Mandarin cryptozoology?

Matthew Bille's book "Rumors of Existence" was published in 1995, and is therefore probably out of date. After all, it's subtitled "Newly Discovered, Supposedly Extinct, and Unconfirmed Inhabitants of the Animal Kingdom". Still, it's a relatively interesting "nerd book" for those interested in the wilder strands of zoology (pun intended).

However, the book is not strictly speaking cryptozoological, since the author has a very respectable and almost "Mandarin" attitude to his subject. If a strange animal is observed by a trained zoologist or equivalent thereof, it's included. If not, it's a no-no. Thus, poor Bigfoot (actually caught on tape by Patterson) doesn't exist, while animals spotted only once or twice, with no further evidence, do exist, if the observer was some obscure French biologist circa 1850.

Ironically, this attempt to play it safe with the guys over at the Smithsonian sometimes backfires, as when Bille is forced to include Ivan Sanderson as a reliable eye-witness - Sanderson, after all, was a zoologist! He was also something of a maverick, due to his seeming belief in underwater UFO bases, the Abominable Snowman, giant penguins on the loose in Florida, etc. Thus, two "living dinosaurs", Kongamato and Mokele-Mbembe (or perhaps a giant bat and an equally jumbo-sized monitor), have been included in this officially-sounding compilation, thanx to Bro. Ivan, Certified Explorer of the Twilight Zone (and the Cameroons). And yet, Sanderson never caught anything on tape and was fooled by several crude hoaxes... :P

OK, sorry, just had to point that out...

The most interesting section of Bille's book is, of course, "The Mystery Animals". I admit that I never heard of some of these creatures before. A giant octopus á la the giant squid? A lion with leopard-like spots? Dolphins with two dorsal fins? A giant salamander right in California? Others, I've actually mentioned in some of my previous reviews: the Double-Banded Argus (a bird only known from one feather of unknown provenance - please call Sherlock Holmes) and Legaut's Mystery Bird or Legaut's Giant, which was eaten rather than preserved by its discoverer, a French amateur naturalist. Hoped it tasted well, Monsieur.

Final complaint. The author believes it's self-evident that we should launch scientific expeditions to explore the last frontiers, catching and cataloguing the unknown species. Well, I don't. I think it's a good thing that some mysteries will remain unsolved, and some animals will live out their lives oblivious to the aberrant primate Homo sapiens...