Rare Monsters

  The succarath, also known as the su, was a monster Andre Thevet reported from Patagonia. The beast was described as having a very short face, similar to either that of a human or a cat. It had a red beard and lion like mane. The body was very skinny, with a deep chest in the front and narrowing to the back. The tail was very bushy and held over its back. The succarath carried its young on its back and sheltered them with its tail. The creature had long legs for running, and was quite quick and agile. The succarath was a carnivore and a capable hunter, comparable to a large cat. While Andre Thevet was the first person to write about the succarath, he wasn’t the only one. Other explorers such as Conrad Fore, Ambroise Pare and Juan Eusebio Nieremberg all mentioned the succarath. Each of these explorers all write about the succarath as a completely natural animal, and not hearsay from local legend. It was said that the local Tehuelche natives would hunt the succarath for its...

 Wisconsin is known for many cryptid sightings. Most famously the beast of Bray Road, one of the most famous dogman sightings. Although Wisconsin is also home to bigfoot, lake monsters, and even dragons, the latter I have covered in this blog before. Two other monsters which are occasionally sighted in Wisconsin are lizard men, which are far more famous from the Scape Ore swamp of South Carolina, and giant bat human hybrids, the most famous being Batsquatch of Washington state. While these cryptids may be more commonly associated to other places, Wisconsin still has their share of them. And unique to Wisconsin is what appears to be a hybrid of the two, a winged lizard man.  Medford Flying Lizard Man  In 1997, sometime at night, a warden for the DNR was driving along highway 13, south of Medford. There he saw a reptilian humanoid standing right in the middle of the road. The creature was as tall as an above average human, had no clothing, scaly skin and slitted reptilian e...

  The Ninki Nanka is a river monster from west Africa, especially Gambia. It’s an important figure in the Mandinka people’s mythology. The Ninki Nanka has varying appearances from place to place. Sometimes it’s snake like with a horse’s head, other times it had legs but is completely reptilian and dragon like. One variation that, which has become how the Ninki Nanka is mainly known by outsiders, is that of a horse headed, giraffe necked reptile with an unusual arrangement of horns on its head and a mane done its neck. The exact arrangement of horns varies, but its usually drawn with two horns on the back of its head and a unicorn like horn on the front. The Ninki Nanka has colourful and reflective scales that allow this massive creature camouflage and hide easily. The Ninki Nanka is said to live in bodies of water, whether that be rivers, swamps or mangroves, and is most active during the rainy season. Much like the basilisk, the Ninki Nanka is said to have a deadly gaze, anyo...

   Campe was a primordial monster and guardian of Tartarus in Greek mythology. She appears in the Titanomachy. Campe’s name means twisting or crooked one. She was known as the nymph of Tartarus. Campe is described as one of the more confusing monsters from Greek mythology. She had the qualities of several other monsters mixed together. Campe had the head and torso of a human woman, albeit covered in reptilian scales. She had snakes for hair like Medusa. She had eagles talons for hands and wings as black as the night, alternatively wings like the sphinx. Her hips were wreathed in the heads of animals, similar to Scylla, but instead of dogs it was an assembly of every fearsome and vicious animal possible. She had snakes for legs like Echidna, specifically it was said Campe had one hundred snakes for legs. Finally Campe had a scorpions tail, which she held high over her head. It’s unknown if she was supposed to be beautiful apart from her monstrous features or a hideous hag. ...

  The Mississippi monster is one of those old time cryptid stories that appeared in 19 th century news papers. And like many of these stories it pushes the limits of what can be believed. Although I find this monster in particular pushes those limits more than most. Stories like the Swan Valley monster had a bizarre creature that defies biology, but only a small number of witnesses and ultimately the creature didn’t do very much. The Ape Canyon attack has lots of action and damage, which should leave a paper trail of police reports and insurance claims that can be verified if someone where to look deep enough, but involves big foot, one of the more reasonable cryptids to exist. The Mississippi monster involves both a confounding monster that is like nothing else alive, and over the top damage, which should be able to be verified by its own paper trail. However the story takes place long enough ago that such things like insurance claims and repair reports of company owned ships wo...

  Cryptozoologist Chad Arment wrote about a mystery animal from Honduras in his Biofortean Notes, Volume 5 While attending a cryptozoology conference Chad heard second hand stories about a missionary working in Honduras who had seen a strange creature. After extensive searching he was able to track her down. The woman didn’t want to be identified, and is only known by her initials LS in the report. She had no interest in anything fortean or paranormal. As well, she had only told people about the encounter a few times shortly after it happened in 2001, and then moved on with her life. She has never tried to profit off the encounter or tried to widely publicize it. These qualities together convinced Chad Arment that she was a reliable witness. The sighting happened on the mission’s farmland in Cort é s Department, Honduras. The landscape was along a mountain river, with cleared pasture on one side and jungle on the other. The time was between late morning and noon. LS was d...

  The keythong is a gryphon like beast, which is supposed to have come from heraldry, but it’s history is more complicated than that. It looks like a gryphon, but without wings. It has spikes on various parts of its body, often on its legs, back, and a fan of spikes on its shoulders where the wings should be. It also have a pair of swept back horns on its head. I say its history is complicated, because while both the name and appearance of the keythong appeared historically used in heraldry, they didn’t come together to mean the same creature until modern times when the internet took interest in the creature. The name keythong appears to have been created as late as the 19 th century. It comes from J R Planche’s Pursuivant Of Arms, he describes the coat of arms for the Earl of Ormonde as having rampant keythong on the right. However, what is actually shown on the arms is a wingless gryphon with flames, no horns or spikes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Ormond_%...

 The dingbat was a fearsome critter from the local folklore of the western Great Lakes region. It’s origin was a taxidermied mash up of different animals that was displayed in the Friendly Buck-horn Tavern in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. The dingbat had the head of some small predatory mammal, often some sort of mustelid, the body of a bird of prey, and the antlers of a young buck. The legend of the dingbat states that it revelled in making the life of hunters difficult. The dingbat would whinny like a horse just as a hunter was about to take a shot at a buck, breaking his concentration and making him miss. If that didn’t work, the dingbat was capable of flying at incredible speeds and capturing the bullet mid air. The dingbat fed on bullets and gasoline, which it would drink from the hunter’s truck, leaving him stranded. The dingbat was a humorous way for hunters to explain why they had bad luck on a hunt or came back empty handed. The Friendly Buck-horn Tavern had several taxi...

  The dingonek was an African cryptid known from lake Victoria and the surrounding rivers. It was first reported by big game hunter John Alfred Jordan. The incident first made its way to the media through another big game hunter’s book, In Closed Territory , by Edgar Beecher Bronson, in which he recounted Jordan telling the story to him. Jordan’s encounter happened in 1905. The okapi has recently been discovered. So Jordan had a network of local peoples always on the lookout for unusual large game that wandered into the area, in the hopes of discovering a new species himself. One day his informants told him that a reptilian beast was spotted up the Maggori River. So Jordan and his hunting party, two local men named Mataia and Mosoni, headed up the river in canoes to find the beast. Mataia and Mosoni scouted ahead. They soon came racing back down the river in pure terror, insisting the beast was resting on the river’s shore just ahead. Jordan insisted his two men come with h...

  The sheepsquatch is a cryptid from various wilderness locations around West Virginia, mostly in Boone county, but also the famed TNT area, and even in neighbouring states. It’s rather poorly named, as it has little to do with sheep and nothing to do with sasquatch. What sheepsquatch is not, is a ram horned, humanoid, goatman. Although there’s plenty of confusion on this subject, resulting in sheepsquatching being depicted as such in media. The sheepsquatch is a white hairy beast of some variety. Because of this, sheepsquatch has often been categorized with other white, hairy cryptids of the Appalachians, such as the white things, devil dogs, and even the white bigfoots of southern Pennsylvania, which is likely how sheepsquatch ended up with squatch in its name. Adding to the confusion, goatmen have also been seen in similar parts of West Virginia, although they’re usually brown or black in colour. Likely the source of the misconception about sheepsquatch’s appearance, aside...

   The gudiao is a monster from China, featured in The Classic Of Mountains And Seas . It resembles a giant eagle or maybe a more gryphon like beast, as it’s sometimes described as having panther qualities too. One thing that is consistent is that the gudiao always has a single horn on its head. Often, its depicted with a bright green head as well. The gudiao was said to live on Mount Luwu, where there is very little plant life, but bountiful amounts of mineral resources, like gold and precious stones. The gudiao would prowl this mountain looking for prey. It would eat almost any animal, but it especially favoured human flesh. It’s call sounds like a baby crying, which it would use to lure people within range. Sources https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Gudiao https://chinese-mythology.com/en/wiki/gu-diao/ https://mythus.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:RUBENHC/Creatures_and_Beings_of_China_Folklore_and_Lower_Mythology#List_of_creatures

  Here are three unicorns from China that feel oddly western. They lack the scales and other traits that make the qilin seam more exotic. The bo is a hybrid creature and the least unicorn like of the three. The bo looks like a unicorn with the paws and fangs of a tiger. It has a white body and black tail. The bo is entirely carnivorous, and hunts leopards and tigers. It primarily lives on Mount Winding Centre where jade and metals are plentiful, according to The Classic Of Mountains and Seas. It was also said to live on the steppes of Mongolia and some isolated islands in the North Sea. It was said the bo could be tamed with some difficulty and doing so would protect you against harm during times of war. The bo was said to be a just and honourable animal. It’s call is the sound of rolling drums. Out of the three the boma has the least information available. Like the bo, it also comes from The Classic Of Mountains And Seas . The boma has a white coat, and ox’s tail and a si...

   The questing beast is a hybrid monster from Arthurian Legend. It’s also known as the Beast Glatisant, which is related to the french word glapissant, which means yelping or barking. In the Vulgate and earlier cycles describe a creature with the head of a lamb which is white, the legs of a dog which are black and the body of a fox which is red. In the post-Vulgate cycles the questing beast takes on a more familiar form of having the head of a snake, the front body of a leopard, the back half of its body of a lion, and the feet of a deer. The sound of barking dogs constantly issues from the questing beast’s belly, causing it to constantly flee from hunting dogs it can never escape, hence both its names. Even within this later description there’s a large amount of variation. In the Vulgate Estoire Del Saint Graal , the questing beast appears briefly at the beginning of the story, guiding a narrating character to the book containing the story of Arthur, making this ve...