to possess an extra pair of legs armed with claws.

Thanks Leonardo! Another great mystery is (partially) illuminated!