FOXSYLVANIA

– – Do pterosaurs still exist in the 21st century?- -Perhaps in Papua, New Guinea, suggests MonsterQuest. Called the Demon Flyer or Ropens by natives, stories exist concerning the creatures going back to the 16th century.  The creature is said to have killed men and scavenged graves, and may boast wingspans of over 30 feet.  It is largely nocturnal, and most strangely is in some accounts said to be bioluminescent.

Now the smart money says that pterosaurs survived to the end of the Cretaceous Period, becoming extinct about 65 million years ago.  Sightings of pterosaurs may be misidentified frigate birds or a new bat species.  Known species such as the greater flying fox (gotta love that one!) may have a wingspan of six feet.

Not to be discouraged, MonsterQuest deployed a thermal camera and a 300 square foot bat net.  The thermal camera yielded images of two campfires, and the bat net caught a blossom bat.  More intriguing was a 2006 video showing two lights thought to be the bioluminescence from some creatures; analysis of the video showed that the lights were not flashlights, fires, or meteors.

While the MonsterQuest inventigation failed to yield a video of a glowing pterosaur, New Guinea is rightfully noted to be a remote island boasting amazing biodiversity and many uncatalogued species, some of which may be surprising…