Rare Monsters

  The xiphis was a confusing animal that appeared on two Roman mosaics, one was the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina and the other in the House of the Physician in Pompeii. It’s a heavy bodied creature, similar to a rhino or hippopotamus, with a long snout and carnivorous teeth similar to a crocodile. Many theories have been put forth to explain what the xiphis is. Most people assume it’s just a poor rendition of a hippopotamus. That might be the case for the House of the Physician, but there’s a much more realistic hippo on the Palestrina mosaic. Rhinos and crocodiles have also been suggested, but these also appear in the Palestrina mosaic. As well the animals on the Palestrina mosaic have their names written under them as part of the mosaic, with the hippo, rhino, and crocodile clearly labelled. The name xiphis comes from the labelling on this mosaic. Xiphis was a type of sword in Rome, not an animal, but this may have been part of a longer name or out interpretation of it is miss...

  The moha moha is a cryptid from Australia, spotted on June 8 th , 1890. It was seen my Selena Lovell, a school teacher and amateur naturalist, as well as a group of people accompanying her, while they were on an outing to Great Sandy Island. The creature was well known to the natives, who called it the moha moha, or danger turtle, as it was known for attacking their fishing camps and grabbing their legs in the water. With all the other strange Australian wildlife discovered Ms Lovell didn’t question the creature’s odd appearance and wrote up a report on it. This report was then used by Willian Saville-Kent to publish a formal description of the creature in Land And Water and give it the name Chelosauria lovelli. Little did either of them know that this creature would only ever be seen once, and become the topic of controversy. The moha moha had a rounded head that was more like that of a lizard or other reptiles than a standard turtle. Ms Lovell didn’t see any nostrils and...

  Pale cralers are a type of cryptid that is reportedly seen by people all over the world. They have an overall humanoid appearance. They are very light in colour, with pale, white, pink or grey skin, almost like a corpse. Pale crawlers are very skinny, to the point of looking emaciated, often with twig like limbs and the outline of bones visible under their skin. Crawlers are always hairless all over, having no body hair, head hair, or even eyebrows. Their eyes are extremely sunken in, giving them a skull like appearance. They can have jet black eyes, or glassy cataract like eyes, or eyes that shine in dim light like an animal’s. Pale crawlers are rarely reported with ears, any that have them are small and vestigial. Pale crawlers sometimes have animal like claws, other times they have more human like nails. The fingers are always long and skinny, regardless of what they’re tipped with. Pale crawlers stand very tail when fully upright, somewhere between eight to ten feet tall. M...

  The nachtkrapp is a boogeyman that haunts Germany, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Poland. It’s name in German means night raven. The exact details of the legend vary quite a bit regionally. Sometimes it appears as a raven, or as a more human like undead being, or as a shadowy, shape shifting ghost. It also varies in size from huge, to human sized, to the size of an ordinary raven. The nachtkrapp is used as a cautionary tale to scare children into behaving. It’s said the nachtkrapp only comes out at night. If the nachtkrapp sees a child out at night it will carry the child off to its nest, rip the child apart limb from limb and eat its heart. Some tamer versions of the legend only have the Nachtkrapp putting children in a large bag it carries over its back and doesn’t say what’s done with them after that. The nachtkrapp has hollow skeletal eye sockets. If anyone looks into its empty eye holes they die instantly. Depending on the region the nachtkrapp is said to ha...

   The Sigbin is a vampiric monster from the Philippines. It’s especially popular in the Visayans and Mindanao regions. It exists somewhere between folklore and cryptozoology, with some people, especially in rural areas, still believing in the creature. Occasionally a mangy animal from the jungle will be captured and shown off to travellers as a real sigbin. Sigbins look like a cross between a goat, dog and kangaroo. They are hairless, emaciated and ugly. They have long ears that clap when they move, and long skinny tails that they use like whips. Sigbins often walk backwards, with their head held under their bellies. Their feet are positioned backwards on their legs to make walking like this easier. Other times sigbins are depicted as a bipedal creature that looks somewhat like a kangaroo. Sigbins are said to smell really bad. Sigbins come out at night and feed on human blood. They do so by draining it through their shadows, somehow. Sigbins also eat charcoal, an i...

  The hyakume is a yokai from Japan. It’s name means one hundred eyes. The hyakume is roughly human shaped, but made out of flabby flesh lumps. It had a hundred eyes poking out from under the flesh flaps all over its body. It’s also about the size of a fat human. The hyakume looks somewhat similar to the nuppeppo, which is another yokai made of flabby flesh roughly in the shape of a human. Although the nuppeppo doesn’t have any eyes. Hyakumes live in abandoned places, usually temples or large houses. They live alone and shy away from interacting with any other being. They also come out only at night as the sunlight hurts their eyes. Hyakumes are not aggressive and just want to be left alone. However they will defend their home from intruders and thieves. Each night the hyakume will remove one of its eyes and send it out to patrol its territory for intruders. The eye floats around on its own like a will-o-wisp fireball. If the eye spots anyone it will attach itself to the...