The Gorilla
If we told you that Gorillas were once considered to be a complete myth, you’d laugh us out of the room. Many found them to be mysterious animals that would be impossible to ever see. To be fair, for the longest time, humans did not really interact with known Gorilla habitats. Those that did would often go back to tell their friends about the experience. Dating back to the 5th Century BCE, tales of “human-like monsters” were known for visiting human camps. These creatures were like dark-haired humans but had ten times the strength of any human being.
Yet these mysterious animals eventually lost their mystery. In 1847, scientists finally and officially identified the species when they found and studied a gorilla skull for the first time. The first person to identify the gorilla species in the wild was Paul Du Chaillu, as he came across them in the 1850s during various expeditions. What might shock people is that photography had already been invented by this point. Therefore, photos were taken in the mid-to-late 1800s of the gorillas. Meanwhile, others ended up sketching them out and made official drawings of the species for books.