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The sukotyro was a cryptid reported from the island of Java by traveller Johan Niewhoff in 1669, described as a large, pig-like animal with a long tail and two tusks.[1][2][3]
Description[]
The sukotyro was described by Niewhoff as an animal with a "wonderful and strange shape," about the size of an ox, with a pig-like snout and a pair of "long horns or tusks that are darker than the teeth of the elephant" on each side of its head: on Niewhoff's illustration, these tusks are horizontal, with a slight curve at the end, and project from a point just behind the sukotyro's eyes, which Karl Shuker takes to be an attempt to show them projecting from the upper jaw. Other unusual physical features include "two long rough ears and a long hairy tail," as well as eyes placed higher on its head than other animals.[1]
Niewhoff described the sukotyro as a herbivorous animal, living on vegetables, which was rarely captured. The name "sukotyro" was given to it by the Chinese. Shuker notes that, whatever the sukotyro was, its identity may never be solved, as it does not seem to have been reported for centuries,[1] but Philippe Coudray is more hopeful, writing that "Java's forests are deep".[2]
Theories[]
A babirusa (Babyrousa) is suggested as a good identity by Karl Shuker.
Philippe Coudray's illustration of the sukotyro as a dwarf stegodont.
The size and shape of the sukotyro's tusks remind Karl Shuker of the tusks of a babirusa pig, but horizontal instead of vertical, which could be explained by the illustration being inaccurate: naturalist George Shaw noted that the images in Niewhoff's works were "not remarkable for their accuracy". This leads Shuker to suggest that the sukotyro could have been a form of Javan babirusa which had been transported to the island from the Celebes in the distant past, or perhaps even a naturally-occuring, undescribed babirusa species with a bulkier body, longer ears, and a hairy tail.[1]
Elephants once inhabited Java in the form of the Javan elephant (Elephas maximus sondaicus), which is now believed to be extinct, although very small elephants found in Borneo may be surviving descendants of Javan elephants imported to Borneo by a Sultan of Sulu around 1700. However, these elephants are too small to explain the sukotyro, they do not possess long bushy tails, and the sukotyro's describers were obviously familiar with elephants, as they compared its tusks to those of an elephant.[2]
An alternative, and more dramatic, theory suggested by Shuker is that the sukotyro could have been a surviving stegodont, a prehistoric proboscidean found in Southeast Asia. If the tusks of the sukotyro are drawn accurately in the illustration, then they most closely resemble a stegodont's tusks, and the floppy ears and long, hairy tail are also consistent with such an identity, although the sukotyro's snout seems rather short. In addition, a dwarf species of stegodont the size of a buffalo, Stegodon florensis, lived on the island of Flores - just east of Java - until at least 12,000 years ago, and Shuker notes that a similar dwarf species could have existed in Java.[1] In support of this theory, Philippe Coudray points out that, if the sukotyro's tusks are represented accurately in the illustration, they would prevent it from getting food into its mouth if it did not have something like a trunk, even a fairly short one.[2]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Shuker, Karl P. N. (2013) Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History, Anomalist Books, ISBN 978-1-938398-05-6
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Coudray, Philippe (2009) Guide des Animaux Cachés, Editions du Mont, ISBN 978-2915652383
- ↑ Shuker, Karl P. N. ShukerNature: THE MEGALOPEDUS, THE SUKOTYRO, AND A VERY CRYPTIC CABINET OF CURIOSITIES karlshuker.blogspot.com [Accessed 8 June 2019]