Wooden Carvings of ropen-like animals
Museum exhibits in Port Moresby support a longstanding tradition of a large flying creature
in Papua New Guinea.
Although these wooden carvings do not closely resemble any known pterosaur, the artist or artists themselves
may not have observed the creature depicted. Artistic license should be taken into account when an artist creates while listening
to another person’s verbal description.
But some aspects of these carvings correlate with accounts
of sightings of the “ropen”
(also known as “duwas,” “indava,”
and "seklo-bali") creatures seen in coastal and inland areas
of Papua New Guinea, including Umboi
Island.
Please consider the web sites on the left. The living-pterosaur interpretation of the origin of these carvings may
seem odd, at first, but eyewitness reports of apparent in-the-flesh living pterosaurs are the key; the wooden carvings are
secondary.