Cryptozoology

[Donnmathan]

Out of sheer morbid curiousity...where does mainstream science sit on the subject of cryptozoology? I've always understood the problem to be that those who say they follow the discipline tend to look for the unlikely (living dinos, mothman, etc), as well as the more probable (the new, half-proven great ape in Africa, a new antilope species in Vietnam). Would the biology-type professionals here agree with that statement, or is it more blurred?

[BioBeing]

I think you are probably correct.

There probably are species we (as in modern science) do not know about. The Vietnamese antelopes are a good example of that. While we were surprised to find them where we did, antelope are not exactly unknown, nor was it biologically impossible for them to have been there.

With something like, say, a new species of ape, then we might find it (assuming it exists) where we expect to find apes. Not in the middle of the Australian outback. So the claim should match what we do know about biology.

Somethings, like the current day african dino (Mokele-mbembe), are probably misidentified. Seems to me that that one is more likely a hippo.