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Searching for Ropens |
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Media Resources: Flying Fox bat versus Ropen |
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www.searchingforropens.com/media-bat-vs-ropen |
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Up until the late 20th Century, the Flying-Fox-explanation was used to dismiss reports of giant “pterodactyls” in Papua New Guinea. Investigations from 1994 through 2005, however, reveal this explanation to be inadequate. Eyewitnesses do not describe tailless creatures with wingspans of ten feet (which could be explained by a size-exaggerated sighting of a large fruit bat having a wingspan of six feet); they describe creatures with wingspans greater than twenty feet and tails longer than ten feet.
Whitcomb’s book, “Searching for Ropens,” reveals many characteristics that distinguish the ropen from the fruit bats known as “Flying Foxes:”
1) Ropens glow at night; fruit bats do not. 2) Ropens are said to eat fish, clams, and carrion; fruit bats do not. 3) Large ropens have wingspans between ten feet and fifty-five feet; fruit bats are much smaller. 4) Large ropens have tails longer than ten feet; fruit bats do not. 5) A ropen was seen holding itself upright on the trunk of a tree; fruit bats hang upside down. 6) The ropen’s mouth has been described like that of a “crocodile” and the long beak of a bird; The mouth of the Flying Fox looks like . . . well, a fox. |
