Sightings

Great numbers of pterosaurs (TARE-oh-SORS) were killed in the Flood. These were sometimes large, but delicate, flying reptiles. Many of their fossils have been found. Are all the pterosaurs in the world dead today? Almost surely, but some people still hope. In Africa, a scientist once found evidence that a few might still be alive.

Natives living in northern Zimbabwe described a strange flying animal which they called the “kongamato.” It was not a bird but more like a reddish-colored lizard with bare, bat-like wings. The distance between its wing tips was four to seven feet.

The scientist showed the natives pictures of various animals, both living and extinct. Each person interviewed said the Pterodactyl (TEH-ro-DAK-till) was most like the Kongamoto. These animals are supposed to live mainly in a huge, dense area called the Jiunda Swamp. Researchers have heard of animals like this in other places, too.

Flying reptiles were also reported in Europe in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.¹ And an authority reported sighting a flying reptile near Mt. Pilatus, in Switzerland, as late as 1649.² The folklore of the Sioux Indian tribe also tells the story of a flying reptile, named the “Thunderbird”, that was seen falling from the sky after being struck by lightning. It has appeared in Indian tales ever since.³

NEXT — “Dragons” in the Sea

References & Footnotes

1. Anglo Saxon Chronicle, Editor, with a translation by B. Thorpe, V.2., Rolls Series 23 (London: 1861), p. 48.
2. R.W. Chambers, Beowulf (Cambridge: 1959), p. 11 footnote.
   Johann J. Scheuchzer, Itinera per helvetiae alpinas regiones, III (1723), p.385. Helvetiae historia naturalis, Oder natur-historie des schweitzer landes, 3v. (Zurich: In der Bodmerischen Truckerey, 1723). (Quotes accounts of dragons seen by priests and contemporaries.)
3. Verrill, pp. 56-57.
   Darlene Geis, Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals (NYC: Grosset and Dunlap, 1959), p. 9.

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