Cryptozoology can be a very lonely pursuit.

To say that cryptozoologists (people who research undiscovered animals) get no respect is a grotesque understatement.

Animals like Bigfoot, Ogo Pogo, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Michigan Dogman, are considered by mainstream biologists to be legends, not real animals, and cryptozoology is considered to be pseudoscience, not a real science.

Cryptozoology is so reviled by some that it has spawned its own crew of passionate anti-cryptozoologists called Debunkers. If cryptozoologists sometimes do seem a bit flakey and irrational, Debunkers often sink to something like professional trolling and can be just as unreasonable.

A crankier, more self-righteous bunch of sourpusses is hard to find, and you really do have to wonder after awhile if the guy on the corner searching for Bigfoot is truly that big of a danger to society, or if something else is going on, something that has to do with known primates: namely, us.

Can't we all just get along? I mean, seriously: Lighten up you guys!

(A recent article I wrote about the Debunker/True Believer War instantly brought that very fight right into my front room--a result I found to be both funny and annoying.)

Sometimes cryptozoologists deserve at least some of the derision heaped upon them by skeptics and debunkers. The guy on the Quixotic quest that defies all reason can be combative and irritating too, and many cryptid researchers are less than scrupulous about their methodology and theories, yet quite aggressive in the defense of them.

Others, however, are gainfully employed within mainstream science and academia and are sincere, professional people who have become convinced that a specific cryptid (the animals cryptozoologists study) is the real deal. Many are careful and capable amateurs who make real contributions to real science by working out in the field on their own dime.

The fact that species formerly thought to be extinct actually do reappear is well-documented and has its very own name: Lazarus taxa.

Lazarus taxa (named after the fellow Jesus raised from the dead) are animals that disappeared completely from the fossil record, only to reappear millions of years later.

The hope of discovering a new Lazarus taxon is exactly the kind of thing that keeps cryptozoologists going in spite of all the abuse.

Ancient animals and plants vanish and then reappear with surprising frequency. The reason this happens is thought to be due to the effect of very low numbers on the work of paleontology. If animals or plants continue to exist but are fairly rare, we might not find fossils of them no matter how hard we look. The organisms are still be around, undetected for millennia, happily munching on this or that with only a few friends to keep them company.

The fossils disappear. The creatures don't.

Many cryptozoologists believe that certain cryptids are extinct species that have found a way to survive in very small numbers.

Lake Monsters are a cryptid category especially likely to be attributed to an actual reappearing species. The species most often mentioned is the Plesiosaur, a prehistoric aquatic animal with a long neck and fins that lived during the Cretaceous period and which disappeared from the fossil record about 65 million years ago.

Could a 65 million year old creature really have survived undetected in landlocked glacial lakes?

The Plesiosaur was a carnivorous animal and a large one, so it doesn't seem very likely that it would be able to find sufficient food in an inland lake. (Lake Champlain, the home of the 'Champ' lake monster is one notable exception).

But, stranger things have happened. Here are ten of them:

1. The Coelacanth. This large prehistoric fish was thought to have gone extinct 80 million years ago until a live specimen was found in 1938.
2. Monoplacophora Mollusks. These innocuous shellfish from the prehistoric Devonian period (circa 380 million years ago) were found happily alive (well, however happy a mollusk can get) in deep waters off Costa Rica in 1952.
3. The Pygmy Tarsier. This odd, gremlin-like animal was thought to have gone extinct 80 years ago, so technically the pygmy tarsier isn't a prehistoric animal, but it did make a big splash recently when a Texas A & M researcher found three of them alive and well in Indonesia.
4. The Laotian Rock Rat. Another innocuous animal thought to be extinct for 11 million years. The Laotian rock rat waas rediscovered in 1996.
5. The Lazarussuchus. I kind of like this name, and I like the whole idea of this animal. The Lazarussuchus is a very small crocodile common during late Triassic period. It was assumed to have gone extinct about 170 million years ago. So far two living varieties have been discovered, the first in 1982. A lazarussuchus is very small (a few inches long), which seems to me a good size for a crocodile to be.
6. Gracilidris. This species of 20 million year old ant, thought to be extinct and nearly forgotten by ungrateful contemporary ants, was discovered alive in Brazil by a team of scientists in 2006.
7. The Dawn Redwood. A small cluster of this extinct prehistoric redwood plant was discovered in 1944 in China by Zhan Wang. Dawn redwoods are gorgeous reminders of what the world looked like when dinosaurs roamed freely.
8. The Wollemi Pine. This conifer was known only from fossils between 2 and 90 million years old until its rediscovery in 1994.
9. The Chacoan Peccary. A peccary is a small piglike animal native to parts of South America. This particular one was only known from the fossil record until scientists discovered living specimens in 1975.
10. The Mountain Pygmy Possum. This animal is Australia's only hibernating marsupial and was known exclusively from fossil records until its discovery in 1966. It is currently facing extinction once again due to global climate change.

How likely is it that cryptids are examples of reappearing animals that are simply (so far) eluding capture or verification of a life specimen?

It is completely possible that no cryptids are examples of reappearing animals. I think it is just as possible, however, that at least some of them might well be real animals that are either assumed to be long gone from planet Earth, or brand new animals that are present in small numbers in remote areas.

In the meantime, just knowing that such animals are regularly found and recognized within mainstream science is enough to keep cryptozoologists actively looking for more of them.

Now, when is Bigfoot coming to dinner? (I'll bring the salmon!)