Row (cryptozoology)

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The Row (named after its cry) is reported to be a dinosaur-like cryptid from the Interior of New Guinea. The only treatment of it is in Bernard Heuvelmans' book On the Track of Unknown Animals. There is but a single report of even any native stories about the Row. The Western observer making the report claimed to have seen the animal himself and taken color movie footage of it (Heuvelmans does not reproduce a still), which did not turn out. The fellow's reliability came into question (even the native tribe whose area the Row supposedly lived in had never even been heard of, and could not be found by later, more reputable authorities) and Heuvelmans determined it to be a hoax.

[edit] Description

The Row is described as a large (20-25 feet long) dinosaur-like animal with a long neck and tail. It has a small head with a collar or crest on the neck and large plates along its back. At the end of the tail is a horn-like spine which the natives used as weapons or tools. (It is not clear if the horn is obtained through killing the animal or if it is shed.) It lives in a swampy area and is colored a brownish-green, which serves as camouflage. The report stresses that it is herbivorous and its only danger to humans is its size and strength when hunted.

Heuvelmans used the description as one of his arguments against it, calling it a hodge-podge ('chimera' in this sense had not come into usage, so he doesn't use the term but this is clearly what he means) with the body of a sauropod, the head and neck frill of a ceratopsian, and the back plates of a stegosaur. However, Heuvelmans was neither a paleontologist nor an herpetologist and did not allow for an additional 65 million years of evolution and we now know that Southern Hemisphere sauropods in particular had developed armor in the Late Cretaceous, including tail clubs. It is certainly conceivable that another line could have developed plates or frills; or that stegosaurs may have evolved long necks and tails. A ceratopsian is a bit more problematic, none are known from the Southern Hemisphere, but a neck frill in itself does not a ceratopsian make. The platypus is described as having a 'duck's bill', but the bill only superficially resembles a duck's in basic shape and is not indicative of actual relationship in the least. The same may apply in this case and it may be something like the modern Frilled Lizard of Australia.