The Indava--Is it a Pterosaur?
The Cryptid Indava
According to the book
Searching for Ropens, rare Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs still fly in the Southwest Pacific
and probably elsewhere. The author, Jonathan Whitcomb, has interviewed many eyewitnesses. In 2004, he interviewed villagers on Umboi
Island, the home of the ropen. He believes the large (even giant) creatures found there are the same kind of creature as the
indava,
perhaps the same species.
But why believe that the indava is a living pterosaur? Don’t the textbooks declare all such flying
creatures became extinct millions of years ago? Whitcomb’s book explains that the idea, that all pterosaurs (called, informally, by
most Americans “pterodactyls”) are long gone, is not a proven fact but an assumption. But what does this have to do with the indava?
This creature has been described as the size of an airplane, but there’s more.
On Umboi Island and on the mainland of Papua
New
Guinea, giant
bioluminescent flying creatures have been seen by natives; others have seen a similar (or even the same species) creature
in daylight and the descriptions strongly suggest a giant Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed) pterosaur. On Umboi, it is called "ropen."
During
Paul Nation's 2006 expedition (to search for indavas), his interpreter, Jacob Kepas, climbed a mountain with a local village man:
Joseph. The two men saw what may have been a giant indava; it seemed to be sleeping on a cliff.
AKA Pterodactyl
More on Pterosaurs
Living Pterosaurs (SFR)