Tracking the Ancient Griffin, Modern Monsters and the ... · I would suspect that many if not most of the ancient griffin depictions we’ve seen have simply been recreations of other

Tracking the Ancient Griffin, Modern Monsters and the “Extinct” Pterosaur Through Art, History and Science By Chris Parker, Copyright 2009

I want to begin this article by talking a bit about “cognitive dissonance”. That topic is a bit of digression though from our real topic, so I think that I would be better served by stating at the outset what I mean to accomplish along with you by the end of this article. What I hope to

demonstrate here with descriptions; photos and drawings is that 1)the ancient griffin; the “awful”, the “jersey devil”, dragons etc. are all basically one “type” of creature that is still being seen today; and 2)I hope to show using the same “proofs”—exactly what that/those creatures likely are. In the course of this work, we hope to show the cause/source for the griffin’s unique and trademarked beak/grill with a few other “discoveries” thrown in for good measure. All right? Perhaps I have been hyped up by National Geographic’s “Ida” hyperventilation (another alleged “missing link”) and thus affected, am overpromising, but we’ll see. Cognitive dissonance is the holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously causing the holder to experience an uncomfortable feeling. At least, it should cause the person in question to be uncomfortable. “Dissonance normally occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency among his or her cognitions. This happens when one idea implies the opposite of another. For example, a belief in animal rights could be interpreted as inconsistent with eating meat or wearing fur”. Wikipedia Occasionally in my work or business life, someone will offer me something, or invite me to participate in something to which my response is something like; “no thanks, I don’t do that or participate in that—I am a Christian”. To which they respond enthusiastically; “oh, I’m a Christian too”! In the recent movie; “Expelled”, Richard Dawkins revealed a bit of cognitive dissonance when the self-proclaimed champion of reason and logic admitted that it really wasn’t that he viewed evidence from intelligent design as unscientific; in fact he could accept it if it was agreed that the “designer” was some advanced alien civilization; and not God.

The dissonance that I want to talk about now though is the one involving dinosaurs and “dragons”. To the consternation of some evolutionists, the majority of Americans have not accepted the theory of evolution. Nearly half would want creationism taught in schools—along with evolution. So, why have they accepted the Darwin company line on dinosaurs? I’m not asking anyone to believe that dinosaurs still exist. I’m asking how it is that one can believe that they became extinct 45 million years before man came along with all the evidence to the contrary? Even Christians and others who don’t believe man evolved-have trouble believing that man and dinosaur ever coexisted. But here’s the crazy part! A person in full possession of his faculties can see a picture of say a winged dragon, and then see a few seconds later a picture of a dinosaur or perhaps a pterosaur and never have a question raised in his mind! Virtually every human culture that ever existed created pictures of dragons (large, reptilian, horned, rough skinned, sometimes winged, sometimes armored, dangerous creatures) in their art and in their written history—which are very similar in size and shape to “dinosaurs”, (large, reptilian, horned, rough skinned, sometimes winged, sometimes armored, dangerous creatures). The idea that these ancient cultures imagined but never saw creatures which we have fossil proof existed is dissonant; is it not? The idea that these two types of creatures are completely distinct and unrelated has been drummed into our heads by evolutionists, who have been somewhat less successful drumming the theory itself into our heads. This despite the historical accounts of real interactions with “dragons” down through history. “Myth” says science,--and we believe them. This societal brainwashing is relatively new however; one of the first complete pterosaur skeletons found, (pterodactylus) is housed in the British Museum with the Title: “Fossil Of A Pterodactyl Or Extinct Flying Dragon”. What you’d think would be happening instead would be a kind of perpetual, intellectual “whack a mole”, where every few minutes someone’s head would pop up and he’d say; “dinosaurs had to have been the inspiration for dragons” and “whack”! The evolutionists would have to give him a pop to restore order until the next head popped up. As for the Christians out there with this particular dissonance in their heads, it probably didn’t help when the KJV translators translated Gen.1:21 “And God created great “whales”. In the Prior Latin translations of the Bible, for example, in the Latin Vulgate from the fifth century, Gen:1:21 was translated “So God created the Great Dragons". No doubt that by the time of the KJV translation in the 17th century, dragons were less plentiful and unknown in certain parts of the world. The translators decided to “protect” the Bible by not suggesting that God created “mythical creatures”. The word that they decided not to translate “dragons” was tanniyn. However, in that same 17th century translation of the KJV they translated the same word; as serpent in Ex7:9: When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou

shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast [it] before Pharaoh, [and] it shall become a serpent. It wouldn’t have worked to have Moses’ rod to turn into a whale! Of course, that’s not the only place where the KJV translators and the others who followed suit translated the word tanniyn as whale in Gen. 1 but as serpent or dragon elsewhere, but we continue to digress. Ask yourself; when God referred to Satan as that old dragon; was He comparing him to a real or “mythological” creature? In the last several hundred years, more than 2,000 witnesses have claimed to have seen the “jersey devil”. That eyewitness testimony has largely been ignored. People figure, they’ve probably misidentified a sandhill crane or that maybe there was strong drink involved or perhaps they just want their 15 minutes of fame. The cognitive dissonance here is that if just one of those unbelieved, 2,000 witnesses claimed to have seen you standing over somebody with a knife, the state might quite possibly convict you of a capital crime on the basis of his/her testimony. The other night I saw yet another police officer claim to have seen a Bigfoot. I guess that they are out on lonely roads late at night quite a bit. No one’s going to believe him even though on this particular show, he passed a lie detector test. Yet, let the exact same guy claim that you were doing 67.5 mph in a 55 mph zone—and suddenly that guy’s brain is comparable to a high speed video camera and a supercomputer! Next time you’re pulled over for speeding go to court and ask the officer before the judge if he’s ever seen Bigfoot, the jersey devil or a UFO?! Case dismissed! Part I: Enter the Dragon; the Awful, the Griffin, the “Jersey Devil”, etc. Are These “Things” Still Around? An artist once explained to me that once that when it came to a painting or a drawing,

one could always tell whether or not it was of a real person. In other words, a painting of a person born out of the artist’s imagination would never be as convincing as one done using a “live” model. Is this true? I don’t know, but it struck me, with that thought in mind, that the ancient piece shown above, top right, portrayed its subjects in incredible, lifelike detail. The piece,” (At the top of the page) Table Support in the Shape of Griffins Attacking a Doe”, is Greek, from South Italy, from the 4th century B.C. Thus, it is approximately 2,400 years old. It is made of marble and has been pigmented by the artist. It is now housed at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California.

There was something about this 2,400 year old piece that struck me. It reminded me of descriptions of a flying creature I have been reading about for a number of years. The depiction itself struck me as very realistic and naturalistic. The “griffins” are as fully realized as is the doe. I would suspect that many if not most of the ancient griffin depictions we’ve seen have simply been recreations of other art. This is certainly true for instance of modern day depictions of pterosaurs and dinosaurs. Look up any dinosaur or pterosaur in Google’s image database and you will see many copies of just a few versions of that creature, with slight variations. This is fine, if the original artists got it right, but it merely perpetuates an incorrect depiction if they did not (get it right). Here is a rather extended quote from the article: What Did Dinosaurs Really Look Like and Will We Ever Know”, by William Speed Weed, in Discover Magazine, Dec. 2000, that illustrates this point: “There is precious little data about dinosaurs to transcend. What the museum scientists know about Indians, whales, and elephants is more than enough to mimic real life. But when it comes to dinosaurs, all they really have to work with is an incomplete jumble of bones. Indeed, if the exhibits department were limited to just skeletal data for its dioramas and reconstructions, these halls would take on a most unromantic flavor. For instance, the Indians in the canoe would lack noses, ears, and breasts, and the diorama artists (ignoring for the moment that they are humans themselves) would be at a loss for what to cover them in-slick skin like a dolphin? Monkey fur? Horse pelt? As for the blue whale, no one would know to make it blue. And the elephants are a special case. There's a running joke among professional dinosaur artists that goes like this: Given just an elephant skeleton, they'd probably render a titanic hamster. Does anyone know what dinosaurs really looked like? Sure we do. We see them everywhere, not just in the museums, but in magazines, movies, even in value meals at McDonald's. But all of these lifelike renderings are mostly artistic interpretations based on very sparse scientific evidence. To begin with, dinosaur skeletons are rarely found intact, and figuring out how scattered bones fit together is not always clear. Then, making the leap of placing tissue and skin on those bones is a process fraught with unknowns….” Ironically, this might mean that an eyewitness who in ancient times might have his true recreation go debunked or unrecognized because it does not match a less accurate modern depiction. This all will be revisited in Part II of this article when we make some suppositions about the actual identification of the griffin, the dragon, the “awful”, jersey devil, etc. al. -------Comparing the 2,400 Year Old Griffin to Certain Modern Descriptions of Flying Cryptids In 1925, in an article in the County Courier, Vermont, a story relates that locals were afraid of a flying cryptid dubbed the “Awful” which was first sighted atop a building at Main and River streets. The sightings of the creature lasted for the best part of a year but had entirely subsided within three years.

The creature was described thusly; “was a winged creature that resembled "a very large Griffin-like creature with grayish wings that each spanned ten-feet." The creature possessed "a serpent like tail that equaled its wing length" and "huge claws that could easily grip a milk can’s girth." In 2006, in the same town, an unidentified citizen claimed to have seen an “unbelievable looking winged monster” swoop down and snatch a large crow from a tree. At this point, please briefly compare the description of the “Awful” with the depiction of the griffin from the 4th century B.C. Graphic: Ancient seal from Israel showing flying reptile with tail vane attacking ibex-compared to 1909 jersey devil drawing. The Jersey Devil, the supposed mythical creature of the New Jersey Pinelands, has haunted New Jersey and the surrounding areas for close to 300 years-or perhaps longer. According to Wikipedia, “there are many possible origins of the Jersey Devil legend. The earliest legends date back to Native American folklore. The Lenni Lenape tribes called the area around Pine Barrens "Popuessing", meaning "place of the dragon". Swedish explorers later named it "Drake Kill", "drake" being a Swedish word for dragon, and "kill" meaning channel or arm of the sea (river, stream, etc.).” The Jersey devil is often described as “dog headed”, or horse-headed, with bat-like wings and a long serpentine tail. The creature has reportedly left hundreds of tracks. A Professor Bralhopf, (who?) opined that" the tracks were made by some prehistoric animal form the Jurassic period"5. He believes the creature survived underground in a cavern. An expert from the Smithsonian Institute had a theory about ancient creatures surviving underground. He said the Jersey Devil was a Pterodactyl. Graphic: Weird Magazine depiction of jersey devil compared to 4th century B.C. griffin.

There have been many, many news stories about the “devil” but a January 1909 story in the Hagerstown Mail, about the “devil” or the “terror” indicated that his range extended far from New Jersey. “Already reports show that it has made its impress over an area of over 1200 square, miles, and is still moving.

Those who have beheld the imprints of the Terror's feet—and they are legion now—are among the best and most. pious, fun-loving, church-going residents of the United States, people who pay taxes and stay off the grocer's blacklist,;. Not one of them thinks there is any cause for laughter. Investigation of late reports made of the trips of the terror shows that they come from the most reliable source in every instance and the faker is not on the job.

The latest returns come from Salem, Riverton, Bristol, Trenton, Moorestown, Fredricktown, Riverside, Gibbsboro, Gibbstown and other points. One story from Clayton is to the effect that the Terror was seen last Wednesday night , on the West Jersey Seashore electric line. The next sighting occurred the following evening (Jan. 18th). A policeman in Burlington, New Jersey observed the creature. He described the creature as a “Jabberwock” with glowing eyes. Later that evening, town residents began to report finding strange footprints in the snow. Graphic: 1909 jersey devil drawing and 4th century B.C. griffin At 6:00 A.M. the following morning in Burlington, a Mrs. Michael Ryan sighted the creature as it prowled through an alley. Her description gave the creature the head of a horse with long bird-like legs and short wings. Two days later the creature made another appearance this time in a Philadelphia woman’s back yard. Mrs. Davis A. White said she encountered the creature at about 4:00 P.M. Her description included alligator skin and breathing fire. Her screams brought her husband to her rescue. He chased the beast a distance and it was almost hit by a trolley car. Another report from a Salem policeman later that evening concluded the night’s activities for the devil. “ One witness testified that his dog had been mangled and killed by the cryptid. In another account, a dog was also attacked; “Mrs. Sorbinski of Camden heard a commotion in her yard. She opened the door to see the Jersey Devil standing there with her dog in its grip. She hit the devil with a broom until it let go of her dog and flew away. She started

screaming until her neighbors came over. Graphic: 1450. Griffin attacks dog. Museum Meermanno. Two police officers arrived at her house where over 100 people had gathered. The crowd heard a scream coming from Kaigan Hill. The mob ran toward the creature on the hill. The Police shot at it and the devil flew off into the night. The streets of Camden were empty after this.”

Several thousand people saw the creature in 1909. Nelson Evans and his wife, a 2:30 a.m. witness gave this description:: "It was about eight feet and a half high, with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long, and its back legs were like those of a crane, and it had horse's hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them. It didn't use the front legs at all while we were watching.

At this point, let’s just focus on the descriptions: Graphic: 1909 Newspaper depiction of the jersey devil and 4th century B.C. griffin

●In 1985, in London, an Englishman named Kevin Chippendale spotted an unknown creature flying near the rooftop of an apartment building. He described it as looking like "a dog with wings" and "having a long muzzle and four legs with what looked like paws.” He also said that it reminded him of a griffin. …..The griffin was even seen by a psychologist, John Olssen, one morning while he was jogging beside the Thames. By March the griffin was mentioned frequently in the press and featured on London Weekend Television's The Six O'Clock Show.

●Ron Bogacki, in an article in Unknown magazine entitled "We Saw a Gargoyle," recounts an encounter in an Elmhurst, Ill. Park along with several other adults, with a “gargoylesque” creature. There further description: “large - perhaps 9 feet tall, if standing - with dark gray leathery skin, a muscular body with strong arms, golden horns on its head, huge wings and a long curling tail. Graphic: Parthian Empire, Parthia, Nysa, 2nd Century B.C. Ivory. Elrina’s 753. A lion-griffin with curved horns and claws is the terminal figure of this rhyton reassembled from 350 fragments.

●"I looked out upon the Delaware and saw flying diagonally across what appeared to be a large crane, but which was emitting a glow like a fire-fly. Its head resembled that of a ram, with curled horns, and its long thick neck was thrust forward in flight. It had long thin wings and short legs, the front legs shorter than the hind." — E.W. Minster, Bristol, PA. Sighted on January 16, 1909 ●"As nearly as I can describe the terror, it had the head of a horse, the wings of a bat and a tail like a rat's, only longer." —

Howard Campbell, who claimed to have shot the devil near Atlantic City (see above). Sighted on January 21, 1909. ●Woodbury, NJ.: May 13th, 2001: I was on my way dropping off my girl, when something ran in front of my car. I jumped out and saw that it was not a deer so I jumped back in my car. It ran off into the dark. He was about 6 feet tall, has wings, horse/dog head, 2 legs with hooves and was black. njdevilhunters.com , ●2003 Bayonne, NJ. “The monster had a long brown neck with a mouth like either a dog or a horse (I think more of a horse because it was larger than a dog's mouth). Its wings were shaped like a bat's, however it was almost like a mix between a bird's and bat's because the wings were skin. The monster's eyes were blood red, the body of the creature was almost too dark to see but what I did see was that it had a large figure either like a horse or something of great power”. njdevilhunters.com

Graphic: Griffin from 4th century and two versions of chupacabra

●Egg Harbor Township, NJ: ”The creature looked to be about 4 to 6 feet tall. The head is awful - it has two large eyes, an animal head or snout, a large bulbous forehead with what appears to be horns in the front”. njdevilhunters.com

●One of the more unusual sightings within a raft of unusual sightings was one that occurred in 1966, in Edison, N.J. …Janet and Frank were sitting & talking, with their car parked facing the exit out to the road and the quarry cliff side directly behind them, when they suddenly heard a “very loud, galloping sound from behind” and turned to look out the rear window at the noise. What they saw then was described as a “large horse-like creature, with hooves” that “glowed with a green transparent light” and rapidly flew down into the quarry floor and dropped down by the couple’s parked car. ….“The scariest thing about this creature was that I could see right through it” Janet recalled, “It was right at the side car window, I could see the cliff right through its body, and I remember being amazed that I could see the cliff ledge and sky so clearly through the creature’s body”. Both Janet and Frank stressed the loudness of the galloping noises, the horse-like appearance of this creature and also the incredible speed with which the creature suddenly “dropped” down upon them. “This creature was not a bear or deer or anything that I could ever explain”, Frank continued ,“with the glow around the creature’s body, I’d say that it was approximately horse-sized in actual body but the light it projected spread as wide and high as the side of a house”….. http://www.rutgersrarities.com/ It should be noted that as strange and unbelievable as this sighting might seem to be, quite a number of witnesses have claimed that bioluminescence is a feature of recent nighttime sightings of pterosaur like creatures such as the Indava of Papua New Guinea. Along with these oral, eyewitness descriptions, we have provided a number of photographic and graphic comparisons of the Greek, griffin from the 4th century B.C.

with contemporary depictions of flying cryptids like the jersey devil”. Graphic: Monster Quest jersey devil and 4th century B.C. griffin. I would argue that there is a strong correlation between this ancient depiction and the current drawings the jersey devil, etc. I do recognize that many of these drawings are not original material

created to illustrate a particular sighting with eyewitness assistance. Many of them are simply reinterpretations of previous drawings. This is a factor with ancient dragon and griffin depictions, with contemporary drawings of the jersey devil and with current drawings of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. Still, we do think that a strong connection can be seen in these physical descriptions and as well as with the photo/graphic evidence --and that ancient griffin. Have I successfully made the case? You’ll have to decide that. But in the meantime, just what are these creatures that were seen and described several thousand years ago and which are still being seen today—and what kind of proof of their true identity can be offered? Part II: On the True and Continued Existence of Real Living Creatures Which Science Calls “Mythological” and Certain “Proofs” Offered

“I have, therefore, but little hesitation in gravely proposing to submit that many of the so-called mythical animals, which throughout long ages and in all nations have been the fertile subjects of fiction and fable, come legitimately within the scope of plain matter-of-fact Natural History, and that they may be considered, not as the outcome of exuberant fancy, but as creatures which really once existed, and of which, unfortunately, only imperfect and inaccurate descriptions have filtered down to us, probably very much refracted, through the mists of time”. Mythical Monsters, by Charles Gould, 1886

As the now thousands of eyewitnesses down through the ages can attest, Charles Gould was very likely correct when he said that many so-called ”mythical animals” were part of the “natural history” of the world, but wrong when he uses the phrase “once existed”. Creatures who were first written about and pictured centuries before the birth of Christ were seen and described through the medieval period—and as we saw in Part I of this article, are still being seen today. Throughout the history of our planet, only birds and pterosaurs have the ability to fly in the manner described by the eyewitnesses and artists through the ages. Only pterosaurs have; bat-like wings; a reptilian, dragon-like or serpentine character, long tails (some species), tail vanes (some species), hands and feet, teeth etc. etc. Many eyewitnesses have even suggested that the strange, winged creatures that they encountered or witnessed reminded them of or looked like pterosaurs. And, as I will develop, a little further into this presentation, I believe that the griffin is a particular type of pterosaur. There is of course a problem with such identification; science tells us that pterosaurs became extinct between 65 and 70 million years ago. It would be a matter of some inconvenience to evolutionary theory if pterosaurs were shown to still be flying around in the sky today so that the many thousands of eyewitness accounts have been discounted. It is not just that the idea that they are pterosaurs that is discounted, the idea that any creatures resembling the griffin of ancient lore actually exists or have existed in the past is considered laughable and scientifically unsophisticated.

So, how does science account for the voluminous eyewitness testimony and for the representation of creatures like the griffin in virtually every ancient culture? Generally, it has simply labeled all such data as mythological. In the past few years, Adrienne Mayor, a folklorist currently at Stanford wowed the skeptical world with her book The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times. In it, she asserts that the “mythology” of creatures like the griffin was created by the Greeks and Romans to explain the various fossils of dinosaurs that were discovered in that era. She specifically identifies the fossils of protoceratops, a “beaked” horned dinosaur as the inspiration behind the griffin. The beak of the protoceratops she is convinced is the model for the griffin” beak”, which has been portrayed consistently through many cultures from 500 B.C. through the middle ages-and even in modern eye-witness accounts. The protoceratops of course, had no wings. No doubt dinosaur fossils were seen and misunderstood in ancient times. In modern times paleontologists originally thought that the pterosaur was a sea-going creature whose “wings” were used for paddling and the head has been put on the wrong end of a dinosaur and in another incident, the wrong head placed on a dinosaur’s long neck. Certainly, the probability of mistaken assumptions about giant fossil remains was even greater in the ancient period mayor writes about.

Graphic: Protoceratops skeleton There is however, something somewhat amiss with the idea of the griffin as a mythological creature. As Mayor has to admit; it does nothing particularly ‘mythical”-it acts as a real creature does. Mayor recently had an exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History entitled; “The Griffin and the Monster of Troy” in which she promoted her griffin as protoceratops theory. A reviewer wrote: “Mayor writes that the griffin was no simple composite;

that it didn't seem to belong with other 'obviously imaginary' hybrids of Greek tradition like Pegasus (a horse with wings), the Minotaur (a man with a bull's head), or the Sphinx (a winged lion with a woman's head). Unlike these creatures, the griffin did not play a role in Greek mythology, but instead was a creature of folklore, grounded in naturalistic details. Plus, the descriptions of these griffins seemed to remain constant over many centuries. These facts led Mayor to believe that the myth of the griffin may have been based in paleontological legend.” Clearly Mayor and evolutionists felt that there was “evidence” out there from ancient sources that needed to be explained in a way consistent with evolution and materialism. In doing so, they’ve placed the ‘ancients” in an interesting box. They believe them to be unsophisticated enough to have conjured up myths from fossils of dinosaurs-but dismiss evidence that the ancients may have been portraying pterosaurs because the depictions are not scientifically accurate enough.

If a live pterosaur is captured or filmed in an unambiguous way, much will change. Adjustments will have to be made in the theory of evolution (it’s extremely malleable), a ready explanation for mothman, the “awful”, chupacabra, the jersey devil, the griffin, the dragon and many other beasts will be apparent. They may be found to be responsible for “cattle mutilations” and strange disappearances. If in fact the pterosaur is found to be bioluminescent, as many witnesses have stated certain “UFO” sightings may find an explanation. Our view of the lack of sophistication and the myth making and superstition of the ancients will have to be adjusted. Adrienne Mayor’s books will be less popular and less influential. I will now move to that portion of this article in which I try to make the case that the griffin was based on real creatures (likely the specific pterosaur Scaphognathus) and not on the fossil remains of extinct dinosaurs like protoceratops. -------Know Your Pterosaurs Earlier in this article we quoted William Speed in Discover Magazine pointing out that no one really knows what a dinosaur looked like. This is most certainly true of pterosaurs as well. “No one knows exactly what they (pterosaurs) looked like; to date, no pterosaur fossil has preserved the coloring of their skin or fur. It is not unreasonable to assume, however, that they could have sported "plumage" in various colors just like birds, that served several purposes: to attract mates, display their maturity to rivals, provide concealment against both predators and prey. It is speculation, but sea-going pterosaurs could have been colored similarly to the sea-going birds of today. Most are white or off-white with counter shading between their dorsal and ventral sides.”…… Pterosaur FAQ’s There are currently more than 60 known genera of pterosaur. There are probably at least as many as that which have not yet been discovered. Many of the genera known to science are known from only one, two or a small handful of partial or incomplete skeletons. One way to think about the variance in pterosaurs is to picture the genetic variability of dogs—from the Chihuahua to the Great Dane. Not only that, there’s no reason to believe that their gene pool wasn’t constantly intermixed as dogs are when different breeds mate. Graphic: The pterosaur as marsupial bat. 1857. Gosse’s Omphalos. Ironically, since the science illustrators and others who have “designed” the way pterosaurs are depicted today have never seen a pterosaur, the modern depiction of the pterosaur is based on the interpretations of prior artists—which I believe to be the case with respect to ancient depictions of griffins/dragons/pterosaurs as well. One thing that you can be quite sure of; no pterosaur illustration done for or by scientists is going to remind you very much of a dragon or a griffin.

Early on the pterosaur as bat analogy informed reconstructions of them. It was thought that like bats, their wings were attached at the ankle or lower leg. This depiction is not at all similar to the wings portrayed on griffins and dragons of antiquity however, and of course, pterosaurs are supposed to be reptiles, not mammals though they have the mammalian four chambered heart; air sacs in their bones like birds and may have been covered with hair. Very un reptile-like. . Recent finds of pterosaurs with wings clearly delineated, indicate that pterosaurs had narrow wings closely resembling those of the dragons and griffins. (Older pterosaur fossils as well, take another look at the pterosaur skeleton from the British Museum above.) Though narrow, “sparrow-like” wings vs. wider “bat-like” wings is still an area of controversy in science, the point is that one can not say that a narrow wing on a griffin, without an apparent attachment to the leg rules out a pterosaur depiction. “What did pterosaurs look like when they were alive? Did they have relatively broad wing membranes [patagia from hereon] that - like those of most bats - stretched as far as their ankles, or did they have narrow patagia that attached to their hips, or perhaps to the tops of their thighs? Until the 1980s, pterosaurs were pretty much universally depicted as possessing broad-chord wings that extended to their ankles. There were exceptions: K. A. von Zittel (1882) imagined pterosaurs as possessing narrow, swallow-like wings that did not attach further distally than the knee, and Harry Seeley (1901) opined that the patagia may not have incorporated the hindlimbs at all. But, mostly, pterosaurs were regarded as bat-winged, an image that Kevin Padian (1987) argued to be primarily typological (viz, pterosaurs were initially imagined as bat-like, therefore they must have had bat-like patagia). It’s well known that, following his studies of Dimorphodon and other pterosaurs, Padian championed the idea that pterosaurs were agile cursorial bipeds, and that their patagia were narrow and did not incorporate the hindlimbs (Padian 1983). This idea was popular for a while but, judging from the way pterosaurs are depicted today, it doesn’t seem that popular now (though this isn’t to say that there aren’t scientists and artists who are reconstructing pterosaurs in this manner).” Darren Naish, Tetrapod Zoology It’s possible that the various genera of pterosaur had slightly different wing connections, however, wings attached to lower legs or ankles would have made pterosaurs less aerodynamic and would have made them very clumsy on the ground. Such was not the case with respect to descriptions of dragons and griffins (pterosaurs?) in antiquity-those who potentially actually saw them in flight and on the ground. -------Pterosaur Anatomy—Body Shape

One of the pterosaurs that we will shortly be very interested in is Scaphognathus . according to Wikipedia.. “Scaphognathus . (meaning "tub jaw") was a pterosaur that lived around Germany during the Late Jurassic. It had a wingspan of about 1 meter. At present it is known from only two specimens……. Physically it was very similar to Rhamphorhynchus, albeit with notable cranial

differences”.

Clearly it makes little sense to speculate about the size of Scaphognathus or its range given the discovery of only two fossils thus far. Note that Rhamphorhynchus, a similar pterosaur was thought to have a wingspan up to 35 feet which would have made quite an impression on anyone who had seen one. John Goertzen, in his paper “Scaphognathus crassirostris: A "Living Fossil" Until the 17th Century, that a “dragon” who had terrorized the local population near Rome in 1691 had been killed and a drawing of its skeleton preserved by Cornelio Meyer, a civil engineer an author of among other books; “Nuovi Ritrovamenti Dati in Luce” (New Information Brought to Light). We have said and others have said that the artists currently responsible for our notion of what pterosaurs look like –have not seen a pterosaur, and don’t really know what the assembled form should look like. Further, early on and continuing today, scientific illustrators have assumed a bat-like model for pterosaurs. Meyer’s pterosaur however, does not evoke the bat; rather it reminds us of the dragon or the griffin. Naturally science has paid no attention to this man of learning and has forgotten or ignored this drawing. Figure 1 shows the “Meyer” drawing on the left compared to a drawing of a fossil discovery of and assembly of Scaphognathus by modern paleontologists. Figure 2 shows how Meyer’s assembly is consistent with the assembly of the bones by current scientists and Figure 2A compares Meyer’s drawing with a recreation of a very similar pterosaur, Rhamphorynchus. I believe that the Meyer drawing is an accurate recreation

of Scaphognathus. In fact, it is a more faithful and accurate depiction than are our modern bat-like version of the pterosaur. (The front arms and hands of this pterosaur are under the wings, which is proper).

Tail vane Some long tailed pterosaurs had a tail vane, a

non-skeletal flap of skin which is believed to have been of used as a rudder. The ancients often depicted this unusual feature on their dragons and griffins. -------Pterosaur Anatomy—“Hands and Feet” Pterosaurs had four “fingers” and five toes, with the fifth toe pointing rearward. The fourth finger was extremely elongated and formed the leading edge of the wing. If you were a pterosaur and you were to place your hands out in front of you; there would be no thumb and your ‘pinky” would be elongated and encased in the wing along the full length of your wing surfaces to the left and the right. Only three fingers would be available for grasping or climbing etc.

This means that the “ancients” were correct when they portrayed the hands and the feet as completely different in form. This may have led some to suggest that a different animal is being portrayed in the front and back half of the griffin. We’ll make note of that in a short while. The fact that pterosaurs had hands and fingers, possibly to grasp or hold prey will be something to remember when we examine some ancient griffin depictions. This is what science says about the pterosaur’s grasping capabilities: “A study of the claws of ancient flying reptiles known as pterosaurs suggests that some of the creatures may have walked like present-day herons and used claws on their wings to hold prey. ……Pterosaurs had claws both on their feet and on their wings. An analysis of more than 100 museum specimens shows that the curvature of claws on pterosaurs' wing fingers was, on average, comparable to that of perching birds. Claws on the pterosaurs' feet, however, were almost straight, like those of birds that walk on the ground. This combination hints that pterosaurs didn't live in trees, says Krauss. Scientists have long debated whether pterosaurs walked bipedally as people do or scrabbled along the ground on all fours as bats sometimes do. Krauss and his colleagues contend that pterosaurs walked upright but used their curved wing claws to hold prey steady while they consumed it. Such a technique would have helped prevent wriggling meals from snapping off the pterosaur's delicate teeth”.--S. P. The Free Library, Science Service -------Pterosaur Anatomy—“Wings” We’ve already addressed pterosaur wings with respect to their wideness or narrowness and concluded that they were “narrow” as clearly shown in certain fossils. If the wings do attach lower onto the body similar to bats, it is only in some species and the other attachment may be as high as at the thigh or hips, preserving a wing consistent with that of the dragon. But what did the wins look like? The ancients rarely painted or sculpted a totally bat-like wing –except in shape. Quite often, the wings were portrayed with feathers although managing to maintain a bat-like shape. But if the ancients actually were eyewitnesses to living pterosaurs, why did they portray the griffin with feathered wings? It could be, that many artists of the time were not actual eyewitnesses themselves but were portraying limited witness descriptions. It could be that like illustrators do today, let their drawings be influenced by prior drawings, so that certain features become “traditional” rather than actual. Several modern eyewitnesses have provided another clue. They have described the wings as being halfway between a bird’s wing and a bats wing. It has been discovered that the wings of the pterosaur were stiffened with fibers (possibly keratinous) on the

underside of the wing, arranged in a pattern that parallels the long axis of the feather shafts in bird wings!. (Padian) These regular and very thin structures are called actinofibrils and were noted by some of the earliest pterosaur fossil discoverers and basically ignored for some time. These fibers created a feather-like wrinkling of the underside of the pterosaur wing.

Photo: “Parallel fibers that stiffened a pterosaur's wing membrane—each just two-thousandths of an inch (0.05 millimeters) thick—are visible in this fossil of a Rhamphorhynchus. The fossil was found in Germany's Solnhofen limestone beds, where incredibly fine grain preserves minute details”….National Geographic Pterosaur wings appeared to have been a complex, hybrid structure

which gave the wing strength and flexibility. In addition to the feather-like actinofibrils, pterosaurs are unique among “reptiles” in that they may have been covered with hair. For instance, a fossil of Sordes pilosu (hairy demon) was so named due to its abundance of hair. Science argues that it is not “true” hair because it has already decided .that pterosaurs are reptiles. Perhaps the ancients were correct in depicting a narrow, ribbed wing, with the appearance of feathers. If as a pterosaur, you were to extend your hands forward, and together, your wings would extend directly backwards, parallel with the ground.

If as a pterosaur you were to place your “hands” on the ground as a quadruped would, (on all fours) your wings would point directly upwards over your shoulder roughly perpendicular to the ground. (Figure 4, Positions 1 and 2 respectively). This as we will show is a position

(Position 2) often captured in ancient griffin depictions.

-------Pterosaur Anatomy—“The Source for the Griffin “Beak” was not Protoceratops” Griffin representations have been amazingly consistent culture to culture and down through the centuries. One of the consistent features is the griffin “beak’. That’s the feature that has caused some to suggest that the griffin has the head of an eagle. Adrienne Mayor has suggested that this curiously consistent griffin feature is the result of ancient peoples reacting to fossils of protoceratops. A griffin and a drawing of a protoceratops fossil are shown to the right. For several years, when it became clear to me that dragons and griffins and other so called “mythical” creatures were the result of ancient peoples having been eyewitnesses to pterosaurs of various types I’ve been looking for the specific

type of pterosaur with the eagle-like beak. Dimorphodon is a possible candidate, (shown here in “Position 2”) and remains so, but an alternate solution came to mind when studying the fossil skull of Scaphognathus.

First, note the similarity between this sculpture from Ljubljana and Cornelio Meyer’s drawing of a pterosaur that I was persuaded was Scaphognathus due to the headcrest (Goertzen). This sculpture comes from Ljubljana. Dragons are the symbol of that city. This dragon is one of a number on Dragon Bridge in that City and were sculpted around 1895; too early to have been influenced by the bat-like pterosaur depictions of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The dragon itself is built on the model of the dragon which had long been a symbol of the City of Ljubljana, Slovenia, said to be modeled after a dragon encountered by Jason and the Argonauts.

Figure 5 shows a photographic comparison of the skull of Scaphognathus with the head of the dragon of Ljubljana. I noted this dragon initially because of its lifelike detail. It may be that this dragon is a closer to life depiction of Scaphognathus than are the current bat-centric depictions of Scaphognathus that

artists currently favor.

Apropos of nothing, perhaps I was even struck by the similarity of the notches on the back of the Scaphognathus skull and on the head of the Ljubljana dragon. Figure 6. This drawing (from dinodata.org) of the Scaphognathus skull makes a direct comparison of the Scaphognathus skull with that of the Ljubljana dragon’s. (The drawing omits the head notches on the back of Scaphognathus’ skull). As you can see, the eye sockets, teeth and jaws match the very nicely. Most current drawings of Scaphognathus assume that the front teeth protrude in a downward direction from the mouth. However, as you can see from the graphic, the teeth of the skull fit rather nicely into the “beak” of the dragon. Is the griffin beak caused by the soft tissue of the griffin wrapping over its front teeth? Whether or not one agrees that Cornelio Meyer’s sketch and the Ljubljana “dragon/griffin actually represents Scaphognathus, several pterosaurs have similar “extending” front teeth and it is certainly possible that this is the origin of the griffin “beak”. I think that my idea is at least as “scientific” as is Adrienne Mayor’s griffin as protoceratops hypothesis. Ancient Dragon/Griffin Depictions Indicating Specific, Unexplained Knowledge of Pterosaur Features

Arimaspe and Gryphon, Pompeii “This fresco comes from the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii and was reconstructed from fragments. It shows a battle between a gryphon, a legendary beast with the head, talons and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, and a hooded figure, trying to protect himself from the gryphon claws with his leather shield. It dates from about 120 years before the eruption which destroyed Pompeii in AD79”

Aliraqi.com This “griffin” appears in this fresco as a natural creature. As Mayor noted in her book, there is nothing particularly “mythological” about how the griffin appears in ancient art and history. The narrow wings, the long tail (possible tail vane),

Possibly the most telling feature are the “hands” which show three fingers, which is precisely correct (pterosaurs have four, one of which is elongated and is hidden inside the wing) and unprecedented elsewhere among wing creatures. The hands are precisely in the correct location as well—they appear to be on the wing. The wings are depicted as feathered; what we know about pterosaur wings is that they were not bat-like as frequently depicted by modern illustrators but had “hybrid” wings with “feather-like actinofibrils” on the underside of the wings for stiffness. The form of this griffin follows Cornelio Meyer’s 1691 drawing of an alleged living fossil rather than the bat-like depictions of today. Lekythos with Boar Hunt Xenophantos C.380 BC Hermitage Museum

Again, this griffin/pterosaur is depicted in a common scene; a boar hunt. Scholars have hypothesized freely to explain why in such a common scene, a “fabulous” creature is depicted in an ordinary way engaged in nothing “mythical”.

“This large squat lekythos was discovered during excavations at a necropolis in Panticapaeum (Kerch), the capital of the Bosporan Kingdom. The vase is decorated with a hunt scene: warriors on foot, on horseback and in chariots chasing real and fabulous animals. The presence of the fabulous blue griffin side by side with a real wild boar has led some scholars to assume that this vessel was created specially for the Bosporans: local gold coins with representations of a

griffin (as the symbol of Panticapaeum) were minted from the 4th century BC……..

This griffin appears to have a pterosaur tail vane and in from resembles the Goertzen/Meyer “living fossil” dragon almost 2,000 years later. A word about the wing placement; pterosaur wings extended to the hand, Those ancients who made the arm part of the wing, even though not scientifically correct, show that they understood that the wings did not simply grow out of the animals back with no connection to the front arms.

CORNELIS DE JODE Novae Guinea 1593.

From the Speculum Orbis Terraum published in Antwerp in 1593. This is one of the first printed maps to hint at a possible coastline of an Australian continent: the first landfall was not made until 1605-6. antiquemaps.co.uk/book/chapter1.asp This 1593 sea chart appears to show not one, but two types of pterosaurs. One pterosaur type shown flying, is clearly recognizable as some type of pterosaur depiction, although not scientifically correct. The pterosaur on the ground has many recognizable pterosaur features and is very close to the “living fossil” (Goertzen) of 100 years later.

Some modern eyewitness to the jersey devil has noted that the creature’s hands hung limply—in the manner that some would attribute to t-rex. These creatures’ hands are hanging also.

Medieval Griffin England (Salisbury?), c 1230-1240

What is interesting about this medieval griffin; in form not unlike the Goertzen “living fossil”, the tail vane of the Rhamphorhoid pterosaurs, the ability as science has concluded to grasp prey, three fingers on each hand.

Now note this; “A strange little bone called the pteroid protruded from the

wrists of pterosaurs, the flying reptiles of the Mesozoic. It was sort of like a thumb, but extended from the base of the wrist and pointed in the opposite direction - towards the body. Or

at least that's what most palaeontologists believed; because that was the orientation it always took in fossilized animals. Now, Matthew Wilkinson, David Unwin and Charles Ellington argue that it pointed straight forward - and may have been instrumental in allowing the largest pterosaurs to fly at all.” ….. Journal of Experimental Biology

This is one of a number of griffin/pterosaur depictions that highlight this feature, including Griffins Attacking Doe, from the 4th century B.C. at the beginning of this article. In addition to this absolutely conclusive pterosaur identifying feature, it is clear that the wings of the creature are linked to the arms. One of the connections of actual pterosaurs is at the elbow.

Griffin Catching Hare; 1490

Griffin catching Hare. Taken from the medieval carvings (1490 – 1495) from within the choir stalls of Ripon Cathedral. This three fingered griffin (pterosaur feature) grasps a hare with hands (pterosaur feature). Photo: Medieval Phil

Terminal. Apollo on a Griffin, 4th century BC, Russia; Left This long tailed griffin’s hands issue directly from its wings, which is correct. Right: Temple of Apollo, Didyma, Turkey 6th century B.C. Did Cornelio Meyer know about this Turkish griffin? Or were depictions consistent because there was in fact a real creature seen and recorded by many cultures?

Conclusion: Charles Gould was likely correct in Mythical Monsters (1886) when he said “that many of the so-called mythical animals, which throughout long ages and in all nations have been the fertile subjects of fiction and fable, come legitimately within the scope of plain matter-of-fact Natural History.” There is a high correlation between the known features of pterosaurs and many ancient and even current depictions of griffins, dragons, the jersey devil chupacabra etc. These creatures apparently have not been extinct for more than 65 million years but instead have always been a part of human history.

It may be that certain UFO sightings, (bioluminescence) and certain animal mutilations can be fairly attributed to them (pterosaurs) as well and might explain why tracks were not found at the sites of these animal attacks. Of course, certain aspects of this terrorizing and sometimes merely annoying creature have been mythologized, exaggerated, mistaken etc. This does not mean that these creatures didn’t exist. They were probably never common but rare; and as apex predators each probably had a large territory in which it hunted. So what happened to them? My guess, the crossbow and gun powder happened to them and they became even more rare.