Library of Cryptozoology

Chenla [Cambodia] produces a fish named fu-hu , which resembles the mud-eel, but with a bill shaped like the parrot's, and eight legs.

The kraken or horven, which appears like a floating island, sending forth tentacula as high as the masts of a ship, and the great sea-snake with his formidable mane, are monsters that have been occasionally recognised [in the Shetlands], and their occurrence is much connected with the demonology of the Shetland Seas ... I have heard, in Shetland, of a sea-serpent being seen off the Isle of Stennes, Vailey Island, and Dunrossness.

The onça-da-coleira-branca [white-collared jaguar] was mentioned twice. The animal was seen in a community in the late afternoon, while the locals were playing football. The jaguar was sitting at the edge of the forest, "enjoying the ball-game". When noticed, it fled into the woods and was not seen again ... the onça-da-coleira-branca has been described as a black jaguar with a strip of white fur around its neck. There was also a mention of the onça-preta-do-peito-branco [white-breasted black jaguar]. ... There have been three reports of the killing of the onça-tigre . In the first, the ribeirinho claims that he killed a male animal — like a spotted jaguar, but it was bicó (tailless), with its hands turned backwards ... the hair was very short on the back, and the chest was hairy. The hunter's wife saw the animal and confirmed the description. The second informant also killed and measured the onça-tigre , which was 9 spans (about 1.80 metres) from the chin to the...

It [Zabalo River region in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve] is rumored to be home to several species "unknown to science," as the phrase has it, such as the ferocious "giant giant river otter," the "black-water tiger," and the "howler-monkey tiger," a marsupial with humanlike hands.

At least nine species of seals frequent the South Island ... The evidence of the actual existence of a southern walrus is at present founded only on hearsay report, but it is very probable that when the great Antarctic islands and ice-floes, as yet unvisited, are explored, not only this but other novel forms will be found.

The Hippopotamus, also exclusively consigned to Africa, has been met with in the portion of jungle which extends into the Bhil country ... I have been credibly informed of this, by several who witnessed the animals at a distance, and afterwards examined their foot-marks (their surmises being corroborated by the natives of the country.) ... A snake, which by the testimony (exaggerated doubtless) of the natives, must equal in dimensions the pythons of antiquity, inhabits the low marshy recesses of the jungle ... and lastly, from a casual glance I once caught of an animal, in the thick and high woods bordering the Gurum nala, near the valley of the Subonrika, it would be the corroboration of an anxious surmise, were after researchers to establish the fact, that the Orang Otang is an inhabitant of these forests.

As a set off against the decrease of our four-footed fauna, news has been sent me of a new Scotch animal found in Banffshire, called the earth-hound or earth-hund. Till within the last two years I never heard of such a creature. It was described to me as larger than a rat, having a greyhound's head and a short tail. My imformant [sic] stated that one could be easily secured at the autumn ploughing season, which would be forwarded to me at once. Four autumn and winter ploughings are come and gone, and yet no earth-hound has arrived! I begged to be told of any museum where it was preserved, or to be referred to any who possessed a stuffed specimen of the animal, but in vain. What was Tom Edward [a Banffshire naturalist] about if there were such a creature in his own country, and no notice taken of it in his 'Life'? This is inserted that any naturalist, who is able , may unearth this mysterious hound. When a turnip is found to have been penetrated through a small hole three-q...

IT HAUNTS the Amazon jungle with a giant bear's body and a monkey's face, clad in dark red fur and trailing a cloud of flying beetles. Its stench is disabling, its upright bulk disconcertingly humanlike and its roar like endless thunder. "When you hear it, you want to move in the other direction," said ornithologist David Oren. "It's absolutely terrifying." To rubber tappers and Indians in the forest's remote western fringe, the creature is the Mapinguari, the Amazon's version of the legendary Yeti or Bigfoot. No scientist has ever seen it, but Oren may be on the verge of proving the mythological animal actually exists. Scientists in the US and Germany this month are performing DNA tests on hair and feces Oren collected in Brazil's remote Acre state. If his suspicions are correct, the tests will reveal a biological shocker: The fabled monster is actually a species of giant ground sloth believed extinct for 8,500 years. "I have ev...

Our guide, Juan Villca, was able to distinguish the three species at a glance and called them respectively "Guaichete" [sic – jetete ] ( Phoenicopterus chilensis ). "Tococo" ( Phoenicoparrus andinus ), and "Chururo" ( Ph. jamesi ). He stated that sometimes a few "parinas" (flamingos) of another kind known as "Jetete" [sic – guaichete ] were also to be seen, and that these could be distinguished from the others by their whiter wing-coverts and by the absence of the wine-colour on the neck. Although the remote possibility that a fourth species of flamingo does in fact exist in these desolate wastelands should not be discarded altogether, and in spite of our guide's assurance that a few might be seen at the nesting colonies, it is our impression that the "Jetete" corresponds to inmature specimens of Phoenicoparrus andinus which, as we learned from experience when we later shot one, mistaking it for an adult Ph. jamesi , cann...

I moved us into a smaller, pleasanter house in the [Shire Highlands] foothills, about 300 feet above the river, and it was here that Madamat met the nsongwe – the "crowing, crested cobra" which no white man has ever seen. Madamat was walking up one night to keep guard on the verandah, when the snake crossed his path. He arrived looking paler than I have ever seen any African – and shaking. It had, he said, a "red hat" (comb) and crowed like a cockerel! Next day, he took me to see the place where it had appeared. There were marks on the sand and a branch was broken in the tree into which it had vanished. Note : This story is told by Betty Matthews, who lived in Nyasaland in the late 1940s.

In connection with this interesting discovery Dr. Brandt recounts a tradition of a tribe of Tartars in South Siberia, which describes the death of an enormous black ox. It possessed, however, but a single horn, and that of such size that it could be transported by sledges only. Possibly a reference to the elasmotherium.

In September of the same year [1900], the government of the Territory sent a note to the Chief of Police, Pedro Martínez, with instructions to "hand over to Messrs. Steinkamp, ​​and Nicolás Illin, upon receipt, two Mauser rifles and four hundred bullet cartridges ... These inhabitants of the Corcovado River [...] intend to beat the banks of the Argentine lake 'General Paz' [Lake Vintter] trying to hunt the Yemische of the Indians, ' Neo Mylodon Lista Ameghino ', which they say they have seen in that region."

There is supposed to be an animal called håtcko-tcåpko–"long ears." It is about the size of a mule, has immense ears, and a very hideous appearance generally. It has a disagreeable odor and causes a dangerous disease, but fortunately it is rarely seen. There are two varieties of this animal, one of a brown color nearly black, the other of a slate color. Another creature is called nokos oma, "like a bear." It is of about the size of an ordinary black bear, but it always carries its head near the earth. It has immense tusks which cross each other and when seen it is going along a trail with the gait of a pacer. More often, however, only the noise made by the males is heard, and this sounds something like "kåp kåp kåp kåp." The hatcko fåski, "sharp ears," seem to go in pairs and never travel east or west but always north or south. They are observed especially near the sources of small streams. They have sharp noses, bushy tails, and globular feet....

Besides the cobra grande , there are yet more fabulous animals in the Amazon, such as ... the Janaú or Janahúy, an animal which walks in groups through the forest, like a pack of dogs or small wolves, very dangerous and carnivorous, intoxicating its victims with a strong stench, allowing it to sate its verocity; the Tapira-yauara, meaning tapir-dog in Tupi, a gigantic animal which has the shape of a jaguar with the hooved paws of a tapir, with which it digs into the earth to fell the trees whose branches provide refuge for its enemies, who must flee. Note : The name janaú is used for procyonids such as the kinkajou and olingo.

In the absence of any more real animals, two mythical ones may be briefly mentioned. These are the taniwha and the kaurehe . Both are aquatic or amphibious in their habits, the taniwha being apparently confined to the North Island and the kaurehe to the Middle Island. The taniwha is a powerful and bloodthirsty monster, frequenting tapu or sacred pools or rivers but sometimes met with in the sea, and devouring persons who profanely violate the sanctity of its haunts or who have otherwise offended the gods. Some years ago, a Maori clergyman of the Church of England on the East Coast reported to the Government that a beautiful and beloved young woman, a member of his flock, had rashly gone to bathe in a tapu pool against his and her friends' entreaties; that she had been missing for some days; and that her body had been found on a rock beside the pool, badly mangled by a taniwha . There is no English name for the taniwha , but it may safely be classed under the generic term of B...

The mukade-kujira [ ムカデ-クジラ, centipede-whale] is as large as a whale, and has a mane, five fins on the back, and a two-cleft tail. Its legs number twelve, six being on each side; its flesh is coloured red and very poisonous, man being killed when he eats it. Note : Modified from a translation by Minakata Kumagusu, "The Centipede-Whale," Nature , Vol. 56, No. 1454 (9 September 1897)

Mr. [Nicholas] Illin, who has recently been exploring in the Andes of Chubut ... believes that in a country where nothing rots for 20 years, probably also nothing would rot for ten thousand years, and that the skin and bones of mylodons found are of great age ... Mr. Illin tels us that there is a large animal of the beaver class. He saw a lady in Chubut who has a boa made of the skin of one which is of a yellowish color. He also saw footprints of, as is supposed, this animal which has no name as yet. The prints were smaller than those of a puma but larger than those of any other carnivorous animal in those parts; for they were evidently of a carnivorous animal. Several Indians and settlers had seen this beast, but it is very rare.

In November, 1905, a pair of tusks of the gigantic "forest pig" were exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society. The larger one measured over two feet long on the curve, was collected in Abyssinia by Baron Maurice Rothschild, and the smaller lower tusk came from my collection. The Hon. Walter Rothschild was to have read a paper to the meeting, giving some account of this huge, ferocious beast, of which strange tales are told by African travellers, but he was unfortunately unable to be present. In Mr. Rothschild's absence. Dr. Hartert said that Mr. Rothschild had given a name to the animal to which the tusks were supposed to belong— Colossochoerus —expressing its pig-like nature and colossal bulk, which he considered equal to that of a rhinoceros. When the tusks were handed round for inspection several of the Fellows expressed the opinion that the larger one was an abnormal tusk of an elephant, and this was supported by some of the naturalists of the British Museum ...

At a meeting of the Zoological Society of London held on November 14, 1905, the Hon. Walter Rothschild exhibited two tusks obtained by Baron Maurice de Rothschild in Abyssinia, which were then regarded as so unlike normal tusks of any known animal as to suggest the possibility of their belonging to some unknown creature. Of one of these tusks Mr. Rothschild subsequently presented a cast to the British Museum. This cast indicates a highly curved and much flattened tusk of about 2 feet in length, marked on the broad concave surface by a number of bold longitudinal flutings. In 1907 Mr. L. D. Gosling presented to the Museum three small tusks of female elephants obtained during the Alexander-Gosling expedition from Lake Tchad to the Congo, one of which presents a most striking resemblance to the cast. It is, indeed, considerably smaller and less sharply curved, but is of the same general contour, and likewise bears distinct traces of longitudinal flutings on the flattened concave surface, ...

YOU ask me about the wa'ab. Well you may, for though every small boy has heard of it, very few men of those now living here have seen it. In these modern days there are no wa'ab hereabouts; and even so late as thirty or forty years ago it was very rare. It has gone with the elephant and the buffalo and the teitel [hartebeest]. This is its description. It walks on two legs, and is shaped very much like a man, though it is somewhat shorter. Its body and limbs are covered with a soft, hairy coat, like a kid's; but its face is bare, save for the eyebrows. Its features are like a man's, except that its nose is short, with the nostrils near the eyes. It speaks like a man, either in Khasa or Hadendoa, according to the land in which it lives; and they say that in Abyssinia it speaks Abyssinian. It has legs like a man's, but it cannot bend them at the knees, so that it never lies down, but sleeps leaning against a rock. It has five toes, the big toe very much longer than the...

Several testimonies, absolutely reliable (in particular that of the American Father of the Catholic Mission of Antsalova) mention the existence of an animal of a sort of mauve – or pink – colour, which moves quickly in the trees and which, if one believes the testimonies, could be a vasira (a sort of ferret), perhaps larger than normal. Less reliable, but insistent, testimonies speak of unicorns (?), hairy men hiding in trees (which could be giant lemurs still surviving?) ... As elsewhere in western Madagascar, many say they have seen – or know people who have seen – the famous songomby. It is reportedly a sort of big ass, with a strong jaw and a frightening cry, very aggressive, able, by swirling its tail, to project its very corrosive urine onto its victim, who may try to take refuge up a tree.

The popoke. This animal, with the head of a tiger, long teeth, and a tiger-slash-spider monkey's body, is carnivorous. Similar to a water tiger, it lives mainly in the river, but it has previously been seen in the forest by some locals. The elders say that a popoke is responsible for the death of a young boy who bathed at the Maripa-Soula dégrad in the 1960s. According to Fiscal Djani, this animal was usually seen at Kormontibo. The wataabubu . This is one of the most feared mythical animals in the Maroni. Its home is usually found in caves submerged at the bottom of the river. The elders say that it has points of resemblance to the hippopotamus. It usually advances in fairly deep water, taking advantage of the ideal camouflage to attack its prey, which it devours before spitting out their guts. According to Fiscal Djani, in the 1970s, an Amerindian was eaten by a waatabubu in front of the old sawmill of Papaichton (Lusini), on the Surinamese side of the place called Daay Olo. ...

It is curious that the Indians of central Canada had a belief (recorded by French and English pioneers) that occasionally in the dusk, or at night, they have seen an enormously large beaver in the water, so large that at first sight they have taken it for a moose. Travellers who have related this have surmised that the Indian perhaps saw a bear swimming, or a female moose, and in the dim light mistook it for a giant beaver. But as we know that there were once giant beavers ( Trogontherium ) as large as a bear, existing in England, it is just possible there may have been a gigantic type of beaver lingering in Canada before the opening up of the country by Europeans.

That night we camped in a very narrow strip of bush close to the river without pitching the tent. We were aroused in the night, by the movements of some large animal in the bush, and all hands turned out, but couldn't see anything, and after firing a shot or two, we turned in, and were not again disturbed. Next morning I went down to the river. On a sandy bank I saw the impression of an unknown animal clear and distinct. The impression in the sand resembled a horse’s hoof with a shoe on it, but larger and more oblong, with this difference that it had three round toes at the fore-part of the hoof, and there was likewise an impression on the ground which was sand, which had the appearance of having been made by a large quadruped.

The Deputy Commissioner, Salween District (Mr. B. L. D. [Bertram Langford Denis] Rae) reported that he had heard rumours of a pygmy rhinoceros in the north of the Salween District and sent the writer a tush stated to have been obtained from this animal some years ago. The tush somewhat resembled a very large wild boar tush but was triangular in shape at the base. The Bombay Natural History Society was unable to identify the tush which was eventually sent to the Royal College of Surgeons, London, where Sir Frank Colver expressed the opinion that the tush was the left lower incisor of a rhinoceros. The Karens of the Salweed have a separate name "Ta Kheikh" for this animal and the following description has been obtained: "about the size of a large wild boar, and resembling an elephant in colour with scanty bristles on the hide which is thick and similar to that of an elephant. Head resembles that of a pig and carries no horn. Large tushes protrude upwards on either side of ...

Passing through southern Kansu we stopped for some days south of Pikow, at the edge of the limestone wall which bars the way into what is geographically Tibet. This magnificent country of huge bald cliffs alternating with densely forested slopes harbours a good deal of genuine big game–musk-deer, mountain-sheep, and Budorcas , all of which I found the spoor of, besides several semi-fabulous monsters which became known to us chiefly through local tradition. The most curious of these possibly fictitious beasts, which were spoken of quite seriously by the natives, was a medium-sized animal with long red hair, which lived on monkeys! (Incidentally this goes to show that there are monkeys as far north as this in western China, thought they probably do not extend north of the main watershed between the Yangtze and the Yellow River.) But though the zoologist may be inclined to scoff (I am inclined to think however that no man with any real scientific knowledge and training would scoff) at nat...

Dr. Kirk informs me that the natives of the Zambesi district spoke of a large animal, which was not the Hippopotamus, but as large as it, inhabiting Lake Shirwa. Of course, the natives were familiar enough with the Hippopotamus, and not likely to make any mistake as regards it; but as the animal was not actually seen by any of Dr. Livingstone's party, the statement is only of importance as indicating a point to be inquired into when occasion serves.

... whilst watching from the dizzy heights its mirrored surface, my attention was directed to some strange animal, which I discovered to be one of those enormous sea-horses, to which I have already alluded, in speaking of the Island of San Lorenzo. Its appearance, from the great elevation at which I beheld it, was extremely singular. Its body seemed to be of a prodigious length, and covered with a short, glossy coat. With the exception of two great white tusks, projecting from the mouth on either side, the form of its head resembled that of a seal. This monster swam about with great rapidity, at times showing the greater portion of his body above the water, and at other times disappearing from view altogether.