Are you one of those people who don’t believe we know everything that is out there in the world? If you cling proudly to your “I Hunted Nessie” shirt and tear up every time you hear about a new Bigfoot sighting, this is the list for you. It chronicles the ten most awesome mysteries that plague the field of Zoology. Technically, these are examples of Cryptozoology, but that would imply they aren’t real, and they totally are—right?
10. Mermaids:
We probably aren’t talking about Ariel and Triton, here, but there have been reports of mysterious pseudo-humans living in the water for thousands of years. There are even cave drawings located at the edge of long-dry ocean beds in the Egyptian desert that seem to depict a group of regular old two-legged people being threatened by creatures that have the torso of people and the tails of fish—and are brandishing spears. One of the prevailing theories of these creatures is that they are an evolutionary hiccup that happened when our ape-like ancestors wandered to the edge of the ocean and eventually just wandered right on in. It is thought that mermaids cooperate with deep ocean animals to hunt for food and stay out of sight of humans. Just don’t tell Flounder.
9. The Yeti
This is not your happy-go-lucky Christmas friend Frosty. The Yeti is also referred to as the Abominable Snowman because he is the often white-furred version of the Bigfoot that tends to live in snowy climates. There’s nothing quite like walking outside to get a nice breath of cold fresh air and admire a newly fallen blanket of snow only to find out that that snow bank you have been leaning on is actually an eight-foot tall monkey thing. Like the mermaids, there are signs of Yeti sightings since before recorded history.
8. Loch Ness Monster:
Nessie is perhaps the most beloved of all the zoological mysteries. Put aside that she might be a dinosaur left over from the end of their world that glides around in the inky black loch just waiting for an unsuspecting fisherman to fall overboard, and you have a pretty romantic tale. Hundreds of years’ worth of accounts speak of an enormous creature in the water, but only ever one. Could this be the oldest and loneliest mystery creature ever? Many people dedicate their lives to not only finding Nessie, but of figuring out what she is and how many more there are. She, of course, is not a unique story. There are apparently similar monsters in New York and Canada.
7. Chupacabras:
Literally “goat suckers”, these interesting little monsters originated in Latin America but have recently traveled their way up to North America as well. The legends began when a whole flock of eight sheep were discovered dead. They each had three puncture wounds in their chests and were completely devoid of blood. The chupacabra is generally described as being about the size of a small bear or large dog with spines down his back and scaly, reptilian skin. In North America the description changes a bit to more resemble a coyote or other wild dog, but with the same spikes. Apparently this creature hops like a kangaroo and goes after animals for the purpose of sucking out all of their blood.
6. Giant Sloth:
This is a mystery that is not so much a mystery but a big question mark. There is actual paleontological evidence that demonstrates that ridiculously huge versions of the cute, super-slow animals did exist in prehistoric times. Now, ridiculously huge is not an exaggeration. We’re talking a skeleton of an animal that looks exactly like the sloths we know and love, but is twenty feet from his head to his tail and would belong to an animal weighing 4 TONS. That’s over 8,000 pounds! The question mark comes in in that there are people who claim to have seen one of these supposedly extinct uber-mammals roaming around in Georgia and the Amazon Rain Forest.
5. Globsters:
While this may sound like the title of a long-lost 50s horror movie, these mysterious creatures are actually the most compelling evidence of unidentified sea monsters. Huge blobs of goo keep washing up on beaches all over the world. These globs are usually described as fibrous collagen, and sometimes exhibit distinctive features such as tentacles, gills, and even mouths. One theory is that many of the less animal-like blobs are actually decomposing whale blubber, but there have been DNA tests that have completely disproved this theory in many situations. So…super huge octopus? Shockingly big squid? Ginormous jellyfish? Or unidentified species of sea goo?
4. Mongolian Death Worm:
This creature is pretty dinky compared to the other monsters on this list. But even at only two to five feet long, the Death Worm is nothing to sneeze at. This bright red worm is said to squirm around the Gobi Desert spewing acid that instantly kills any living creature that it touches. Some reports even say that this super worm can discharge and electric shock as another means of incapacitating and doing away with prey.
3. Mothman:
This weird zoological head-scratcher is so cool that they made a movie out of it. All of the buzz of the Mothman started in 1966 when stories of an enormous winged creature with glowing red eyes started pouring in. Chronicled in the book “The Mothman Prophecies” by John Keel and then later turned into a movie of the same title, these stories became the basis of a cultural phenomenon. Called the Mothman because Batman was so popular at the time—no, not kidding—the creature was seen over the next few months. Around this time people also reported UFOs and “men in black” in the same area. Sightings have dwindled away to almost none and some experts have pondered if perhaps all this hullabaloo was over a sand crane that was lost.
2. Skunk Ape:
The name just says it all, doesn’t it? Florida’s answer to Bigfoot, the skunk ape is said to wander through the swamps. He resembles, well, an ape. It is his smell that really lets people know he’s around, however. Said to be so rank you can smell him almost a mile away, it’s a wonder that there’s really any doubt of this creature. Unlike the Bigfoot sightings in other areas of the country, the skunk ape is said to be slimmer and have brownish gray fur. There’s no real explanation as to why this creature smells as bad as he does. Except, perhaps, that he lives in a swamp.
1. Honey Island Swamp Monster
This is a much cuter name the first eventually the same animal as the skunk ape. This one, however, is said to inhabit the swamps, particularly Honey Island Swamp, in Louisiana. Eyewitnesses describe a seven foot tall, two-legged animal with gray hair and bright red eyes. The enormous footprint set up and found supposedly feature four webbed toes. Even better than the possibility of an actual swap monster, is a local legend that surrounds it. Locals say that in the early 1900s each train was traveling through the area when it crashed. On this train was a traveling circus, and the chimpanzees from the circus escaped into the swamp. There they interbred with such local creatures of the alligators. This, they say, created the swamp monster.