Did you know that, according to legend, there’s a giant, red,
poison-spitting, worm-like creature that lives in the sands of the Gobi desert?
Hi, I’m Erin McCarthy, editor in chief of Mental Floss.com, and
welcome to The List Show from my living room. The Mongolian Death Worm is also known as the
Olgoï-Khorkhoï, which translates to something like “large intestine worm.” Based on a description
taken down by Roy Chapman Andrews—the explorer who may have indirectly inspired Indiana Jones,
and who, it feels important to point out, was skeptical of this creature’s existence—it lives
up to that name. In his 1926 book On the Trail of Ancient Man, Chapman wrote that the Mongolian
Prime Minister had described the beast as, quote, “shaped like a sausage about two feet long,
has no head nor legs and is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death.”
If you’re picturing a blood-red version of the graboids from Tremors, well … you’re not alone.
The Olgoï-Khorkhoï is said to be active during the months of June and July,
and reportedly, you don’t even need to touch it to be taken down by the Death worm—it can kill
by spitting its toxic, corrosive venom at you, or by hitting you with a bolt of electricity.
No one has ever photographed the creature, and many reports seem to
be of the “I have a friend of a friend who saw it!” variety. But many believe that it’s real,
and continue to search for it to this day. And the Mongolian Death Worm is just the
first of many creepy but cool cryptids that I’m going to share with you today.
Before we get into any more cryptids, let’s talk a little bit about what a cryptid
actually is. Merriam-Webster defines a cryptid as, quote, “an animal … that has been
claimed to exist but never proven to exist.” And this feels like a good place to note that
from here on out, when I refer to a creature that 'lives' in a place, understand that I'm really
saying that creature is "said to" live in that place. Dubious veracity is an essential part of
cryptid storytelling, but it might get exhausting reminding you that basically all of the "facts" we
know about cryptids are only alleged. Besides, it's more fun to precede as if these creatures
are real, for the next 10 minutes, at least. Anyway! The study of cryptids is cryptozoology.
What creatures actually qualify as cryptids kind of depends on who you talk to, but in general,
mythical creatures like unicorns and dragons don’t count, because we know they don’t exist.
Cryptozoologist George M. Eberhart has broken cryptids down into 10 categories,
including “Seemingly paranormal or supernatural entities with some animal-like characteristics,”
“Survivals of species known only from the fossil record into modern times,”
and “Animals not known from the fossil record nor related to any known species.”
One creature that belongs in the latter category is North America’s Bigfoot,
a.k.a. Sasquatch, a bipedal ape-like creature most closely associated with the Pacific Northwest.
Plenty of people claim to have seen Bigfoot or captured evidence of the creature, from video
footage to casts of huge footprints, and Sasquatch is a part of many of the traditions of Indigenous
people. There’s even one village in British Columbia where members of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais
First Nation live alongside Sasquatch, which they call ba'gwis. They’re just a part of life.
Across the Pacific is the Yeti, a creature native to Asia that first appeared in folk tales told by
the Sherpa people. The yeti and the abominable snowman are actually one and the same: The name
Abominable Snowman came from a translation error that appeared in a newspaper in 1921.
Some believe that the Yeti and Sasquatch are actually a species of animal that went
extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago—Gigantopithecus,
a polar bear-sized ape native to southern Asia. But genetic analysis of hair hasn’t yet turned
up evidence of either animal. Analysis of Yeti fur, for example, revealed that the sample wasn’t
from an ape but from a Himalayan bear. OK, so you’ve obviously heard of Yeti
and Sasquatch, but there are plenty of Apemen and other hairy humanoid cryptids you probably
haven’t heard of. 4. There’s Almasty,
which apparently shares some characteristics of Neanderthals, and roams Central Asia.
5. The Amomongo is an apeman that hails from the Philippines and apparently likes to
disembowel goats with its long fingernails. 6. Am Fear Liath Mòr, a.k.a. “The Big Gray
Man,” inhabits the summit of Ben Macdui, the second-highest mountain in Scotland.
Supposedly you can hear its disembodied footsteps in the gravel on the mountain,
and when the fog thins, you’ll see a hairy humanoid three times taller than a man.
7. Yowies, which live in the Australian Outback, originated in Indigenous Australian tales.
These creatures are said to be extremely hairy and between 7 and 12 feet tall. They’ve been
described both as Australia’s version of Bigfoot and “a spirit that roams over the earth at night,”
a phrase that sends a shiver up my spine. 8. There’s also the Hibagon, which lives
in the mountains around Hiroshima in Japan. And there are many others. Experts say these
apemen legends occurred independently across cultures. Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of
Skeptical Inquirer magazine, told Live Science, quote, "The idea of a wild, man-like 'other'
creature co-existing with us but just beyond our understanding is heavily rooted in mythology."
The Honey Island Swamp Monster is a 7-foot-tall, 400-pound, stinky gray-haired beast first spotted
by two hunters in Louisiana’s Honey Island Swamp in 1963. Casts of its footprints have shown it
to have four toes—one off to the side and three thin, webbed toes on the front of the foot. Some
say it’s the product of mating between escaped circus chimpanzees and alligators, which doesn’t
seem scientifically sound, but what do I know. We can’t do a list of cryptids without talking
about the Loch Ness monster. Sightings of a beast in the area of Loch Ness go back 1500 years,
but the modern obsession began in 1933, after a new road was built that offered a better view of
the loch. A loch is basically a Scottish word for a lake or other inland body of water, by the way,
and it's more properly pronounced loch. Please let me know how I did on that pronunciation in
the comments. Anyway, the most famous photo of Nessie, dubbed “The Surgeon’s Photo,”
was taken the year after that. And what’s interesting about that photo is that, according
to some, it was an elaborate attempt at revenge. Let me explain. In 1933, The Daily Mail had sent
Marmaduke Wetherell to Loch Ness to find the creature. Wetherell discovered some four-toed
footprints near the water, took casts of the prints and sent them off to a museum for analysis.
And, of course, he wrote about them. But it all blew up in his face when the museum revealed
that the prints didn’t belong to Nessie but to … a hippo. Someone, possibly Wetherell himself,
had likely used the foot of some kind of stand to put the prints in the mud. The Daily Mail,
who had sent Wetherell to find proof of the monster, decided to attack and humiliate him.
If you think that sounds rude, you’re not alone! Wetherell apparently didn’t appreciate it either.
He and his stepson used a wood plastic composite and toy submarine to create their version of the
Loch Ness monster, then took it to the lake, photographed it, and the film wound up in the
hands of a doctor. That doctor developed the film and sent the photo to The Daily Mail,
which published it. But when the photo started generating a ton of publicity,
the hoaxers apparently decided not to reveal what they’d done.
Of course, not everyone believes this story is true, not the least because it
didn’t come to light for decades. In the world of cryptids, nothing is simple.
Nessie isn’t the only aquatic cryptid out there. One is Tahoe Tessie, which supposedly lives in
California and Nevada’s Lake Tahoe. Another is Ogopogo, which lives in Okanagan Lake in British
Columbia. This creature appears in Syilx and Secwepemctales as the N’ha-a-itk, an evil entity
that required natives to make a sacrifice to cross the lake. White people reportedly
started seeing the creature in the 1870s. The name Ogopogo is thought to derive
from a popular mid-20s nonsense song that included the lyrics:
“His mother was an earwig His father was a whale;
I’m going to put a little bit of salt on his tail I want to find the Ogo pogo.
Ogopogo caught on, and unfortunately, as with so many things, the original
native name for the creature was wiped out. Thanks to YouTube commenter Carlin
C. for pointing us towards the Ogopogo. For what it’s worth, Dr. Charles Goldman,
an expert on inland aquatic systems, believes that sightings of lake monsters like Nessie,
Tessie, and Ogopogo are actually mirages caused by temperature changes in the deep,
cold lakes. Another possible explanation is very big fish, like sturgeons, that live in the lakes.
The Congo’s Mokele-mbembe is a different water monster altogether.
This 35-foot-long herbivore lives in rivers and is said to resemble a sauropod dinosaur, down to
its long tail and neck. Tales about a mysterious giant animal in the area date back to the 1700s,
but the creature first popped up in modern literature in the 1909 book Beasts and Men. There
have been a number of searches over the years, including an expedition funded on Kickstarter, but
the Mokele-mbembe—a name that means “one who stops the flow of rivers”—still hasn’t been found.
The Dobhar-chú is an Otter-like Irish cryptid that’s said to be half-fish, half-hound. The
aggressive 7-foot-long creatures supposedly live in lakes around Ireland and are also known
as “Irish Crocodiles.” Sightings date back to the late 1600s, and there’s even a depiction of
a Dobhar-chu on the gravestone of a woman who is said to have been killed by one of the creatures
in 1722. Also, I have a request: No matter how I go, please put an elaborate description
of the cryptid who killed me on my gravestone. I wanna pop up in a YouTube video in 300 years in
a footnote about the woman who was mauled by a half-lion, half-pig. What a claim to fame!
According to Indigenous Australian folklore, the Bunyip is a creature found in lakes and swamps
in Australia that is fond of eating people, especially women and kids. Descriptions of the
bunyip are all over the place, but many describe it as looking something like a seal. Also,
it supposedly lays its eggs in platypus nests, and as a person whose dream is
to see a platypus with her own two eyes, I have to say: that is very not cool.
OK, let’s move on to the half-creepy creature, half-man cryptid section of the video.
The Loveland Frogman is exactly what it sounds like … a humanoid frog. The creature was first
spotted swimming in Ohio’s Little Miami River in 1955. Then in March 1972, it was seen by Loveland,
Ohio, police officers on two separate occasions. The first officer described a 3- to 4-foot-tall
creature that weighed 60 pounds with leathery skin and a face like a frog or lizard.
The second officer even shot the creature. In 2016, the Loveland Frogman was supposedly
spotted again by two people playing Pokemon Go. One of them emailed a video of the creature to
the local news, saying, quote: “We saw a huge frog near the water. Not in the game,
this was an actual giant frog. I took a couple of pictures and a video ’cause I’d never seen one
that big. Then the thing stood up and walked on its hind legs.” He added, “I swear on my
grandmother's grave that this is the truth.” After that article came out, however,
the second officer from the 1972 sighting came forward and called it a hoax,
claiming that the creature he’d spotted and shot was an iguana that had been missing its tail.
A blogger was also able to basically duplicate what the Pokemon Go player had captured in his
video using a small statue of a frog with light-up eyes. But even if the Loveland Frogman isn’t real,
these totally awesome “I Saw the Loveland Frogman” t-shirts are. I really need to get one of those.
You might've heard about Maryland's Goatman, which we discussed in our episode about the true origins
of urban legends—but he's not the only goat-based cryptid. Texas’s Lake Worth Monster is also a
goatman that is apparently 7 feet tall and 350 pounds. And the Pope-Lick Monster is a half goat,
half man creature that lives under a railroad trestle bridge in Louisville,
Kentucky. It reportedly uses hypnosis to lure people out onto the bridge and to their deaths.
Now let’s go from creatures that are goats to a creature that eats goats. Chupacabra is Spanish
for goat sucker. This creature, which first appeared in Puerto Rico in the 1990s, has creepy
red eyes, stands on two legs, is 4 to 5 feet tall, has spikes on its back and very long claws on its
hands, and, oh yeah, it likes to drain livestock of their blood. The legend spread all over Latin
America, into the United States, and into legend. But DNA analysis suggests that many so-called
chupacabras are actually canines with mange. Cajun legend has it that the swamps and bayous
of Louisiana are haunted by the Rougarou, a werewolf-like creature that apparently hunts
two types of prey: Catholics who don’t observe Lent and naughty kids. Unlike werewolf legends,
however, you don’t need to be bitten by a Rougarou to become a Rougarou. According to Jonathan Foret,
executive director of South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center, quote, “One of the ways that you
could become a Rougarou is if you did not observe Lent for seven years in a row.” You can also
become a Rougarou if someone curses you. But if you’re a bad kid, make no mistake: Rougarou wants
to eat you! To protect yourself from the Rougarou, you need to place 13 objects, like pennies
or rocks, on your threshold or windowsill. It supposedly works because Rougarou can only count
to 12. This I understand—I’m also bad at math. The Ahool is a giant bat-like creature spotted by
a scientist in the jungles of Java in Indonesia in 1925. It’s named after its call and is said
to be twice as large as the large flying fox bat, which, with a wingspan of 5 feet—or just short of
one Erin—is among the largest bats in the world. Some have said the creature might be a pterosaur;
others believe it could be an owl. Finally, let’s finish up with a giant cat.
The Beast of Exmoor prowls the fields near Somerset and Devon [dev-in] in the UK
and has been spotted numerous times since the 1970s. This is not the kind of cat you’d want
to cuddle up with: The killings of hundreds of sheep have been pinned on the creature,
which is said to be up to 6.5 feet long. One farmer whose sheep was killed by the
beast said his sheep’s face and neck were stripped clean off. The corpse had also been sucked dry.
The killing was apparently so quick that the sheep didn’t even struggle, and so quiet that
none of the other animals near it were disturbed. Some believe the creature is a big cat like a
puma that either escaped or was released from a private owner after it became illegal to own big
cats in the 1970s. But given that big cats like these only live for around 15 years, and that
sightings persist to this day, it seems like the mystery of the Beast of Exmoor remains unsolved.
Now let’s talk about a cryptid that’s half-bat, half-cat, with razor sharp talons and huge yellow
eyes. She’s said to lurk around this apartment and show up whenever you say the word treat.
That's the face of a cat that is 100 percent going to murder me in my sleep tonight.
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