This may surprise people who believe in scientists, but until 1847 science considered the common gorilla a fiction and a "myth."
The term "gorilla" comes from a Carthaginian explorer named Hanno the Sailor who explored the African coast in 500 BC. He described how he encountered a tribe of "gorillas", monstrous and cruel creatures similar to humans.
Reports of monstrous hairy people attacking and taking over villages dragged on for centuries, but scientists never took them seriously. In the 16th century, an English explorer described the ape-like people he saw sitting around a fire at night.
Gorillas remained "myth" and "fiction" until 1847 when Thomas Savage found gorilla bones in Liberia. Then, with the help of Harvard anatomist Jeffreys Wyman, he published an official description of the species, calling it a gorilla.
But even after that, science refused to recognize the existence of gorillas. They were officially recognized as a species only in 1902, when German captain Robert von Behringe shot one of them in the Virunga region of Rwanda and took him home to Europe.
Only then did scientists admit that gorillas really existed.
The platypus is a strange animal that seems to break many rules. At the time of its first discovery by Europeans, it seemed to contradict everything they thought they knew about mammals.
The platypus is a fluffy Australian mammal that lives in rivers. It has otter legs and a beaver tail. It's not that strange so far. Then you look at the head and it looks like it has a duck's beak, something that hasn't been seen in any other mammal.
Even stranger is the fact that it lays eggs. Only five modern mammal species do this: platypus and four species of spike (anteater). Until the discovery of the platypus, it was well known that one of the defining characteristics of a mammal was the birth of live offspring.
Besides, the platypus is poisonous! Almost nothing was known about poisonous mammals. The male platypus produces venom from glands attached to the spurs of the ankle. They are believed to serve as protection against other males, especially during the mating season. No wonder then that European naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries regarded the platypus as a hoax. When the first platypus corpse arrived in Europe from Australia, scientists did not know what to do with it.
They thought it was the work of the Chinese sailors. Platypus carcasses were believed to be simply well-assembled fakes of other animals! It took zoologists almost a century to admit their mistake and finally confirm the existence of the platypus.
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