Is Cryptozoology a Defense Mechanism?

There’s an interesting opinion piece over on the London Times’ website entitled “Creatures that inhabit our guilty conscience” which examines the growth of cryptozoology as a response to species extinction and the shrinkage of spaces on the map marked by the words “here be dragons:”

Cryptozoology – the study of species sighted by explorers or recorded in folklore but unverified by formal science – is booming. In recent years there has been a flood of books, encyclopaedias and guides to cryptids, creatures both fantastical and possible that survive somewhere on the wild, uncharted borders between science and fantasy.

In a thoroughly explored world, when Google Earth can whisk us to the most remote corner of the planet via a computer screen, cryptozoology still offers mystery, discovery and the unknown. If the internet promises the whole of knowledge, our fascination with unknown beasts provides a strange counterbalance: the human need to know that we do not know everything.

Creatures that inhabit our guilty conscience – Times Online

• Merry Cryptomas!