Sunday, 18 March 2012

More 'Dino'/Big Lizard Reports Out West

From JC Johnson's Facebook page, with an accompanying link to the appropriate photo album:




Some call what we were searching for, "Skunk Ape" "Swamp Ape" --The Trail for me leads to "Swamp Thing"-- it kills people.
I had previously printed photos of these footprint casts from Arkanasa without knowing their source, under the heading of "Reptoids" and thinking they were akin to the "Frogfoot" footprints I had heard of before. The truth is even more amazing-the tracks are supposed to come from a dinosaur-sized reptile said to roam the wide open spaces of the Ozarks , Texas and the Southwest. Commentary on this latter photo included the following remarks:
July 24, 2010

If that were a Gator print, the Gator would measure 40 feet long. These prints were bi-pedal according to Chuck.

Casper Oner Awesome dude!!! Where did u get this??
January 30 at 10:16pm ·

At Left is an iguana lizard foot showing how the digits are arranged and how I interpret the tracks: the same would also account for the much smaller "River Liz" or "Mini-Rex" tracks which generally range from perhaps 3 inches to 6 inches long. The tracks in these cases are definitely fully-scaled and reptilian, but the big tracks have stouter and shorter toes. Chances are the similar type Greater Dragon Iguanas in South America leave similar tracks: reports are once again that the tracks are "Three-toed" but there are confusions with the tracks of other three-toed animals there. I have seen no illustrations of the South American tracks of this type.
This is the full-sized adult of the "River Liz" or Mini-Rex, incredible though that might seem (they still could be two different species, there are not enough details on either one to know for certain.) And if you look closely there is the trace of at least one more toe to the edge and so the tracks are at least four toed and not three: some reports speak of a smaller "Thumb" claw and say that the whole print is like a human hand in shape but very much larger, and scaly of course. Below is my attempted mockup of the big lizard to scale to a pickup truck (I hope JC's informant likes the Silverado I'm giving him)
The diagram of the foot I put up is incidentally oppopsite to the way the orientation of the track cast is. The foot illustrated is the right hind foot and so is the cast, but when you turn the cast over the orientation of the toes are reversed. So that the "Thumb" on the track cast foot is on the right outside


Best Wishes, Dale D.
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21 comments:

  1. Troodon Roar27 June 2013 at 17:24

    I'm confused. How big are these animals which made the tracks?

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  2. Anonymous27 June 2013 at 19:25

    That is what the scale to the truck is for. These are a few hundred pounds at least, comparable in size to an alligator and usually "Water Monsters": you see how big a regular iguana's foot is in proportion to the rest of it, so an 18 inch footprint easily goes along with a creature 15 feet long

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  3. Troodon Roar27 June 2013 at 19:29

    Okay, but I'm still confused with the sizes of all the different types. What would be the upper size limit for the bipedal ones that look like small predatory dinosaurs?

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  4. Anonymous28 June 2013 at 04:47

    The bipedal ones can apparently get up to 15 feet long, but by that time they appear to be omnivores. If there is a distinction between carnivorous and herbivorous species, the upper size limit for the smaller kind is still in the range of 10-15 feet

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  5. Troodon Roar28 June 2013 at 14:29

    Are the smaller ones carnivorous? And do you think they are separate from the larger more herbivorous ones?

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  6. Anonymous28 June 2013 at 19:16

    We don't really have enough information to know for certain, but I think we do have a situation where the species as a whole is omnivorous, the smaller ones eat more animal matter and the bigger ones eat more plant matter. And I'm going on the idea that there is only one species now, although I did formerly support the idea there were two separate species. Reports have it that the big ones are seen poking at sheep carcasses and that they kill people that get too close, but I don't think they ordinarily behave as predators. But the younger ones will cheerfully eat bugs and spiders, eggs and birds, lizards and small mammals regularly, meaning they will eat live prey if t is easily obtainable. the middle grades of size also poke at corpses but they don't seem to eat a lot of any of the corpses they are seen poking at. But the bigger ones that are Water Monsters are generally described as lethargic, peaceful and non-aggressive. That does not mean that they will not kill people that get too close and JC Johnson says definitely "They kill people" I don't know how well that is documented but I also have no cause to doubt it right off.

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    1. Troodon Roar29 June 2013 at 09:29

      But do we know for sure that there is only one species? I think there are two: one of them are the smaller ones that are more carnivorous and walk bipedally most of the time. The other one is the water monsters, which are more herbivorous and walk quadrupedally most of the time.

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    2. Anonymous29 June 2013 at 16:38

      at not only is an option but I freely admit that was my opinion until more recently. And I would say that really we don't know enough about the situation to say one way or the other for sure.

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    3. Troodon Roar30 June 2013 at 10:17

      In the past, when that was your opinion, what did you think was the upper size limit for the smaller, bipedal species?

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    4. Anonymous30 June 2013 at 11:44

      I had said that reports of 3-4 feet tall and 6-9 feet long were reasonable. I thought that reports of 5-7 feet tall and 10-15 feet tall were unlikely. So I put the upper limit at about 8-9 feet. If there is only one species that gets much larger though, the reports of 9-12 and even 15 feet long are intermediate and headed well into the range of the larger sizes

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  7. Troodon Roar30 June 2013 at 11:02

    Also, are the smaller, more carnivorous bipedal ones also semi-aquatic? Do they spend a lot of time around water, as well?

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    1. Anonymous30 June 2013 at 11:39

      Yes, which is why they are called "River Liz" and such

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  8. Troodon Roar30 June 2013 at 13:45

    I know that they are very similar to iguanid lizards, but I don't understand how they can be classified in the same family as other iguanids when they have very different bodies (such as the longer neck, erect limbs that are more mammalian in structure, and bipedalism). How could they possibly be classified like other lizards?

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    1. Anonymous30 June 2013 at 14:21

      Those are things which are your interpretations of the reports rather than things the reports state clearly. We are making an awful lot of inferrances here. The long neck does not count, compare monitor lizards, and the reason for suggesting a similarity to iguanids in the first place is that some iguanid lizards run on their hind legs

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    2. Troodon Roar30 June 2013 at 15:05

      Yes, monitor lizards have long necks, but not iguanid lizards. And in another post, there was a Chupacabras drawing that gave it hind legs which are erect, and more mammalian in structure.

      Also, iguanid lizards do run on their hind legs occasionally, but these creature appear to be always on their hind legs.

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  9. Anonymous30 June 2013 at 18:22

    Some iguanids certainly have much longer necks than others-my point is that it is NOT an acceptable criterion for determining whether or not a given creature is a reptile. And all we ever have are very fleeting glimpses of these things. We do not have any observations that we can point to as being more authoritative than the others, or good enough to make the sort of distinctions about the legs which you are suggesting. They could only be due to poor observations and bad art. And some of the sightings DO specify creatures which are seen on four legs to start with but which run away on two legs.

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  10. Troodon Roar30 June 2013 at 19:47

    Well, even if they do sometimes walk on all fours, that's fine. However, are the hind legs significantly longer than the fore limbs?

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    1. Anonymous1 July 2013 at 03:12

      Yes, but they are commonly that way in many kinds of lizards

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  11. Troodon Roar24 July 2013 at 14:41

    Also, do these unknown iguanid lizards only run bipedally, or do they also walk bipedally?

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    1. Anonymous25 July 2013 at 02:42

      Almost invariably they are said to run, stand, or leap bipedally. They rest, climb and swim quadrupedally which also means that they are very frequently seen to convert to quadruped to biped mode or back again during the course of a normal sighting

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    2. Troodon Roar25 July 2013 at 17:44

      Do you think they spend most of their time on two legs or four legs?

      Delete

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