Ropen

The Ropen is a cryptid from Papua New Guinea, particularly associated with Umboi Island and coastal jungle areas, described as a large flying creature with leathery, bat-like wings, a long tail and a beak-like snout, often glowing faintly at night according to local accounts, which some enthusiasts controversially compare to a surviving pterosaur. In indigenous oral tradition it is spoken of as a nocturnal creature of the mountains and swamps that feeds on carrion and is sometimes feared for attacking small animals or disturbing the dead, long predating any Western interest in the story. The legend gained international attention in 1994, when researcher Garth Guessman, sponsored by Carl Baugh's Creation Evidence Museum, traveled to Umboi Island seeking to document it as evidence for young-earth beliefs, collecting native testimonies during an unsuccessful expedition that spurred further searches into the 2000s. Mainstream science treats these claims as unsupported: the most plausible explanations involve large fruit bats, flying foxes, unfamiliar seabirds, bioluminescent insects or fish creating the reported glow, and cultural elaboration of genuine but ordinary wildlife encounters; pterosaurs are known only from a fossil record ending some 66 million years ago.