I feel like there's 3 broad and very distinct things that get called cryptids: normal animals that generally don't live in a place being reported as living in that place (like there are places in the southeast US where mountain lions "don't live" but they actually do), animals that indigenous people say exist but which haven't been formally documented and/or are misidentification of known species (this may also overlap with the first category, if isolated examples of something are spreading out of its known habitat) and/or may already be extinct, and straight up urban legends about magical monsters that started because some guy saw a weird thing while out driving at night once.
I've even seen that first category expanded to "people say this known species that gets pretty big can be somewhat larger than has been documented so far," with regards to things like squid and wildcats, even boars which are known to get absolutely massive.
So with that in mind, the first category is probably true pretty often, even if it's not true for long (as the animal dies in an unfamiliar habitat or moves on), the second category has regularly turned out to be true or at least solvable, and the third category is bunk.
i mean also a lot of 'weird' looking animals just have disabilities or deformities. like theres one where its essentially a wolf walking on its hind legs and that can happen with any dog that loses the ability to use its front legs. its just unusual for such animals to live very long
two and three also combine big time, a lot of purported "animals" indigenous people believe in are sketchily documented and very very very very often wholly spirits and the like in their stories. You see this a lot with Sasquatch
I feel like there's 3 broad and very distinct things that get called cryptids: normal animals that generally don't live in a place being reported as living in that place (like there are places in the southeast US where mountain lions "don't live" but they actually do), animals that indigenous people say exist but which haven't been formally documented and/or are misidentification of known species (this may also overlap with the first category, if isolated examples of something are spreading out of its known habitat) and/or may already be extinct, and straight up urban legends about magical monsters that started because some guy saw a weird thing while out driving at night once.
I've even seen that first category expanded to "people say this known species that gets pretty big can be somewhat larger than has been documented so far," with regards to things like squid and wildcats, even boars which are known to get absolutely massive.
So with that in mind, the first category is probably true pretty often, even if it's not true for long (as the animal dies in an unfamiliar habitat or moves on), the second category has regularly turned out to be true or at least solvable, and the third category is bunk.
Right I think a good most of the time if indigenous people say something is there, it's there. Whether it's a misidentification or not.
Or was there at some point, at least
i mean also a lot of 'weird' looking animals just have disabilities or deformities. like theres one where its essentially a wolf walking on its hind legs and that can happen with any dog that loses the ability to use its front legs. its just unusual for such animals to live very long
two and three also combine big time, a lot of purported "animals" indigenous people believe in are sketchily documented and very very very very often wholly spirits and the like in their stories. You see this a lot with Sasquatch