Fun Finds From the International Cryptozoology Museum
I was doing some wandering this past week and ended up in Portland, Maine, a delightful town that, among its other attractions, is home to the International Cryptozoology Museum. While there are plenty of smaller museums dedicated to specific monsters and critters, the ICM is the only all-purpose cryptid museum in the world, so I knew I needed to make a point of stopping in while I was in town.
And I’ll tell you: I wasn’t disappointed. The museum is relatively small but jam-packed with very neat displays and artifacts. Even as an avid student of cryptids, there were a few creatures featured in the museum’s exhibits that were new to me. I also picked up a new reference book with even more new finds, Loren Coleman & Jerome Clark’s Cryptozoology A to Z:
I will also say that the staff of the museum knows their stuff! I was wearing a squonk t-shirt I picked up at last month’s Squonkapalooza and was impressed that the attendant recognized it instantly. Awesome to see some love for squonk outside of PA!
In any case, here were some new-to-me finds that I was particularly tickled by.
The Beast of Busco
Comes from: Fulk Lake (Indiana, USA)
General creature type: Snapping turtle
The most famous sightings of this beastie come from 1949, when several people reported seeing a snapping turtle that was at least 4 feet across in Fulk Lake, nera Churubusco, Indiana. This wasn’t the only local sighting of a giant turtle, either. The farmer who owned the land, Oscar Fulk, reported seeing a giant turtle in the lake as early as 1898.
The legend of the Beast of Busco lives on in Curubusco, which to this day holds a Turtle Days festival each June. Honestly, this is one of those cryptids that sounds completely plausible to me—they’ve caught sea turtles that weigh over 2,000 pounds, and there are unverified reports of 400+ pound alligator snapping turtles being caught as close as Kansas.
Emela-ntouka
Comes from: The Congo
General creature type: Neodinosaur and/or rhinocerous
Also known as: aseka-moke, ngamb-namae, Water-Elephant, Killer of Elephants, chipekwe (in Zambia)
The emela-ntouka is a large, four-legged, semi-aquatic cryptid hailing from the Likouala swamp region. They’re hairless with brown or gry hides and a single long horn on their nose. While they’re generally reported to be leaf eaters, they’re known to turn violent, with accounts of them killing elephants (hence the nickname, presumably).
Game inspector Lucien Blncou was the first to describe the emela-ntouka in a 1954 article, describing reports that one had been killed at Dongou in the 1930s, though that specimen was never scientifically described. In 1981 three full-grown elephant corpses were found, all with punctured abdomens and their tusks intact (indicating their deaths were not caused by poachers or hunters), which was suspected to be evidence of a emela-ntouka kill. There have been few other sightings, though three-toed tracks found in the region have been attributed to the beast.
Origin theories fom the emela-ntouka vary. Some think it’s a kind of hold-over dinosaur, pointing to details like the crocodile-like tail. Others believe it’s an undescribed species of semiaquatic rhinocerous based on its horn and tracks. A third theory threads the needle between these two, which is that it’s a living arsinoitherium, a distant relative of elephants that looked like a rhino whose fossils have been found from North Africa as far south as Namibia. The only issue with this theory is that the most recent records recovered date to the Late Oligocene (roughly 28-23 million years ago).
Mapinguari
Comes from: Brazil, Suriname, Guyana
General creature type: Primates
Also known as: Didi
Interactions with these large, red-haired primates have been reported by indigenous people of the Amazon for hundreds of years. They first came onto western radar in the late 16th century when Sir Walter Raleigh was exploring the region. Sightings have continued to be reported through the 20th century.
The Mapinguari is generally described as ape-like and bipedal with long arms. Its most unique feature are its footprints, which have a curved toe. In some legends, its feet are turned backwards. One version of the folklore says they’re human shamans who turn into hairy cyclopes, sometimes growing a gaping mouth on their stomachs. In others, they’re spirits that protect the rainforest—aggressively, apparently, since some legends say they twist people’s heads off when they’re mad.
While most ccounts call the mapinguari a primate, biologist David Oren proposed another theory in a 1994 article. He suggested they could be a surviving population of giant ground sloths, which were known to inhabit the area as recently as 12,000 years ago, after the arrival of humans to South America.
Shunka warak’in
Comes from: Midwestern US
General creature type: Wolf or hyena
Also known as: Ringdocus
The name for this creature translates to “carrying-off dogs” and was given to a mysterious unknown canine known to the Ioway and other indigenous people from the American Midwest. Westerners first encountered it in the 1880s, when ranchers described several sightings of a dark-colored beast with a sloping back and high shoulders. One of them shot the creature in 1886 and it was taxidermied and mounted, put on display in a store in Henry Lake, Idaho, whose owner gave it the name Ringdocus.
Possible explanations for this creature include mis-identified wolves, a wolf/dog hybrid, an African hyena that escaped from a zoo or circus, a small cave hyena, or a surviving Borophagus, a hyena-like canid from the Pleistocene era.
Fun fact: the mounted specimen shot in 1886 went missing for several decades but was rediscovered in the Idaho Museum of Natural History in Pocatello in 2007. It has not yet been tested to figure out what it actually is—the current owner, grandson of the man who shot it, says he’s not sure he wants to put and end to the mystery, which I can grudgingly respect.
Sinkhole Sam
Comes from: Kansas
General creature type: Lake monster
Also known as: Foopengerkle
In the 1920s, two men fishing at Inman Lake in Kansas reported seeing a worm-like creature, roughly 15 feet long and completely round. There were more sightings a few decades later, in the 1950s, at which point a person with the definitely real sounding name of Dr. Erasmus P. Quattlebaum apparently declared it a “Foopengerkle”. As far as what that is, the internet gives me nothing beyond alternate takes on this same legend, so your guess is as good as mine.
Those attempting to actually explain the sightings suggested it could have been a cave species that was brought to the surface by human modifications to the landscape. Several waterways were being blocked or drained around the time of the first sightings, which could have altered the habitats and patterns of subterrnean or semi-aquatic species.
Snallygaster
Comes from: Maryland, US
General creature type: Bird/reptile
The folklore of the snallygaster arrived in the US with German immigrants in the 1700s, when the first accounts of the creature began around Frederick County, Maryland. Its name is derived from schneller geist, which means “quick ghost”, and it was described as having a metallic beak with razor-sharp teeth. While generally described with a mix of reptilian and avian features, some versions also give it tentacles, which is a fun twist.
The legend was revived in 1909, when numerous residents reported seeing the creature or hearing it screeching “like a locomotive whistle”. These reports were later revealed to be a hoax, but they cemented the legend enough into local folklore that there’s now an American Snallygaster Museum in Libertytown, Maryland.
Tatzelwurm
Comes from: Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, European Alps)
General creature type: Lizard
Also known as: Stollenwurm, Bergstutzen, Springwurm, Daazelwurm, Praatzelwurm, arassas
The tatzelwurm is a lizard roughly 2-7 feet in length that’s usually described similarly to a small dragon. It has a cat-like face and a serpentine body, though the number of legs varies between accounts (either 4, 2, or none, depending on the telling).
The first recorded sighting dates back to 1779, when two of the creatures suddenly appeared in front of Hans Fuchs, who promptly had a heart attack from the fright. He eventually died, though not before telling his family of his encounter. Other eyewitness accounts through the 19th century give the creature forked tongue, wide head, and two stubby legs. A 1934 photograph of the creature is now believed to be a hoax by most, but there have continued to be sightings as recently as the 1970s.
According to legend, the tatzelwurm is most likely to appear when the weather is changing rapidly, or after periods of particularly high heat and humidity. It’s also said to suck milk from cows out to pasture, and farmers would place white roosters near the cow to prevent this (intriguing reptile/rooster connection that reminds me of critters like the basilisk or cockatrice).
Those who believe the Tatzelwurm does exist think it could be related to species like the Giant Salamander or Gila Monster, though both of those come from very different areas of the world (China and the Southwest US, respectively).
Tsuchinoko
Comes from: Japan
General creature type: Snake
Also known as: Bachi hebi
Physically, the tsuchinoko looks like a chubby snake, with a slender head and tail and a chonky body in between. It is also venomous, with fangs like a viper, and is capable of doing video game style double-jumps in mid-air. In some legends it also swallows its own tail and rolls around like a wheel.
A rash of tsuchinoko sightings in Nara Prefecture in the late ‘80s prompted the 1988 tsuchinoko Expedition, with a 1 million yen reward for anyone who captured a live specimen. The following year was the first Tsuchinoko Festival, an annual event where people gather to hunt for the cryptid. The festival resumed in May 2023 after a Covid hiatus and takes place in Nakagawara waterside park, a “tsuchinoko hotspot” where there have been roughly 20 sightings of the creature since 1926.