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Description
First reported at the end of the 1990s in New Guinea, the Ropen (or Demon Flyer) is supposedly a living pterosaur, with leathery wings, a long tail ending in a diamond-shaped fin, a crested head, and a mouth full of teeth. It’s famous for digging up graves and eating the corpses, as well as occasionally attacking humans. They can be seen even from a distance because they are reportedly bioluminescent, generating their own light that causes them to glow in darkness. Sightings of distant moving lights are attributed to Ropens.

Unfortunately, the Ropen falls apart under scrutiny. Putting aside the lack of fossil evidence for pterosaurs after the Cretaceous, the Ropen description is actually a composite of two different pterosaur groups: the long-tailed, toothed Rhamphorhynchids, and the short-tailed, crested Pterodactyloids. In short, it couldn’t be a pterosaur because it doesn’t fit into the rest of the group. The supposed lights are nondescript, with multiple likely, and I suspect they’d simply be called UFOs anywhere else. Actual creature sightings are probably misidentifications of large bats and seabirds. On top of all this, the Ropen has the same problem as Mokele-Mbembe: most of the information about it comes from Young Earth Creationists seeking to disprove the theory of evolution. Considering the extreme bias under which they a searching for the creature, any information from them should be treated with extreme caution.

Description
First reported at the end of the 1990s in New Guinea, the Ropen (or Demon Flyer) is supposedly a living pterosaur, with leathery wings, a long tail ending in a diamond-shaped fin, a crested head, and a mouth full of teeth. It’s famous for digging up graves and eating the corpses, as well as occasionally attacking humans. They can be seen even from a distance because they are reportedly bioluminescent, generating their own light that causes them to glow in darkness. Sightings of distant moving lights are attributed to Ropens.

Unfortunately, the Ropen falls apart under scrutiny. Putting aside the lack of fossil evidence for pterosaurs after the Cretaceous, the Ropen description is actually a composite of two different pterosaur groups: the long-tailed, toothed Rhamphorhynchids, and the short-tailed, crested Pterodactyloids. In short, it couldn’t be a pterosaur because it doesn’t fit into the rest of the group. The supposed lights are nondescript, with multiple likely, and I suspect they’d simply be called UFOs anywhere else. Actual creature sightings are probably misidentifications of large bats and seabirds. On top of all this, the Ropen has the same problem as Mokele-Mbembe: most of the information about it comes from Young Earth Creationists seeking to disprove the theory of evolution. Considering the extreme bias under which they a searching for the creature, any information from them should be treated with extreme caution.