It’s not that I have nothing original to say today. There now seems to be so much written, online, about reports of living pterosaurs, that another quote seems in order. This one is from another page with the title “Modern Pterosaur.”

The eyewitnesses come from a number of countries and they have various beliefs and backgrounds, yet most of them have seen at least somewhat similar creatures. Common descriptions include a large or giant size, featherlessness, and long tail, and a head crest. It matters not whether the eyewitness is a supposedly superstitious native of Papua New Guinea or an airplane pilot, the creatures observed are described like pterosaurs, not any bird or bat.

. . . over a period of years, circular reasoning has become involved in discrediting the cryptozoologists who have investigated sightings of apparent living pterosaurs: Investigators are criticized by rejecting popular ideas about extinction, and those investigators are then dismissed by ridiculing their intelligence or integrity, thereby causing others to disregard the possibility of modern living pterosaurs because of the “reputation” of those who promote the idea. Let’s dispense with personal attacks and communicate through reasoning, please.

On the subject of “not any bird or bat,” I refer to another page: Flying Foxes of the Southwest Pacific. Part of it is an overview about this large fruit bat, but there is also reference to sightings of apparent pterosaurs in that part of the world:

For many years, reports of “pterodactyls” in Papua New Guinea were dismissed as misidentifications of Flying Fox fruit bats. Recent investigations on Umboi Island, however, bring to light an astonishing possibility: The creature called “ropen” does not hang upside down from a branch but holds itself upright on tree trunks. In addition, the ropen does not eat fruit but fish that it catches on reefs by using a bioluminescent glow as it flies at night, over the water.

On the southern coast of Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, a bay shelters Opai Beach, the same beach where Paul Nation and Jonathan Whitcomb disembarked from banana boats in their respective 2002 and 2004 expeditions. Near the southeast edge of the bay is a government station called “Bunsil.”

From about 1993 through late 2004, at least five living-pterosaur expeditions, on Umboi Island, were led by Americans. In this part of Papua New Guinea, many natives call the giant nocturnal flying creature “ropen.” There is no mistaking it for the nocturnal flying fox fruit bat, for the ropen glows, for several seconds at a time, with what some researchers believe is intrinsic bioluminescence.

Rex Yapi is an accounting student at the University of Technology in Lae, Papua New Guinea. Around July of 2009, he was on a banana boat in Bunsil Bay, Umboi. Those on the boat became alarmed at a large creature that was mostly under water but approaching them. They stopped the boat as the creature passed, for apparently it was catching fish or something. Only the tail of the creature was above water, but what a tail! Rex estimated the length at six or seven meters, with a “diamond shape,” which may refer to a Rhamphorhynchoid tail flange.

It was obvious to the university student that they had observed the ropen. When Rex was able to obtain the use of a computer, he emailed the American researcher Jonathan Whitcomb and reported the incident, including his feelings about it. He said, “it was a frightening scene.”