ABSTRACT
M ost zoologists are sceptical about the possibilities of discovering new species of large animals, and some of them do not, with legitimate scientific scepticism, keep an open mind until the species is proved to exist, but categorically deny that it can possibly do so until they have been forcibly proved wrong. Their obstinacy is based on three propo sitions: the world has now been completely explored; no new animals have been discovered for a long time - at least not since the okapi; and many of the animals alleged to exist are fossil species and therefore long extinct. All three propositions are fallacies, as I hope to show in the first three chapters of this book.
