DAUNTING DRAGONFLIES OF THE DEMONIC, HORSE-HEADED, AND BROBDINGNAGIAN VARIETIES!

 

My very own giant dragonfly, chanced upon in a charity shop recently and now residing in my study (© Dr Karl Shuker)

This ShukerNature blog article of mine documents an entomological enigma of the cryptozoological kind that has long fascinated, me but which I've never previously blogged about. Namely, the extraordinary possibility that extra-large dragonflies, veritable giants in some cases, exist unrecognised by science in our modern-day world. Consequently, I have gathered here an exclusive selection of such reports for your perusal. First of all, however, I'd like to set the scene for them by presenting a couple of comparable examples plucked from traditional folklore and medieval fancy.

 

GIANT DRAGONFLIES IN FOLKLORE

On 16 August 2015, I documented here on ShukerNature (and subsequently redocumented in expanded form within the first of my ShukerNature compendium books, ShukerNature Book 1: Antlered Elephants, Locust Dragons, and Other Cryptic Blog Beasts, 2019), a fascinating but thoroughly baffling centuries-old engraving illustrating a mysterious beast so bizarre in appearance that I dubbed it the locust dragon (click here to view my original blog article concerning it).

The original source of this specific engraving was a series of prints produced in Antwerp, Belgium, by Flemish engraver Nicolaes de Bruyn (1571-1656) in 1594 that depicted various flying creatures.

Although he is best known for his many biblically-themed engravings and his large engraved landscapes reproducing designs and paintings by other artists, de Bruyn produced approximately 400 works in total, including a number that featured animals.

 

Nicolaes de Bruyn's mystifying engraving from 1594, depicting a wide range of readily-identifiable insects, plus what can only be described as a truly bizarre 'locust dragon' (public domain)

The series containing the locust dragon was entitled Volatilium Varii Generis Effigies ('Pictures of Flying Creatures of Varied Kinds'), and was first published by Ahasuerus van Londerseel (1572-1635) of Amsterdam.

It was subsequently reissued (with van Londerseel's name neatly trimmed off!) by Carel Allard in 1663 (or shortly after – there are conflicting accounts concerning this detail).

My investigation of what the locust dragon might conceivably have been attracted a number of replies from readers, posted beneath my blog article, including one whose subject was entirely new to me and very intriguing.

Posted on 30 August 2015 by a reader with the memorable Google username Dracula van Helsing, it mentioned that de Bruyn's grotesque locust dragon reminded him of a legend from Cantabria, a region in northern Spain, concerning certain horse-like demonic dragonflies known as Caballucos (aka Caballitos) del Diablu ('little horses of the devil', despite being said to be at least as big as real horses!).

 

Giant model of a southern damselfly Coenagrion mercuriale, a very eyecatching species of slender-bodied dragonfly native to Britain and several countries across mainland Europe (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Here is Wikipedia's then-current entry on these very intriguing yet little-known mythical beasts, which has since been reworded somewhat and expanded (see also below), but was originally derived from Manuel Llano Merino's book Mitos y Leyendas de Cantabria, published in 2001:

On St John's Eve (June 23), when the people make bonfires to purify their souls, giant dragonflies appear amongst the ashes. These dragonflies - the Caballucos - are the souls of sinners, and they come to release their fury over a year's worth of sins with fire and terrifying screams.

 

The Caballucos del Diablu appear in a variety of colors, each one being the soul of a different sinner. The red horse was a man who lent money to farmers and then used dirty tricks to steal their properties; the white one a miller who stole many thousands of dollars from his master; the black one a hermit who played tricks on people; the yellow one a corrupt judge; the blue one an innkeeper; and the orange one a child who abused his parents.

 

 

Worryingly close to a giant damselfly! (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

And here is this entry's present version, i.e. as of today, 28 November 2023:

 

On St John's Eve (June 23) at night; when the people make bonfires to purify their souls, horses (Percheron purebred) with damselfly wings [damselflies are slender-bodied dragonfly species], black manes and foaming mouths appear amongst the ashes. These stallions – the Caballucos – are the souls of sinners, damned to roam Cantabria for eternity, come to release their fury over a year's worth of sins, creating a rumbling explosion with fire accompanied by terrifying screams. 

 

The Caballucos del Diablu appear in a variety of colors, each one being the soul of a different sinner, as legends highlight. The red horse was a man who lent money to farmers and then used dirty tricks to steal their properties; the white one a miller who stole many thousands of dollars from his master; the black one a hermit who played tricks on people; the yellow one a corrupt judge; the blue one an innkeeper; and the orange one a child who abused his parents;^[1] the green one a lord who possessed many lands and dishonoured plenty of young women. It is said that the Devil himself roams the streets riding the red fire-breathing steed, the sturdiest and most powerful who leads the raid, while other demons ride the rest. The force in their stomping is such that their horseshoes leave prints on rocks, as if they were freshly ploughed soil. They have gleaming eyes, and blow a strong wind with their nostrils to try impeding lovers from giving corsages to the girls. The huffs, as cold as winter, are strong enough to make leaves fall from trees and bushes. The horses’s food are shamrocks, with they eat tastefully, probably to prevent the seekers who come out at night from finding any. The Caballucos pounce on everyone they come across, the only things that repels them is a bunch of vervain that the person can carry along; the plant has to be collected the day before though, or should be placed next to St John’s fire, to which they won’t come near. The locals note that sometimes, after becoming worn out by the search, the Caballucos stop to rest and their saliva drips on the ground, and turns into gold ingots. Whoever takes them will be made extremely wealthy, but will descent straight to hell after death. 

 

 

Obverse side of a stele (carved upright stone) from San Vicente de Toranzo (Cantabria), depicting a ridden Cabulluco del Diablu, and displayed at the Museum of Prehistory and Archaeology of Cantabria, Spain (© Valdavia/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

 

Yet although giant dragonflies of equine appearance would undoubtedly be eyecatching in their own right if such creatures ever existed in reality as opposed to mere mythology, they would not bear any tangible resemblance to the enigmatic entity upon which my locust dragon investigations have been focused.

 

Interestingly, what has been described by some writers as a four-legged, horse-headed dragonfly is also portrayed in the Luttrell Psalter, an English illuminated manuscript dating from c.1325-1340.

 

However, as can readily be perceived here, the illustration of this incongruous insect bears no resemblance to those of the locust dragon.

 

 

A four-legged, horse-headed dragonfly depicted in the Luttrell Psalter (public domain)

But that is still not all as far as controversial giant dragonflies or dragonfly-like mystery beasts of the decidedly daunting kind are concerned.

 

GIANT DRAGONFLIES IN FACT?

One of the fantastical lands visited by physician Dr Lemuel Gulliver in Jonathan Swift's famous satirical fantasy novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) is Brobdingnag, a remote, hitherto-unexplored peninsula of the western USA, whose human inhabitants and wildlife are all of gigantic proportions.

Accordingly, in real life the adjective 'Brobdingnagian' is often applied to anything of extraordinarily large size – and could therefore be definitely applied in relation to certain reports in the cryptozoology archives of supposedly real but unequivocally oversized dragonflies.

 

A painting of Gulliver being inspected by one of the giants of Brobdingnag – note the enormous wasp in the foreground! (public domain)

One of these was posted on Lon Strickler's Phantoms and Monsters website, and reads as follows:

Me and my younger brother saw a huge dragonfly spanning well over a foot and half long in Bolton, England in 2002. It must have been over an inch in diameter as well at the centre. I would have questioned myself but as it was witnessed by someone else too. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just me seeing things. Sometimes I think was it an RC [radio/remote-controlled] helicopter? But no way could it move with such swiftness, agility and silence especially with 2002 technology. I went to the Manchester museum and checked with the insect experts and they said it sounds like you’ve seen something from the prehistoric and that no species of dragonfly that exist today are that large. It’s not a giant bird but has anyone ever seen these massive dragonflies? I would love some confirmation some more witnesses across the world.

Two years after this sighting, two comparable ones were posted online in the forum of the Charles Fort Institute's website on the very same day, 25 July 2004. One of these was posted by someone I know personally, a well-respected naturalist named Oll Lewis. Here is his typically matter-of-fact account of his encounter, which took place in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales:

I have seen a large dragonfly before, I live near a large country park with 2 huge lakes and extensive reed beds so if there were an ideal place for dragonfly and damselfly spotting, that's it. The largest dragonfly I observed was in Cosmeston Lakes Country Park [and] had a wingspan of at least 1/2 a meter [50 cm] skimming over the surface of the lake about 3 metres from the bank. It was brownish yellow in colour and apart from its size quite unremarkable.

 

A view of Cosmeston Lakes National Park (© Nagezna/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

I subsequently learned from Oll that he had reported his sighting to a university-based entomology professor, who blithely discounted it. The longest-bodied dragonfly native to the UK is the golden-ringed dragonfly Cordulegaster boltonii, whose slender elongate body can reach almost 8.5 cm long in adult females with fully-formed ovipositors, and whose wingspan can be as much as 10 cm, The largest UK dragonfly species in terms of wingspan is the emperor dragonfly Anax imperator, whose body averages around 8 cm long but its wingspan is up to 10.5 cm. However, these species' impressive dimensions still fall far short of those for the two mystery British specimens described above.

The second Charles Fort Institute forum report was posted by a contributor with the username laphip. Here it is:

When I was around nine years old me and my two sisters watched a dragonfly with a body about half a metre long circle around our backyard just above the height of our bungalow (in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). When we told our mom about it, she just said it must've been a toy plane shaped like a dragonfly. It looked quite naturally an insect to me, and it made no sound. Would a dragonfly of that size make or not make noise in flight? Can toy remote controlled planes be soundless?

Due to their rapid aerial movements and continual hawking, the size of these insects is notoriously difficult to gauge accurately, especially by eyewitnesses not familiar with them. So overestimation of size would not be difficult. Having said that, the above-noted mentions of remote/radio-controlled aircraft may well be relevant, especially in light of an unexpected but fascinating discovery that I made recently, and which I'll reveal later here.

 

Golden ringed dragonfly Cordulegaster boltonii, male (© Charles J Sharp/Wikipedi – CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

Another report, forwarded to me in 2001 by Strange Magazine's founding editor, the late Mark Chorvinsky, consists of a report e-mailed to him by correspondent Victor Engel. It reads as follows:

You may be interested in an expedition I plan on this summer. In May/June 1974 while driving through Mexico, I saw the largest dragonfly I've ever seen. At the time I estimated its wingspan at 14 inches. Since that time, I've not seriously searched for it again, but I have done some research. I've contacted dragonfly experts and other insect experts. The general consensus in the scientific community is that while there used to be dragonflies of that size, and, in fact, even larger, they don't, and cannot exist today. The reason cited for believing they cannot exist today is that the oxygen content of the atmosphere is too low to support the high metabolism required for the dragonfly to catch its prey. Then I got in touch with Dr Gilbert, of the University of Texas at Austin, who is doing research with imported fire ants and their parasitic phorid flies. He gave me two well thought-out lists. One was a list of all the reasons why such a dragonfly cannot exist. The other was a list of reasons why such an insect could possibly exist. Anyway, I'm so convinced at what I saw in the 70s that now I'm making a special trip just to find one again.

As Engel correctly mentions, back in ancient prehistoric times there were dragonflies – or, to be precise, dragonfly-resembling insects – that were even bigger than the size estimate offered by him for his Mexican mystery specimen. These veritable giants are known as griffinflies, in homage to those legendary winged monsters the griffins, Originally housed together with the true dragonflies and damselflies within the taxonomic order Odonata, griffinflies are nowadays housed in a separate, extinct order, Meganisoptera.

 

Griffinfly in prehistoric scene, vintage illustration (public domain)

Indeed, fossil remains of Meganeura monyi, a dragonfly that lived approximately 300 million years ago during the late Carboniferous Era in what is today France, indicate that it sported a spectacular wingspan of up to 29.5 in.

Moreover, Meganeuropsis permiana, living during the early Permian Era, sported a comparable wingspan, thereby making these the largest insect species, past or present, currently known to science.

 

Blue-winged helicopter damselfly Megaloprepus caeruleatus (© Katja Schulz/Wikipedia – CC BY 2.0 licence)

Today, conversely, the largest Odonata member is the blue-winged helicopter Megaloprepus caeruleatus, a damselfly native to Central and South America, whose wingspan measures up to 7.52 in, and whose body length is up to 4.72 in. Hence Engel's specimen, if accurately estimated, would have a wingspan twice this.

In a JournalnewsOnline article of 15 February 2022, veteran mystery beast investigator Brent Swancer recalled being told by a supposed giant dragonfly eyewitness that he and a friend had been hiking together through Florida's famous Everglades National Park on a clear day when they saw what seemed at first to be a bird, but then they saw that it had four beating wings, not two, and that its metallic green body was very elongate, measuring over 1 ft long. Moreover, as they watched, the creature came close enough for them to discern the multi-faceted form of its eyes, as characteristically exhibited by the compound eyes of adult insects, hovering in front of them for a moment before it swooped off again, its flight entirely silent throughout.

 

Scale model of a griffinfly (© GermanOle/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

It is well known that the tracheal-based respiratory system of insects, whose internal network of minute cell-penetrating, air-transporting tubes is only capable of transporting oxygen over tiny distances, precludes these creatures from attaining the gargantuan sizes beloved of sci-fi movie makers, and even from those attained by the long-demised griffinflies, as the oxygen content of the atmosphere that existed way back in their time was much greater than it is today.

Bearing this in mind, therefore, what on earth – or anywhere else, for that matter! – can we say about the absolutely ginormous dragonfly lookalikes that a reader with the username PoeticsOfBigfoot posting to the cryptozoology website Cryptomundo on 28 June 2013 claimed to have observed over a lengthy period one evening in, fittingly, Texas?

Giant insects are more common in the Southwest than people realize. I saw huge dragonfly-like insects around sundown near Terlingua TX once. I estimate they were eight feet long or so, with about the same wingspan. They had some sort of long whip-like appendage at their posterior end, a little longer than their bodies, that arced upward. I saw three of them over a two-hour time span.

 

Confronted by a monster dragonfly sculpture of truly monstrous proportions in Wroclaw, Poland (© Piotr Przybyszewski/Wikipedia – CC BY 3.0 licence)

Male dragonflies do possess a pair of claspers at the tip of their most posterior abdominal segment, and females bear a single circus there, but these are nowhere near as long as the insects' bodies. So too did griffinflies, but with the same proviso. Moreover, for the respiratory reasons mentioned above, an 8-ft-long insect living today, most especially one as metabolically active as a fast-flying dragonfly, would be a physiological impossibility.

And even if it wasn't, such a spectacular, readily visible entity native to North America would assuredly have been discovered, described, and fully documented by science long ago. So although dragonflies are predatory, I wouldn't worry unduly about being dive-bombed any time soon by the terrorflies of Terlingua!

Unless, of course, this titanic trio had winged their way to Texas from Brobdingnag's secluded peninsula??? Gulliver's remarkable travels and his numerous hair-raising experiences during them had so transformed his personality that after he finally returned safely home, he became a recluse. After encountering monsters like these, can you blame him??

 

Fictional giant dragonfly with long whip-like posterior process like the three 8-ft-long Texas specimens (public domain)

Seriously, however, I have recently learned to my surprise but delight that giant radio-controlled dragonfly models not only exist but be readily purchased on certain websites – so might these fascinating fliers explain such sightings, including laphip's noted earlier here, especially if they were spied in dim light conditions? Then again, eyewitnesses of such creatures have often claimed that their flight was totally silent, thus suggesting that they weren't remote-controlled aircraft or drones after all.

In short, unless we dismiss all such reports as involving hoaxes, misidentifications of non-insect aerial creatures, or exaggerated size estimates of bona fide dragonflies, the mystery of these giant flying insects remains very much up in the air – as indeed do they!

For my expanded coverage of the locust dragon, be sure to check out  ShukerNature Book 1, whose front cover sports a gorgeous full-colour painting by longstanding friend and superb artist Anthony Walls, in which he portrays me with said locust dragon perching contentedly on my shoulder:

 

 

THE GIANT ANT GODS OF KLUMPOK, AND THE SPIDER MONSTER OF SUNDRA STRAIT - THEY REALLY WERE 'STRANGER THAN PEOPLE' !

Stunning artwork from 'Klumpok' in Stranger Than People (© YWP – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial, educational Fair Use basis for review purposes only)

It is always fascinating and often truly eye-opening to learn about and reflect upon books read by a person during their childhood that had such an impact upon them that these volumes subsequently influenced that person's entire future career. In my case, I owe a great deal to two very different but equally influential books, one of which is much better known than the other. The former is Dr Bernard Heuvelmans's classic cryptozoology tome On the Track of Unknown Animals, whose seismic impact upon my life I have already blogged about on ShukerNature (click here to read my account of how this came to be).

The second book, conversely, is a no-less-wonderful but sadly long-since-forgotten one. It is a compendium of famous true-life and fictitious mysteries entitled Stranger Than People – and here is what I wrote about it in the introduction to one of my own compendia of mysteries, Dr Shuker’s Casebook (2008):

It is well known that my passion for cryptozoology was ignited by the 1972 Paladin paperback reprint of Dr Bernard Heuvelmans’s classic tome On the Track of Unknown Animals, bought for me as a birthday present by my mother when I was around 13 years old. However, my interest in mysterious phenomena as a whole stemmed from an even earlier present – a copy of Stranger Than People, an enthralling compendium of mysteries from fact and fiction, published in 1968 by YWP, and aimed at older children and teenagers, which I saw one day in the Walsall branch of W.H. Smith when I was 8 or 9 years old, and was duly purchased for me as usual by my mother.

Within its informative, beautifully-illustrated pages I read with fascination – and fear – about Nessie and the kraken, vampires and werewolves, the Colossus of Rhodes and Von Kempelen’s mechanical chess player, dinosaurs and the minotaur, witches and zombies, yetis and mermaids, leprechauns and trolls, Herne the Hunter and Moby Dick, giants and the cyclops, feral children, the psychic powers of Edgar Cayce, and lots more. It even included two original – and quite superb - sci-fi short stories: ‘Klumpok’, about giant ant-like statues found on Mars and what happened when one of them was brought back to Earth; and ‘The Yellow Monster of Sundra Strait’, in which a giant transparent globe containing an enormous spider-like entity rises up out of the ocean; plus a thrilling (and chilling) fantasy tale, ‘Devil Tiger’, featuring a royal but malevolent weretiger that could only be killed with a golden bullet.

Needless to say, I re-read the poor book so many times that it quite literally fell apart, and was eventually discarded by my parents. After I discovered its loss, I spent many years scouring every bookshop for another copy, but none could be found. Not even Hay-on-Wye – world-famous as ‘The Town of Books’ with over 40 secondhand bookshops – could oblige. A few years ago, however, the Library Angel was clearly at work, because one Tuesday, walking into the bric-a-brac market held on that day each week in my home town of Wednesbury, on the very first stall that I approached I saw a near-pristine copy of Stranger Than People! Needless to say, I bought it, and to this day it remains the only copy that I have ever seen since my original one.

Holding the two books that sparked my lifelong interest in cryptozoology and other subjects of mystery – Stranger Than People, on the right, and the Paladin paperback edition of Dr Bernard Heuvelmans's On the Track of Unknown Animals, on the left (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Tragically, however, this superb book did not appear to have had a very large print run, was never reprinted, and as noted earlier it is nowadays long-forgotten and very scarce. Indeed, due to this book’s great rarity today, it occurred to me that few people will have been fortunate enough to have ever read those marvellous, original short science-fiction stories from it that I mentioned above, yet which remain among my own personal favourites within that genre.

My much-treasured second copy of Stranger Than People (© YWP/Dr Karl Shuker – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial, educational Fair Use basis for review purposes only)

Consequently, after almost 50 years and for the very first time anywhere on the internet, utilising the Fair Dealing/Fair Use convention I was delighted to be able to rectify this sad situation a while ago by presenting two of them on ShukerNature's sister blog, The Eclectarium of Doctor Shuker, in the context of review.

The Contents page from Stranger Than People, revealing the wonderfully diverse and fascinating array of subjects documented within this amazing book - please click to enlarge for reading purposes (© YWP – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial, educational Fair Use basis for review purposes only)

So for any of you reading this article of mine here on ShukerNature but for some inexplicable reason have never visited my Eclectarium before (shame on you, shame, I say!), just click here to access scans in the form of readily-readable enlargements of the original pages from Stranger Than People for 'Klumpok', and here for those for 'The Yellow Monster of Sundra Strait' (and yes, it is spelled 'Sundra', not 'Sunda', in the story, although whether by accident or design I cannot say).

I hope that you enjoy encountering the giant ant gods of Klumpok and the Sundra Strait's globe-encapsulated spider monster just as much as I did – and still do.

The deadly globe-encapsulated yellow monster of Sundra Strait as depicted in spectacular artwork from Stranger Than People (© YWP – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial, educational Fair Use basis for review purposes only)

THE GIANT GRASSHOPPER OF WISCONSIN - FOCUSING UPON A PHONEY PHOTOGRAPH

The iconic photograph of A.L. Butts holding up a supposed giant grasshopper that he had allegedly shot dead in his apple orchard during 1937 (public domain)

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, I purchased a trio of fascinating books that totally captivated me, reading them from cover to cover and then re-reading them numerous times thereafter. Indeed, even today I still return to them periodically and dip inside their fact-filled pages. Presented by The People's Almanac, these international bestsellers were: The Book of Lists (1977), The Book of Lists 2 (1980), and The Book of Lists 3 (1983). They were written by David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace, and Amy Wallace, and, as their titles suggest, they were packed throughout with annotated lists on every conceivable subject, and included many specialist ones that were compiled by a lengthy series of credited contributors with extensive knowledge on those particular s objects.

One of my favourite lists appeared in the third book of this series. Entitled '8 Worst Monster Hoaxes', the list had been compiled by none other than cryptozoology's very own Loren Coleman, and included concise accounts of such famous crypto-frauds as Phineas Barnum's Feejee mermaid, the giant model used in the notorious Silver Lake monster hoax, the supposed living Jersey devil put on show that proved to be a kangaroo painted with green stripes and with fake wings attached (click here to read my ShukerNature account of this faux monster), the controversial photo of de Loys's supposed South American ape, and – a case that I'd not encountered until reading this book – the giant grasshoppers that allegedly invaded the apple orchard of farmer A.L. Butts from Wisconsin. Here, quoting from his list, is what Loren wrote concerning this extraordinary episode:

GIANT GRASSHOPPERS OF BUTTS ORCHARD

On Sept. 9, 1937, the following headline appeared on the front page of the Tomah (Wis.) Monitor-Herald: "Giant Grasshoppers Invade Butts Orchard East of City." The accompanying story gave details of the invasion. Apparently, after eating some special plant food that farmer A. L. Butts had sowed on his apple orchard, the grasshoppers grew to an astounding 3 ft. in length—large enough to snap off tree limbs as they leaped about the orchard. Along with the article, there were photographs of the mutant insects being hunted with shotguns. Because the story was continued on page four, many readers never got to the final paragraph, which suggested that it was all a put-on: "If there are those who doubt our story it will not be a new experience, inasmuch as most newspaper writers are thought to be the darndest liars in the world." The elaborate hoax was concocted by Mr. Butts and the Monitor-Herald publisher, B. J. Fuller.

My greatly-treasured copy of The Book of Lists 3 (© David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace, and Amy Wallace / Corgi Books - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)

Accompanying Loren's account was the eyecatching photograph that opens this present ShukerNature blog article of mine, except that in Loren's account the photo was reproduced by the book's publisher in mirror-image format, the only instance that I'm aware of in which it has appeared in this orientation. It was one of the pictures that had been included in the above-noted Tomah Monitor-Herald newspaper's hoax report.

Not surprisingly, with the coming of the internet such a striking image as this one was not going to go unnoticed and uncommented-upon online, and indeed, it currently appears on countless websites. Yet although on the vast majority of these sites it is readily denounced as a hoax, there is rarely if ever any provision of details supporting such a claim, and on some sites there is even earnest discussion as to whether it actually is a hoax or whether the giant grasshopper portrayed in it is real!

In both situations, therefore, it would appear that all such sites are blissfully unaware of Loren's above-quoted account, and also of the more recent version by Leland Gregory – a concise coverage of this phoney incident appearing in Gregory's wonderfully-entitled book Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages (2007). It includes the following specific details concerning the photographs contained in the hoax newspaper report: "Accompanying the article were photographs of shotgun-toting hunters tracking down the mutant insects as well as a picture of Farmer Butts holding up a dead grasshopper like a prize fish" – the latter being an excellent description of the famous image opening my own article here. But that is not all.

Picture postcards from 1937 featuring this iconic giant grasshopper image but giving different claimed locations for it; note also that in the middle postcard the grasshopper seems to be held at a slightly different angle, and with both antennae hanging down, indicating that this is a second, hitherto-unrecognised photo - see below for more details (public domain)

In many online sites containing this photograph, it takes the form of a vintage-looking picture postcard, inasmuch as beneath the main portion of the image (containing Butts holding the grasshopper) but superimposed upon the lowermost portion of the image itself (a section of ground present below Butts's feet and rifle end that was not present in the version of this picture accompanying Loren's account, which was therefore cropped as well as mirror-image-reversed) is white handwriting in the style that was frequently seen in such picture postcards dating back to the first half of the 20^th Century. This handwriting provides the location where the photograph was supposedly taken, plus the photo's copyright owner and year.

In most examples that I have seen, the information given is: 'GRASSHOPPER SHOT NEAR MILES CITY MONT. © 1937 COLES STUDIO GLASGOW MONT'. However, I have also seen versions in which the location is variously given as 'NEAR MANDAN NORTH DAKOTA', and 'NEAR MEDORA NORTH DAKOTA' (and in this latter version, the adjective 'GIANT' is applied to the grasshopper). The year and copyright details, conversely, are the same as those given in the Miles City Montana version.

Of particular interest, moreover, is that in one such version (pictured above), labelled as 'NEAR MANDAN NORTH DAKOTA', the angle at which the grasshopper is being held by Butts is slightly different from in all other versions seen by me, and with both of its antennae (not just one) hanging downwards, as well as less of its feet emerging from out of Butts's fist. In other words, this is apparently a second, hitherto-unrecognised photograph of Butts and the giant grasshopper, yet clearly produced during the same session as the famous one, because Butts's pose is identical in both, whereas the grasshopper's is very similar - but not identical - in both.

There are also various additional versions online that may be of more recent date, as the locations given are simply added in typescript within a separate block beneath the entire image, rather than as handwriting superimposed upon the lowermost portion of the image. One such example gives the supposed location of where the 'giant grasshopper' was shot as 'Near C.P.R. Station Moose Jaw, Sask.', with 'Sask.' being an abbreviation for the state of Saskatchewan in Canada. (There are also all manner of modern-day parodies, spoofs, and pastiches of this now-classic image online, featuring characters from famous television shows, computer/video games, and much more besides.)

Two spoofs of the Butts giant grasshopper photograph: the left-hand-one provides a humorous twist to its content; the right-hand-one features Butch DeLoria, leader of the Tunnel Snakes gang in Fallout 3, an action role-playing open world video game that includes giant cockroach-like insects called radroaches (© owner unknown to me / © Fallout Wiki)

Bearing in mind that the hoax was set in Wisconsin, USA, all of the above-noted claimed locations for the grasshopper shooting given on the various picture postcards are themselves fake. But once again, that is not all. What is particularly odd, and therefore very intriguing, is that I have yet to find a single picture postcard of this image online that actually gives anywhere in Wisconsin as the claimed location!

Moreover, the very fact that there are in existence picture postcards depicting this image that date back to 1937, the exact same year in which the hoax report was published by the Tomah Monitor-Herald newspaper, makes me wonder which came first – the picture postcards or the newspaper hoax? If the hoax came first, then the postcards were made as a spin-off using the image from the report and with the writing giving supposed location and copyright details being subsequently added. But if the postcards came first, complete with the writing present, then the writing would need to be removed from them before the image could be included in the report. The easiest way to do this would be simply to crop the photo to just below Butts's feet (exactly as was done in The Book of Lists 3), thereby deleting the lowermost portion of the image containing the writing. But if the latter is true, does this mean that the hoax newspaper report was actually inspired by (and thus made direct use of) a pre-existing picture postcard that occurred with different claimed locations written upon it, but set its fictitious incident in a location (Wisconsin) separate from any of those claimed on the postcard versions?

An answer to this key question may well be forthcoming if we knew what format the giant grasshopper photograph takes in the newspaper report? Is the full image present, including the lowermost portion of ground beneath Butts's feet and rifle end but with no writing superimposed, thus confirming that the newspaper report came first? Or is the image cropped to just below Butts's feet, thereby strongly suggesting (albeit not confirming) that there may have been writing on the deleted lowermost portion?

That is definitely the all-important question here, one that might shed major new light upon the origin of this iconic photograph. Yet, maddeningly, it is also one that I am presently unable to answer – for the simple yet highly frustrating reason that so far I have been unable to set eyes upon a copy of the two-page hoax report from the Tomah Monitor-Herald newspaper of 9 September 1937. I have managed to locate a version of this story that appeared in the Juneau County Chronicle (of Mauston, Wisconsin) on 16 September 1937, but this is a much shorter version, and only includes a single photograph (and which, unfortunately, is not the one under consideration here), one that is again an evident but much less professionally-produced hoax image.

Section of the front page of the Juneau County Chronicle for 16 September 1937 containing the giant grasshopper story (public domain)

That same photograph, incidentally, depicting Butts and someone else shooting a giant grasshopper in Butts's orchard, is also apparently the opening photo in the original Tomah Monitor-Herald report, and I have been kindly informed by Facebook friend and correspondent Bob Deis that the other person in the photo is none other than B.J. Fuller from the Tomah Monitor-Herald, who, as noted earlier, co-engineered the hoax with Butts.

Bob has given me a cutting from the Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids) newspaper of 14 September 1937 that confirms this, Fuller openly admitting the hoax with Butts (variously spelt 'Butz' and 'Buts' here). Confusingly, this cutting initially names Fuller as merely a reporter for the Tomah Monitor-Herald, not as its editor (naming L.W. Kenny as editor instead), thereby seemingly contradicting Loren's afore-quoted account, but a few paragraphs later it then does name Fuller as editor! It also identifies the person who took that particular photograph of the two men shooting the giant grasshopper as one Reverend H.S. Schaller. I wonder if Schaller also took the famous photo of Butts holding up the giant grasshopper under consideration here? Thanks very much Bob for providing me with this informative cutting! And here it is:

Cutting from the Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids), 14 September 1937, confirming that the Wisconsin giant grasshopper hunt was indeed a hoax concocted by Butts and Fuller (public domain)

 
Needless to say, moreover, if anyone reading this ShukerNature article can provide me with a copy of the elusive Tomah Monitor-Herald report (or even any details concerning the appearance of the photograph in question here), I would very much appreciate it!

Well worth pointing out here is that picture postcards may well be linked to this hoax newspaper report in more ways than one, because it just so happens that in 1935, i.e. at least two years before this report was published, a picture postcard photographer/publisher named Frank D. Conard from Garden City, Kansas, had begun issuing what would become a very lengthy series of popular postcards depicting humorous illustrations featuring giant grasshoppers and spanning three decades.

Long before Photoshop was ever thought of, and eschewing even the popular optical illusion of forced perspective, Conard created his delightful pictures by simply but very effectively inserting enlarged images of grasshoppers into all manner of everyday scenes (a selection of which can be seen below). He also produced similar montage-based pictures featuring other enlarged images of animals, including jackrabbits and fishes. Picture postcards in this highly-collectible genre are known as exaggeration postcards.

A selection of Frank D. Conard's giant grasshopper-themed exaggeration postcards – click to enlarge (public domain)

Conard in turn had been inspired to produce his giant grasshopper-themed exaggeration postcards by a real-life grasshopper-featuring event that had taken place in Garden City, Kansas, during 1935. Namely, a major a plague of grasshoppers (albeit of normal size, happily!), which had attracted considerable media attention elsewhere across the USA, as other prairie states were also suffering from similar scourges at that time. In a December 2004 article concerning exaggeration picture postcards that was published on the Kansas Historical Society's website, Conard is quoted as having once said:

The idea [for producing his famous giant grasshopper-themed exaggeration postcards] came to me after a flight of grasshoppers swarmed into Garden City attracted by the lights, and it was impossible to fill an automobile gasoline tank at filling stations that night. I went home to sleep, but awoke at 3:00 a.m. and all I could think about was grasshoppers. By morning I had the idea of having fun with the grasshoppers, and took my pictures and superimposed the hoppers with humans. I didn't do it for adverse impressions of Kansas, but as an exaggerated joke.

Taking all of this into account, could it be that Coles Studio of Glasgow, Montana, the publisher of the picture postcards featuring Butts and the giant grasshopper and labelled with a variety of different claimed locations, was inspired by those of Conard, and/or by the real events that in turn had inspired Conard, to create some grasshopper-themed exaggeration postcards of its own? Indeed, can we even be absolutely certain that the person in this image actually is Butts? After all, if the postcards came first, before the hoax newspaper report, with one such postcard merely being the inspiration for the report and then simply included within it when it was finally published, who can say for certain who the person is in the image? It could be anyone. Butts might simply have lent his name to the hoax newspaper report, with the photo featuring whoever it was who had posed for it as a Coles Studio picture postcard long before the hoax newspaper story had ever been conceived.

A second selection of Frank D. Conard's giant grasshopper-themed exaggeration postcards – click to enlarge (public domain)

I've spent a fair amount of time online seeking any details or publication lists appertaining to the output of Coles during the 1930s, in the hope of pinning down specifically when in 1937 the grasshopper postcards depicting Butts (or whoever it is) holding the giant grasshopper were first issued, but, sadly, all to no avail.

However, thanks to a correspondent with the username Pattock, who, in a comment posted at the end of this article of mine, kindly brought them to my attention, I am now aware of two giant grasshopper-themed exaggeration picture postcards issued by Coles Studio in 1939 and 1938 respectively. So here they are:

Two giant grasshopper-themed exaggeration picture postcards issued by Coles Studio in 1939 and 1938 respectively - click to enlarge (public domain)

As for the giant grasshopper itself in the famous Coles Studio picture postcard under discussion here: one further intrigue awaits consideration. Does the postcard depicting it simply consist of an enlarged photo of a normal grasshopper that has been carefully inserted into a photo of Butts(?) in the normal montage-style manner of creating exaggeration picture postcards (but in at least two slightly different poses, as revealed earlier)? Or could the grasshopper have possibly been an actual full-sized giant grasshopper model?

The reason that I ask this is twofold. Firstly, on some websites I have seen claims, albeit unsubstantiated by any supporting evidence, alleging this to be the case. Secondly, although it seems an unlikely prospect there is in fact a notable fully-confirmed precedent – one that involves the following 'giant grasshopper' photograph, which again appears on numerous websites:

Holding down a giant grasshopper – actually a model (public domain)

As with the Butts photo, there are all kinds of claims circulating online regarding it being a hoax image, alongside other claims questioning whether the grasshopper is actually a bona fide living giant grasshopper. In fact, it is neither – as revealed on 8 October 2012 by Maureen A. Taylor in her Photo Detective column within Family Tree Magazine (and viewable online here). Following an investigation of this tantalising image, Maureen discovered that the giant grasshopper was an iron sculpture that had been created by Thomas Talcott Hersey of Mitchell, South Dakota, during the late 1930s, yet again as a result of being inspired by the real-life grasshopper plagues of that period, one of which had killed his own crops in his home state. Moreover, Hersey's giant grasshopper sculpture, which he had dubbed Galloping Gertie, attracted considerable interest and attention. Indeed, as Maureen noted:

When he displayed his invention at Corn Palace Week in Mitchell and charged a nickel to view it, he earned enough to support his family for a winter.  Hersey ended up with a commission from a man who hired him to make a housefly, a flea, a black widow spider and a monarch butterfly to show at county fairs.

Hersey even produced a picture postcard of Galloping Gertie (the image included by me above), in which he is shown pretending to hold it down, assisted by his nephew Harry (Bart) Hersey and David John Hersey, and which also bears the caption 'Capturing "Whopper Hopper" near Mitchell, S.D. The largest grasshopper in existence 54 inches long weight 73 pounds'. And it is this picture, often reproduced sans caption, which is the one doing the rounds online. So, yes, models of giant grasshoppers are not beyond the realms of possibility at all.

As for real-life giant grasshoppers, conversely, that of course is a very different matter. For fundamental anatomical and physiological regions, especially ones relating to respiration, no species of insect living today could attain the stature of those included in any of the images presented above in this present article. Having said that, and albeit on a much more modest scale, there are some undeniably impressive species of grasshopper native to various parts of North America, but none more so, surely, than the eastern lubber grasshopper Romalea microptera (=guttata).

An eastern lubber grasshopper (public domain)

Common throughout Florida, but up to 4 inches long, and brightly coloured in garish yellow, orange, and red with black stripes to warn would-be predators of its toxic nature, it came as something of a shock to me when I first encountered this monstrous entity while visiting the Everglades back in 1981. A slow-moving species not given to energetic hopping and generally too heavy to fly via its undersized wings, there seemed to be lubbers crawling underfoot everywhere, emitting loud hisses and secreting foul-smelling foamy exudations, until I was more than happy to step onto one of the boats to take me away from these hexapodal horrors and on through what seemed by comparison to be the relative tranquillity of the alligator-infested swamps!

Meanwhile, my search here and online continues apace for the final piece of the long-incomplete jigsaw constituting the mystery of the Butts giant grasshopper phoney photograph – that evanescent newspaper report from the Tomah Monitor-Herald of 9 September 1937. Once – if ever – I have that to hand, I may finally be able to determine in best chicken and egg tradition which came first, the Coles Studio picture postcards of this memorable image or its appearance in the newspaper report.

So, once again, if there is anyone out there reading this ShukerNature article who can offer any information (including a specific first publication date for the picture postcards), or, best of all, an image of the two-page newspaper report, I would be very happy to hear from you!

Two enthralling Weekly World News stories featuring the Butts giant grasshopper photograph (© Weekly World News – included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)

Finally: how could any photograph featuring a man holding a 3-ft-long grasshopper fail to attract the attention of the wonderful Weekly World News? Sure enough, this inestimable publication has featured the Butts photo in not one but two WWN stories. In the first, published on 9 April 1991, it was used as the basis of a highly entertaining report concerning a New Zealand farmer named Barry Gissler who had shot a 23-lb giant grasshopper less than a month earlier, on 15 March. And in the second, published just over a year later on 16 June 1992, the unfortunate Mr Gissler had alas been found dead with a broken neck and strange bite marks on his body. Had New Zealand's mega-hoppers taken revenge upon the murderer of one of their burly six-legged brethren? Only the WWN can answer that question – and who knows, perhaps one day, in a third fascinating instalment of this gripping grasshopper yarn, it will do!

Incidentally, just in case you were wondering: The world's largest known true grasshopper (as opposed to the highly-specialised wetas of New Zealand) is a currently-unidentified species documented from the border of Malaysia and Thailand that measures 10 in long and is capable of leaping up to 15 ft. So perhaps giant grasshoppers are not such a figment of fantasy after all!

NB – As far as I am aware, all of the illustrations included here are in the public domain unless stated otherwise. In any case, however, they are all included here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only, exclusively for educational, review purposes.

A vintage giant grasshopper-themed exaggeration postcard in colour (© Mike Roberts Color Productions, Oakland - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

UPDATE AND DENOUEMENT – 6 March 2017

Today I was delighted and extremely grateful to receive from David Kranz, the Associate Librarian in the Archives of La Crosse Public Library in Wisconsin, USA, scans of the complete, original two-page Tomah Monitor-Herald giant grasshopper hoax report from 9 September 1937 that I have been anxiously seeking for so long! Thank you so much! And yes indeed, there on page 1, just below and to the left of the photograph of a grasshopper being shot in a tree, was the very familiar photo that has been under discussion throughout this present ShukerNature blog article of mine, showing a man holding up vertically a supposed dead giant grasshopper, hanging head down, its back feet clutched in the man's fist. Reading the full article, however, it is intriguing to note that Butts is never actually identified as the man in this photo. All that is said about it, in fact, is as follows:

The picture at the left shows one of the big hoppers that had been shot.

So even now, there is no categorical proof that the man in this photo really is Butts.

As for the photograph itself as included in this hoax report, it is the more familiar version, i.e. with only one of the grasshopper's antennae hanging straight down (the other one curling almost horizontally to the left), and with a substantial amount of the grasshopper's back feet emerging out of Butts' fist. Moreover, it is neither in mirror-image version, nor, significantly, does it contain any details of location, date, or the Coles Studio in handwriting beneath Butts and the grasshopper – because in this newspaper report the image is cropped to just below Butts's feet.

This therefore lends weight to my earlier suggestion that it was the picture postcard of this image (with the details in handwriting superimposed upon an additional, lowermost section of the image, present beneath Butts's feet) that came first, before the newspaper report, and which had then been incorporated into the newspaper report by the simple expedient of someone having cropped beforehand that lowermost section of image containing the handwriting from the main portion of the image. Why else would the image have been cropped? It wasn't as if the section of image beneath Butts's feet was extensive and would therefore occupy space that could be better used in some other way within the report. And despite all of my numerous, extensive searches made in relation to this image, I have never once come upon a version of it that retains this missing lowermost section but without the handwritten source details, etc., being superimposed upon it.

Consequently, until (if ever) any such version of the image does turn up, it seems parsimonious to conclude that this iconic image did indeed begin life as a Coles Studio exaggeration picture postcard, issued some time in 1937 but definitely prior to the publication of the hoax newspaper report in the Tomah Monitor-Herald on 9 September 1937, and that it then appeared within that report in cropped form, with all details of publisher, date, and location having been deleted, and with the very terse, uninformative reference to it within the main text of the report suspending over it in Damoclesian verisimilitude a potentially perpetual question mark as to whether the man depicted in it was indeed Butts at all.

Finally, be sure not to miss out on Bob Deis's awesome Cryptozoology Anthology: Strange and Mysterious Creatures in Men's Adventure Magazines – check it out here!