SHUNKA WARAK'IN, RINGDOCUS, GUYASTICUTUS, ROCKY MOUNTAIN HYAENA – A TANGLE OF TERMS FOR A VERY TAXING TAXIDERM BEAST

Enlargement photograph of a picture postcard of The Beast displayed alongside its glass case (photograph © Shane Lea)

Last month, a friend of mine informed me that just a few years ago he had been fortunate enough to view up close and personal(ly) something truly rare in cryptozoology – an actual physical specimen of a putative cryptid. And not just any cryptid either. Nothing less, in fact, than a suspected shunka warak'in – one of North America's lesser-known but no less interesting mystery creatures.

I first documented the shunka warak'in back in 2007, within my book Extraordinary Animals Revisited, and I added a very important update to my account when that book was reprinted not long afterwards. So, before I document my friend's first-hand impressions of the afore-mentioned specimen, here is what I originally wrote 12 years ago concerning this very intriguing New World unknown animal:

The taxiderm ringdocus exhibit (aka The Beast) originally displayed in Sherwood's store/museum, where it was also labelled as a guyasticutus and a Rocky Mountain hyena (public domain)

Translating as ‘carrying-off dogs’, 'shunka warak'in' is the name given by the Ioway and other Native Americans living along the U.S.A.-Canada border to a strange dark-furred creature likened morphologically to a cross between a wolf and a hyaena, which sports a lupine head and high shoulders, but also a sloping back and short hindlimbs - bestowing upon it a hyaenid outline. As its name suggests, the shunka warak’in is said to sneak into the tribes’ camps at night and seize any unwary dogs, and it cries like a human if killed.

Sometime during the 1880s, a mystifying creature fitting this description was shot and killed by the grandfather of zoologist Dr Ross E. Hutchins (who documented the incident in his book Trails to Nature’s Mysteries, 1977) on his ranch in the Madison River Valley north of Ennis, Montana. Unlike so many other cryptozoological corpses, however, this one was actually preserved, becoming a cased taxiderm specimen that was subsequently exhibited for many years by a grocer called Sherwood at his store-cum-museum near Henry Lake, Idaho, Sherwood terming it a ‘ringdocus’. Moreover, a good-quality photograph of this unique specimen was taken, revealing its somewhat composite form – and appears in Hutchins’s book. This is just as well, because the whereabouts of the specimen itself are currently unknown, as it has apparently been moved in recent years to somewhere in the West Yellowstone area.

After reading Hutchins’s account and seeing the photo, veteran American cryptozoologist Loren Coleman keenly pursued this intriguing subject further, and together with fellow cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall he uncovered other accounts and data concerning odd hyaena-like beasts reported in North America over the years, which he duly collated in an article devoted entirely to the shunka warak’in (Fortean Times, June 1996). One further report dates from as recently as 1991, in Canada, when a peculiar hyaena-lookalike beast was observed by several eyewitnesses near to the Alberta Wildlife Park (Fortean Times, February-March 1992).

A seemingly different, clearer photograph of the taxiderm ringdocus/The Beast specimen (photographer's identity presently unknown to me, photograph seemingly in the public domain, but in any case reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Moreover, an additional report that may well have bearing upon the shunka warak’in case but which has not been published until now is one that was brought to my attention by cryptozoological artist William Rebsamen in an email to me of 19 May 1998. In it, Bill recalled meeting up a few days earlier with his high school art teacher, Ron Thomas, and had been very surprised to learn that Ron had a longstanding interest in cryptozoology. Described by Bill as a very non-nonsense person with a lifetime’s woodsman experience from growing up on a New Jersey horse ranch and moving to the Oklahoma pan-handle working with horses before finally settling down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, to become an art teacher, Ron passed on to Bill some very interesting information:

Ron also asked me if I’d ever heard of a strange predator that was not to be mistaken by locals as a bear or dog. Ron said he did not think much after first hearing about this from an old farmer who lived near him until he heard the same description from a totally unrelated second source near the same area. It is described as massively built in the front of its body while having shorter legs in back and travels in an unusual gait. As though Ron read my mind he next told me it sounds to him like some sort of hyena except that it is coal black in color. This reminded me of an article in Fortean Times (FT 87, page 42) in Loren’s ‘On the Trail’ of the mysterious (but poorly taxidermed) hyena like creature pictured in a photo from the Southwest.

I totally agree with Bill that Ron’s mystery beast certainly recalls Loren’s shunka warak’in – but if such a beast does indeed exist, what could it be? The most conservative notion is that reports of it feature nothing more than freak/deformed wolves or odd feral mongrel dogs. Even the stuffed specimen, sloping back notwithstanding, appears more canine than hyaenine in overall form as depicted in the photo of it. Additionally, an escaped/released genuine hyaena or two may also have been sighted. However, with the exception of the very dark-furred but also very rare brown hyaena Hyaena brunnea, modern-day hyaenas are generally light-coloured with distinctive spots or stripes (depending upon the species).

Brown hyaena in the Gemsbok National Park, South Africa (© Bernard Dupont/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)

As for any possibility that it really is a wolf x hyaena hybrid, this is not tenable, because canids and hyaenids belong to two totally separate taxonomic families. Consequently, it is highly unlikely that a wolf-hyaena mating would even produce offspring at all, let alone viable ones.

Three very dramatic identities that have been proposed [by various cryptozoological investigators] involve the prospect of prehistoric survival. One of these identities is an undiscovered, modern-day borophagine – a superficially hyaena-like subfamily of canids represented by fossils in North America’s Oligocene to Pliocene epochs (34-2.5 million years ago). However, their hypershortened faces differ markedly from the long-snouted profile of the stuffed creature. The second suggestion is a surviving Chasmaporthetes ossifragus, America’s formidable hunting hyaena, which officially became extinct around 10,000 years ago [since revised to around 0.78 million years ago]. And the third is a relict amphicyonid, an identity that has also been applied to another mystery mammalian carnivore reported from North America, the waheela [click here to read more about this cryptid on ShukerNature].

Of course, one of the best possible ways of ascertaining the identity of at least one supposed shunka warak’in is to trace the Sherwood-owned taxiderm specimen, and perform DNA analysis on hair samples taken from it. So if you live in or plan to visit the West Yellowstone area, and you happen to spot a strange-looking, stuffed ‘hyaena-wolf’ ensconced in a large glass case there, don’t shun it as a freak or a fake. Take some photos, ask its owners as many questions about it as you can, and please send me whatever images and information concerning it and its new location that you are able to. It may indeed prove to be nothing more startling than a shabbily-preserved wolf or dog – then again, it might prove to be a major cryptozoological find.

Cormocyon copei, a species of dog-like borophagine, depicted by Roger Witter in his Turtle Cove mural (public domain, according to Wikipedia – click here for details)

Not long after my book containing the above account was published, a highly significant rediscovery was made – none other than the seemingly long-lost taxiderm ringdocus itself! Needless to say, I was most anxious to add details of this very important new episode in the history of the shunka warak'in to my earlier documentation of it, so an updated reprint of my book was swiftly published that contained the following additional coverage:

STOP PRESS: The long-lost stuffed 'ringdocus' (p. 99), which corresponded well with descriptions of the mysterious shunka warak’in, has been found! After reading a story about it in late October 2007, Jack Kirby, another grandson of Israel Hutchins, tracked down the elusive exhibit to the Idaho Museum of Natural History [IMNH] in Pocatello [where, unbeknownst to cryptozoologists, it had long been in storage together with Sherwood's other taxiderm specimens, ever since they had all been donated to this museum]. Moreover, the museum agreed to loan it to Kirkby in order for it to be displayed at the Madison Valley History [Association] Museum [MVHAM, in Ennis, Montana]. A new examination of this famous specimen has revealed some previously-undocumented details. It measures 48 inches from the tip of its snout to its rump, not including its tail, and stands 27-28 in high at the shoulder. As portrayed in a photograph accompanying an article concerning its unexpected rediscovery published by the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on 15 November 2007 [click here to read this article and view the full-colour photo of it alongside Jack Kirby], its snout is noticeably narrow, and its coat is dark-brown, almost black, in colour, with lighter tan areas, and includes the faint impression of stripes on its flanks. Despite its age and travels around America, this potentially significant taxiderm specimen is in remarkably good condition, with no signs of wear or tear or even any fading of coat colouration. Could it truly be a shunka warak’in? And, if so, what in taxonomic terms is the shunka warak’in? Now that the lost has been found, DNA analyses of hair and tissue from the long-preserved exhibit may at last provide some answers.

More than a decade after I wrote the above stop-press account, however, my hopes and expectations that samples from the stuffed ringdocus (nowadays also known as The Beast) would be submitted for DNA analysis to reveal its taxonomic identity have still to be fulfilled. Apparently, this is or has been due at least in part to legality issues concerning which of the two museums featuring in this specimen's modern-day history (i.e. the INHM and the MVHAM) has the legal authority to allow such samples to be procured from it and dispatched for testing – click here for more details regarding this complex matter as contained within a Cryptomundo article authored and posted by Loren Coleman on 27 May 2009. Having said that: according to a noteworthy comment posted below that article on 21 September 2012 by now-retired museum professional/vertebrate palaeontologist Richard S. White, the INHM has deaccessioned the specimen and conveyed ownership of it to the person who had previously borrowed it, i.e. Jack Kirby, which if so presumably means, therefore, that responsibility for permitting or preventing DNA analyses now lies wholly within the MVHAM's remit.

Meanwhile, I am pleased to be able to present herewith some interesting, hitherto-unpublished Beast data, in the form of first-hand eyewitness information and photographs kindly supplied to me by Shane Lea from Montana, plus details of a second, much more recent Montana mystery canid. Shane is a longstanding cryptozoological correspondent and friend of mine, who specifically visited Ennis's MVHAM a few years ago in order to observe its most enigmatic exhibit, The Beast, where it has been housed ever since it was originally loaned there from the IMNH in 2007.

Enlargement photograph of a second picture postcard of The Beast (photograph © Shane Lea)

In a series of emails sent to me during May and June 2019, Shane revealed that the MVHAM is a small natural history museum containing a nice collection of familiar North American mammals, plus The Beast, which is contained within a large glass case at the front of the building. Due to a combination of poor lighting and camera-flash reflections off its glass case dooming to inevitable failure any attempt made to photograph this specimen directly, Shane chose instead to photograph in close-up a couple of full-colour picture postcards depicting it that he purchased there, and then print enlargements of his photos on glossy paper in order to exhibit and examine The Beast's features afterwards in more detail.

When subsequently discussing its possible identity with me via email, Shane stated that he favoured a wolf, whereas I mentioned in reply that I leaned more towards either an exceedingly cross-bred domestic dog or the hybrid offspring of some such dog and a wolf. Both of us readily discounted any hyaena or prehistoric survivor identity, because it clearly was not the former and it appeared far too nondescript in appearance, relatively speaking, for it to be any of the latter options noted earlier here. To quote Shane:

[The] specimen I saw was no larger than an ordinary wolf…As I viewed “The Beast,” the whole time I was thinking in my mind “wolf.” Believe you me, I was looking for any hyena-like characteristics. No-one would love to find something “prehistoric” more than me, but, you have to keep your head on straight and be realistic, otherwise you’ll just end up fooling yourself. You brought up a very valid point that I had not considered before, the cross-breed consideration. One thing that always bothered me about the account of this beast, was that as recalled in the book: “Trails To Nature’s Mysteries,” this animal that was shot and killed, was described as being friendly toward the dogs around the ranch in Montana. Now, why would an animal described as “carrying-off-dogs” be friendly and non-aggressive w/dogs, unless it was actually part dog itself?

Trails To Nature's Mysteries by Dr Ross E. Hutchins (© Dr Ross E. Hutchins/Dodd, Mead – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only – click here to purchase a copy on Amazon's USA site)

This latter comment by Shane is a very valid one. For although it is not unknown for a wild canid to lack hostility towards an encountered domestic dog, such encounters generally involve either downright hostility or open avoidance between the two animals.

Equally worthy of note, however, is a comment dated 10 January 2008 and posted underneath a Cryptomundo news item authored on 15 November 2007 by Loren Coleman regarding The Beast's rediscovery (click here to read it), in which a reader with the username MustangAppy claimed:

I know for a fact that the previous Mammology [sic] Curator and the current Paleontology Curator at IMNH have both examined this animal and stated that this is a poorly mounted black wolf, period.

John James Audubon's classic painting of a black wolf (public domain)

Also of interest is that in May 2018 a large canine mystery beast was once again shot in Montana. Here is what I subsequently wrote about it in one of my Alien Zoo cryptozoology news columns of 2018 for Fortean Times:

IS A MONTANA CRYPTID CRYING WOLF? Even more perplexing and media headlines-generating is the mystifying canine cryptid that was shot on a private ranch near Denton in the Lewistown area of northcentral Montana, USA, on 16 May 2018. With long greyish-brown fur, a large head, and a definite canine appearance, it superficially recalls a wolf in overall form. Yet according to Ty Smucker, wolf management specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP), who has examined close-up colour photos of this creature's body, its feet seem too small, its ears too large, and its body and limbs too short. As to be expected, the story of its procurement and unresolved taxonomic status soon went viral on social media, resulting in a diverse array of identities having been proposed for it, ranging from the mundane to the monstrous. At one end of this taxonomic spectrum are suggestions that it may be a specimen of the elusive dogman, a bizarre entity whose existence remains unconfirmed but is said to be capable of walking bipedally, like a humanoid dog. A related notion, whose seriousness remains as undetermined as the creature's identity, is that it is a werewolf. No less thought-provoking are opinions that it is nothing less than a dire wolf Canis dirus, a very large, burly New World species believed to have become extinct almost 10,000 years ago. Another postulated cryptozoological connection is one that links it to an equally contentious wolf-like or even hyaena-like American mystery beast known variously as the shunka warak'in or ringdocus, an alleged (but never verified) taxiderm specimen of which is currently on display at the Madison Valley History Association Museum [MVHAM] in Ennis, Montana. And then there is the proposal that it is a young, emaciated grizzly bear – but I have yet to see any young bear, emaciated or otherwise, that has a characteristically canine head and jaws, not to mention a long bushy tail! My own thoughts are that it is a pure-bred wolf, a wolf x domestic dog hybrid, or a pure-bred domestic dog but of decidedly crossbred ancestry in terms of the number and varieties of breeds that may well have contributed to it (i.e. a mongrel or mutt of no recognised heritage). Among domestic species of mammal, the domestic dog is unparalleled in terms of its morphological and genetic diversity, so much so that I have little doubt that this diversity could readily engender the phenotype of the Denton beast under consideration here. All too often in cryptozoology, an unusual specimen is procured, only for its remains to be discarded or lost without any samples having been secured from it and subjected to formal scientific examination. Happily, however, in this particular instance that sorry series of events has not occurred. Instead, FWP game wardens went to investigate it after it had been shot, and its entire carcase has been sent to their laboratory at Bozeman for continued study. Bruce Auchly, information manager for Montana FWP, has publicly stated that they are now awaiting a DNA report back from the lab, after which we may finally know whether Denton's cryptid was merely crying wolf or whether it really was something out of the ordinary. In mid-June, the results contained in that keenly-awaited DNA report were made public by Montana's FWP in an official press release. This revealed that despite the fact that certain investigators had opined that it looked odd, the mystery beast in question was in reality nothing more than a very ordinary adult female grey wolf Canis lupus. In other words, not a dire wolf at all, merely a dire disappointment, at least as far as some cryptozoologists were concerned. [A CBS news report of this specimen's discovery and denouement that includes photographs of it can be accessed here.]

Conversely, neither of the two cryptozoologically fundamental questions regarding The Beast can be answered conclusively at present. What is its taxonomic identity? And regardless of what it is taxonomically, is The Beast one and the same as whatever the shunka warak'in is? (Always assuming, of course, that the shunka warak'in traditional folklore is actually based upon a real creature, rather than merely a wholly mythical, non-existent one.) Or, to combine the two: assuming once again that it is indeed real and not just a myth, is the shunka warak'in whatever The Beast is?

Digitally-created shunka warak'in image created by '69.146.147.248 aka A FANDOM User' (who states here: "I'm happy to see it still floating around the internet" (© 69.146.147.248 aka A FANDOM User, reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Let us hope that whatever legal wrangles may be impeding the prospect of samples from The Beast being made available for DNA analyses can be resolved in the near future, so that at least the first of these two questions can at last be answered. Of course, who can say whether the likelihood that an unidentified mystery beast will always attract more visitors than an identified non-mystery one may also be playing a part in this complex scenario…?

The last words on The Beast, ringdocus, guyasticutus, shunka warak'in, Rocky Mountain hyaena, or whatever else one chooses to term this most taxing of taxiderm specimens belong to Shane, to whom I owe a great debt of thanks for so very kindly providing me with his very informative insights and photographs regarding The Beast, and also for his unfailing support and encouragement that he has always given to me down through our many years of cryptozoological correspondence, which I appreciate most sincerely – thank you so much, Shane!!

For lack of a better name, the cryptid in Montana was also called “Ringdocus,” an unfortunate moniker. But…at least the “Ringdocus” was preserved and can be viewed to this day. That at least is some small consolation for the poor cryptid’s unfortunate demise. R.I.P. “Ringdocus,” whatever you are.

Amen to that!

My book Extraordinary Animals Revisited, in which I first documented the shunka warak'in and The Beast (© Dr Karl Shuker/CFZ Press)

NANDI BEARS AND DEATH BIRDS - MY TOP TEN DEADLIEST MYSTERY BEASTS !!

Nandi bear by sunset (Markus Bühler)

Not all mystery beasts on record are shy, reclusive creatures that take great pains to avoid humankind at all cost. Some, conversely, are actively belligerent, ferocious animals that have reputedly attacked and killed people with impunity, or at the very least, if confronted, possess all manner of ingenious but equally devastating ways of dispatching their foolhardy antagonists.

Here, then, in no particular order is my own personal listing of the world's top ten deadliest cryptids – lethal life-forms that only the most brash, or rash, field cryptozoologist is likely to consider pursuing...at their peril!


NANDI BEAR

The year was 1925. A six-year-old girl had been mysteriously abducted from her village in the Nandi region of Kenya by a greatly-feared monster known locally as the chimiset, and Captain William Hichens of the Intelligence and Administrative Services of East Africa had been instructed by the Kenyan government to investigate. Science did not - and still does not - recognise the existence of the chimiset, but it is an all-too-familiar creature to the native Nandi people, and also to European settlers here, who call it the Nandi bear on account of its bear-like head.

Consequently, Hichens took the matter seriously, and set up camp near to a small forest-clad kopje (boulder hill) from where the chimiset reputedly emerged periodically. One night, Hichens was asleep in his tent, with his mongrel hunting dog, Mbwambi, tied to a pole outside, when suddenly:

"...the whole tent rocked; the pole to which Mbwambi was tied flew out and let down the ridge-pole, enveloping me in flapping canvas. At the same moment the most awful howl I have ever heard split the night. The sheer demoniac horror of it froze me still...I heard my pi-dog yelp just once. There was a crashing of branches in the bush, and then thud, thud, thud, of some huge beast making off. But that howl! I have heard half a dozen lions roaring in a stampede-chorus not twenty yards away; I have heard a maddened cow-elephant trumpeting; I have heard a trapped leopard make the silent night miles a rocking agony with screaming, snarling roars. But never have I heard, nor do I wish to hear again, such a howl as that of the chimiset. A trail of red spots on the sand showed where my pi-dog had gone. Beside that trail were huge footprints, four times as big as a man's, showing the imprint of three huge clawed toes, with trefoil marks like a lion's pad where the sole of the foot pressed down. But no lion ever boasted such a paw as that of the monster which had made that terrifying spoor."
Although Hichens pursued these tracks, which did indeed lead to the kopje, and spent at least a week searching the forest for whatever had made them, he did not succeed in his quest - but in view of his dog's dreadful fate, that may not have been such a bad thing!

The Nandi bear may well comprise more than one type of animal. As revealed by cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans in his pioneering book On the Track of Unknown Animals (1958), accounts of several wholly distinct animals appear to have been erroneously assigned by earlier authors at one time or another to this formidable mystery beast - involving spotted hyaenas, unusually large baboons, honey badgers, aardvarks, even the occasional murderous witchdoctor. However, there may also be one or two genuinely unknown species involved.

Some Nandi bear reports describe hyaena-like beasts, but far larger than any known to exist today, and sporting a dark shaggy pelage quite unlike that of the spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta, which is the world's largest modern-day hyaena species. Also, the Nandi bear is far more aggressive than typical contemporary hyaenas. Prior to the close of the Pleistocene epoch, a mere 10,000 years ago, however, Africa was known to harbour a terrifying species called the short-faced hyaena Procrocuta brevirostris. Although related to the small modern-day brown hyaena Hyaena brunnea, it was characterised by its enormous lion-sized stature, and also by its short bear-like muzzle and active hunting behaviour (in marked contrast to the carrion-sustaining lifestyle typifying today's hyaenas). If such a creature as this has persisted into the present day within the dense little-explored forests of Kenya's Nandi region, we may not need to seek further for the Nandi bear's identity.

Is the Nandi bear a living chalicothere? (Philip72/Wikipedia)

Moreover, Pleistocene Africa was also home to a bizarre type of ungulate known as a chalicothere, which resembled a horse-sized hyaena in general outline, and possessed sharp claws instead of hooves typical of other ungulates. Although chalicotheres were herbivores, a brief sighting of such a creature could well convince a native hunter or anyone else not well-versed in zoological taxonomy that they had encountered a giant hyaena. Accordingly, several zoologists have seriously entertained the idea that perhaps a species of African chalicothere survived beyond the Pleistocene into modern times, giving rise to reports of Nandi bears.

One intriguing item of Nandi bear lore that supports this identity is the claim by Kenyan residents that this mystery beast was once quite common here but was almost exterminated in the 1890s by a plague of rinderpest that swept across most of Africa, devastating livestock and wild buffaloes. Rinderpest, of course, principally kills ungulates, not carnivores - a fact cited by sceptical scientists as evidence that the Nandi bear is a native fantasy. Yet if this animal is a species of chalicothere, it could indeed be susceptible to rinderpest.

And if, like some other ungulates, including bull elephants, hippos, Cape buffaloes, and peccaries, chalicotheres display bouts of savage unpredictable aggression (vegetarian lifestyle notwithstanding), we can easily comprehend why the Nandi bear is so greatly feared.

For additional details on ShukerNature re the Nandi bear, click here.


ARTRELLIA (PAPUAN DRAGON)

After spending many hard hours on the trail of wallabies and other animals for food through the jungles bordering the Binatori River, the young Papuan hunter was weary. Consequently, he was very pleased to spy an extremely large, fallen tree trunk lying on the ground nearby, half-hidden in the lush green undergrowth. Hurrying over, he sat down in aching relief upon its supporting, welcoming bole - but not for very long. Seconds later, his sturdy seat began to move, raising itself - and him - off the ground in a violent surge of energy. Leaping off in alarm, the hunter turned round - and was horrified to discover that the 'tree trunk' was actually a gigantic lizard! And as he gazed, motionless with fear, the lizard reared up onto its hind legs like a veritable dragon, standing more than 10 ft high, with its long tail splayed out behind, and its huge crocodile-like jaws open wide, revealing a brimming armoury of dagger-like teeth - and a long orange-yellow tongue, which flicked rapidly like living fire!

Faced with this towering monstrosity, the hunter did what any self-respecting person would do in similar circumstances - he fled with all speed, back along his hunting trail to the safety of his home village, Giringarede, not even glancing back to see whether his saurian aggressor was following him. Happily, it was not - or, at least, not swiftly enough, because he reached his village safely, and lived long enough to tell the dramatic tale of his escape to his children, and to theirs. He was one of the lucky ones - not everyone survives an encounter with what the tribes inhabiting Papua New Guinea (the eastern half of New Guinea) call the artrellia, and what cryptozoologists call the Papuan dragon.

With a total area of approximately 342,000 square miles, New Guinea is the world's second largest island after Greenland, and contains immense expanses of tropical jungle and swamplands only sparsely explored by scientists and western travellers. Not surprisingly, therefore, cryptozoologists believe that it holds considerable promise as a locality for major zoological discoveries in the future - a belief fuelled by reports of several mysterious creatures still unrecognised or unidentified by science.

One of the most spectacular of these cryptic creatures is the artrellia, which the local people describe as a gigantic crocodile-like lizard or dragon, up to 30 ft long, capable of climbing trees, breathing fire, and liable to kill and eat any humans who chance upon it amid its dense jungleland domain. Nor are artrellia reports confined to native testimony.

A number of British, American, and Japanese soldiers stationed in Papua during World War II reported seeing huge lizards estimated by them to be 15-20 ft long prowling the forests. Similarly, in 1960, David Marsh, Port Moresby's district commissioner, revealed that he had made two giant lizard sightings in western Papua during the early 1940s.

In 1980, an international scientific expedition called 'Operation Drake' visited Papua New Guinea, and its leader, renowned explorer Lieutenant-Colonel John Blashford-Snell, was particularly interested by native testimony and accounts regarding the artrellia, including the incident recalled at the beginning of this article.

After bribing local hunters to capture an artrellia and bring it to him, he was delighted when they succeeded in doing precisely that - enabling its species to be formally identified at last. It was a monitor lizard, specifically Salvadori's monitor Varanus salvadorii, also called the tree dragon, which is the world's longest known species of lizard, and has been confirmed to attain lengths of up to 15.5 ft.

Salvadori's monitor – the real artrellia?
Having said that, the specimen obtained for Blashford-Snell was hardly a monster, measuring only a little over 6 ft long. When its body was examined, however, it was found to be just a youngster, a juvenile specimen, so its potential maximum adult size could only be guessed at. Needless to say, its flickering orange-yellow tongue would certainly have been sufficient to inspire local claims that it breathed fire like a dragon. In addition, as revealed by one of its common names, this species does climb trees, and large monitors are indeed known to rear up and even run for a short time on their hind legs - all of which corresponds well with native accounts of the greatly-feared artrellia.

During this same expedition, moreover, one team member had a close, albeit brief, encounter with an artrellia that appeared to be rather more akin to the legendary giant specimens spoken of by the tribespeople. English zoologist Ian Redmond had been sitting quietly by a waterhole in a creek bed below the level of the forest floor in the Fly River region of Papua when he heard a series of heavy crunching footsteps coming ever closer across the forest's leaf-covered ground, sounding like human steps and not at all like the lighter, rapid scurrying noise that one would expect from a lizard.

Thinking that it was a colleague playing a joke on him, Redmond refused to look round at first, but when his curiosity finally got the better of him he did turn round - and saw an exceedingly large monitor lizard looking at him over a log close by. He couldn't see the whole lizard, just its head and shoulders - but they were as big as a horse's! And as Salvadori's monitor does not have a disproportionately large head and shoulders, how big must the rest of this lizard have been? Redmond bent down to reach for his camera, but as he did so the lizard moved away, and he did not see it again.

The famous gigantic Komodo dragon Varanus komodoensis of Indonesia, up to 10 ft long, is proof enough that huge - and occasionally man-eating - monitor lizards do exist. And amid the vast unexplored rainforests of New Guinea, extra-large specimens of Salvadori's monitor could readily thrive, avoided by native people, rarely spied by western visitors, and occupying much the same top predator niche here that their Komodo relatives occupy on their eponymous Indonesian island home.


NUNDA (MNGWA)
A mystery beast inciting immense terror among local people sharing its homeland is the mngwa or nunda - Swahili for 'strange one'. Aptly named and reputedly indigenous to the coastal forests of mainland Tanzania, this unidentified creature is said to be an enormous and singularly ferocious grey cat, larger than a lion and further differentiated from all known species of African cat by its peculiar brindled fur.

During the 1920s, there was a spate of savage killings claimed to be the work of a nunda, in which several people in the Tanzanian coastal village of Lindi were attacked and their bodies horrifically mangled. As with the Nandi bear rampage described earlier, Captain William Hichens investigated, but although he did not succeed in spying a nunda, he did examine the body of one of its victims, and found a matted clump of strange brindle-grey fur clenched in his fist, as if he had torn it out while attempting to fight off his feline assailant.

A nunda attack (William Rebsamen)
Another European investigator, Patrick Bowen, observed some nunda pawprints, which resembled those of a leopard but were as large as a lion's. Cryptozoologists have proposed that the nunda may be a giant form of golden cat Profelis aurata, an extremely savage species with very varying fur colour and patterns, which might conceivably account for the nunda's odd brindled pelage.

For a more detailed ShukerNature blog post re the nunda, click here.


HIDE

Several seemingly unknown species of extra-large jellyfishes have been reported over the years, but these have usually been fairly typical in shape, if not in size. However, there is one very macabre mystery beast on record that may well be a scientifically-unknown representative of one of their more specialized, deepwater forms.

This is the singularly eerie creature spied in 1953 by an Australian diver while testing a new type of deep-sea diving suit in the South Pacific. As revealed by Eric Frank Russell in his book Great World Mysteries (1957), the diver had been following a shark, and was resting on the edge of a chasm leading down to much deeper depths, still watching the shark, when an immense, dull-brown, shapeless mass rose up out of the chasm, pulsating sluggishly, and flat in general outline with ragged edges.

Despite appearing devoid of eyes or other instantly-recognizable sensory organs, this malign presence evidently discerned the shark's presence somehow, because it floated upwards until its upper surface made direct contact. The shark instantly gave a convulsive shudder, and was then drawn without resistance into the hideous monster's body. After that, the creature sank back down into the chasm, leaving behind a very frightened diver to ponder what might have happened if that nightmarish, nameless entity had not been attracted towards the shark!

In the past, a deep-sea octopus has been put forward as a possible identity for this disturbing creature, but in reality, as I first revealed in my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997), a deep-sea jellyfish is a much more plausible candidate. To begin with, all octopuses have tentacles, but a number of jellyfishes (including various known deep-sea species) do not. However, all jellyfishes are armed with nematocysts (sometimes on their body surface as well as upon their tentacles), which in some species, as noted earlier, can elicit paralysis or indescribable pain. Accordingly, if the amorphous creature observed by the diver was equipped with a plentiful supply of these, the immediate paralysis of the shark could be readily explained.

In addition, although the shark's killer lacked such obvious sensory organs as eyes (this is true of all jellyfishes), its ability to detect the shark can again be explained via the jellyfish identity. This is because these animals possess primitive sensory structures receptive to water movements. Hence the creature would have been able to detect the water disturbances created by the shark's swimming. How fortunate it was, therefore, that, by choosing to watch the shark, the diver had remained stationary!

Deepstaria enigmatica, a bizarre, flattened species of deep-sea jellyfish (http://2.bp.blogspot.com)
Deep-sea jellyfishes similar (though not identical) to the above-described creature encountered by the diver may explain Chilean legends of a grotesque sea monster termed the hide, documented by Jorge Luis Borges in his famous work The Book of Imaginary Beings (1969). According to Borges, the hide is an octopus that resembles in shape and size a cowhide stretched out flat, with countless eyes all round its body's perimeter, and four larger ones in the centre. It lives by rising to the surface of the sea and swallowing any animals, or people, swimming there.

As this description makes no mention of tentacles, it seems highly unlikely that such a beast (assuming that it really does exist) could be any form of octopus. In any event, octopuses only have a single pair of eyes, not a whole series around the edge of their body and two pairs of principal eyes. Conversely, many jellyfishes possess peripheral sensory organs called rhopalia, which incorporate simple light-sensitive eyespots or ocelli.

Moreover, although no jellyfish has true eyes, some - such as the common moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita - have four deceptively eye-like organs visible in the centre of their bell (which are actually portions of their gut, known as gastric pouches). In short, a jellyfish candidate provides a far more realistic answer to the question of the hide's identity than an octopus.

In May 2012, a hitherto scarcely-known and somewhat amorphous, sheet-like species of deep-sea jellyfish known as Deepstaria enigmatica hit the global headlines when a specimen was filmed by underwater cameras during a deep-water drilling operation near the U.K. It is usually found at depths of 5000 ft in the south Atlantic Ocean. Who knows what other, and conceivably much more deadly, relatives lurk within the uncharted chasms of our planet's deepest waters?


ETHIOPIAN DEATH BIRD

Just before Ethiopia was invaded by Italy in 1935, archaeologist Byron de Prorok took part in an expedition to the southern Ethiopian province of Walaga, where, as noted in his book Dead Men Do Tell Tales (1943), he was shown a dreaded cavern called Devil's Cave. Here, according to native tradition, live flocks of a small but terrible blood-drinking bat known as the death bird, which emerge at night and surreptitiously drink the blood of local goatherds while they sleep until they eventually die and are replaced by new goatherds.

Does an unknown species of Old World blood-drinking bat lurk in Ethiopia's Devil's Cave?
As the only sanguinivorous bats known to science are the three species of vampire, all of which are found only in the New World, de Prorok did not believe these stories - until he was taken to the goatherds' camp nearby, where he saw that all of the herders had wounds on their arms resembling small puncture wounds. He also saw one herder close to death - little more than a skin-clothed skeleton surrounded by blood-stained rags.

Over 70 years have passed since then and the death bird's identity is still a mystery, but with sizeable areas of Ethiopia scarcely explored due to civil unrest, it is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.


MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM

Also known to the nomadic inhabitants of the southern Gobi desert as the allghoi khorkhoi ('intestine worm') because of its supposed resemblance to a living intestine, the death worm is said to be up to 5 ft long, dark red in colour with brown spots, and has pointed projections at both ends of its body. Spending much of the year hidden beneath the desert sands, it emerges only during the two hottest months (June and July), but is avoided by humans and even camels, because it can kill instantly, and via two wholly different means.

This deadly mystery beast can allegedly squirt a highly virulent, corrosive venom, which presumably acts by burning its way through the victim's flesh into the bloodstream like a potent acid. It can also kill much more mysteriously, by touch. Indeed, its lethal power can even be transmitted via metallic objects - as fatally discovered by a visiting geologist many years ago, when he accidentally prodded a death worm with a metal rod.

If true, this suggests that the worm can kill by electrocution, and must therefore be able to generate electricity, like the electric eel and certain other fishes. At present, however, despite a number of expeditions in search of this macabre mystery beast led by Czech explorer Ivan Mackerle during the 1990s, and several others by additional field investigators in more recent years, the death worm's reality has yet to be formally confirmed.

Mongolian death worm, shocking and spitting (Philippa Foster)
In terms of its morphology, it most closely resembles an extra-large worm-lizard or amphisbaenian. If this is indeed its identity, however, the death worm's lethal talents may be nothing more than folklore, because all currently-known species of amphisbaenian are harmless.

For a more detailed ShukerNature blog post re the Mongolian death worm, click here.


MAMBA MUTU

Native villagers in Burundi, in eastern Africa, especially those living alongside the Lukuga River and on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, live in considerable fear of a still-unidentified water beast known to them as the mamba mutu. Their descriptions call to mind a weird monster, half-human and half-fish, which kills people and sucks their bodies dry of blood - a kind of vampire mermaid.

A vampire mermaid (keventertainment.files.wordpress.com)

When such reports as these were analysed by Spanish investigator Carlos Bonet in 1995, however, he proposed a more sober explanation - suggesting that an unknown species of extra-large, flat-skulled otter may be responsible. A popular alternative identity on offer is that the mamba mutu is merely a lake-dwelling manatee, transformed by fearful native superstition from a shy inoffensive herbivore into a lurking monstrous blood-sucker.


WAHEELA

According to those few travellers intrepid enough to traverse the remote forest and tundra constituting the borderland of eastern Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory, this forbidding terrain is home to a truly formidable beast termed the waheela - justifiably feared by the local Amerindians for its terrifying ability to decapitate a human with just a single bite!

One of these cryptids was encountered and shot at twice by a hunter friend of cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson called Frank while tracking along a tributary of the Nahanni Valley in the Northwest Territories during the 1940s or 50s. However, the creature merely moved off, apparently unharmed.

In general appearance, the waheela allegedly resembles a huge snow-white wolf, but its head is proportionately wider and its limbs shorter, its coat is notably long and dense, its feet are very splayed, its ears are surprisingly small, and its tail is extremely thick. In addition, whereas true wolves hunt in packs, waheelas are solitary creatures.

Waheela reconstruction (Randy Merrill)
Although this mystery beast does not seem to resemble anything known to modern-day zoology, it does bear a remarkable resemblance to the amphicyonids or bear-dogs. These very large, sturdy bear-like carnivores but with wolf-like heads supposedly died out several million years ago in North America, but in the inhospitable tundra terrain rarely explored or traversed by humans, perhaps a relict species, adapted for existence in this bleak habitat, has survived, and is still occasionally spied by the more intrepid Inuit or western tracker.


CROWING CRESTED COBRA

Many strange reptiles have been reported, and some officially recorded and recognised, from Africa since European zoologists first began to explore this vast, fauna-rich continent - but few are more bizarre, elusive, or dangerous than the crowing crested cobra, reports of which have emerged from many parts of Africa, but particularly its eastern and central regions.

Known by many local names, one of its most common ones is 'inkhomi' – 'the killer', which it has earned as a result of its tendency to conceal itself on sturdy overhanging branches, waiting for an unwary human to walk underneath, whereupon this highly aggressive, exceedingly venomous snake is said to lung down and swiftly inflict a lethal bite with its deadly fangs.

Despite its wide distribution, the crowing crested cobra's description is markedly consistent - a very lengthy, greatly-feared serpent greyish-black or buffish-brown in colour, but instantly distinguished from all others by its scarlet face, the remarkable bright-red coxcomb-like crest projecting forwards on its head, a pair of red facial wattles (in the male), and the amazing ability to crow, just like a farmyard rooster!

Crowing crested cobra (Dr Karl Shuker)

Nevertheless, however similar to the legendary cockatrice this monstrous snake may seem, countless eyewitnesses claim to have seen it, and there are even some preserved partial specimens on record. In 1944, Dr J.O. Shircore published a report describing what he claimed to be the bony skeleton of the fleshy coxcomb and part of the neck (containing several vertebrae) from a crowing crested cobra, which he personally owned. Sadly, however, these cryptozoologically-priceless relics current origin is unknown - like so many other such specimens, they have probably been discarded without ever having been submitted to a scientific establishment for formal examination.

In May 1959, John Knott apparently ran over one of these extraordinary serpents while driving home in his Land Rover from Binga in the Kariba region of what is nowadays Zimbabwe. Measuring 6.5-7 ft long and mortally wounded but still alive, the snake was dark in colour and bore a very conspicuous crest on its head. Sometimes, old black mambas Dendroaspis polylepis have crests, consisting of incompletely sloughed skin, which may have given rise to some reports of crowing crested cobras. However, the crest of Knott's snake was distinctly formed, perfectly symmetrical in shape, and containing five internal prop-like structures that enabled it to be erected. Understandably, the prospect of attempting to capture a very large, severely-injured snake belonging to a wholly unfamiliar species and bring it back home for identification did not appeal to Knott, who drove off after observing it closely. Once again, therefore, conclusive evidence for this creature's existence was lost.

Perhaps the most extraordinary attribute of the crowing crested cobra is its famed ability to crow. Even so, it is now known that some snakes are able to give voice to more than the limited range of sibilant hissing traditionally associated with these limbless reptiles. Indeed, during the 1980s, a scientific team in Borneo was very startled to encounter a bright blue subspecies of cave-dwelling racer snake that emitted an extremely loud yowling miaow, just like a cat! Clearly, therefore, a crowing serpent is not beyond the realms of possibility.


ROPEN

The caves on the island of Rambutyo (also spelled Rambunzo), sited off the eastern coast of Papua New Guinea, are reportedly home to a modest-sized but highly intriguing cave-dwelling cryptid with wings known as the ropen (‘demon flyer’). With a wingspan of 0.9-1.2 m, and sporting a long toothy beak and an even longer tail terminating in a diamond-shaped flange, descriptions of the ropen collected from the local people strongly recall an early fossil pterosaur known as Rhamphorhynchus.

Also claimed to exist on the island of Umboi, situated between eastern Papua New Guinea and the large island of New Britain, it is greatly feared despite its relatively modest dimensions. This is because it is said to be attracted from its cave by the smell of rotting flesh, and has been known to attack funeral parties and dig up newly-buried corpses.

Ropen = CGI mock-up (monster.wikia.com)
The ropen should not be (but very frequently is) confused with a much bigger mystery beast known correctly as the duah. Although it too is superficially pterosaurian, it has a long neck, a bony crest, and enormous leathery wings said to span up to 6.1 m, making it more similar in overall appearance to later, more advanced pterosaurs like Pteranodon.

The duah has been reported from mainland Papua New Guinea during the 1990s by various missionaries as well as the local people here. They claim that its underside glows when it flies overhead at night.

In On the Track of Unknown Animals, Heuvelmans closed one chapter with the memorable statement: "The trail of unknown animals sometimes leads to Hell". In view of the devilishly deadly company of cryptids reviewed here, he may have had a point!

Nandi bear silhouette (Markus Bühler)

WITCHIE WOLVES, MEDICINE WOLVES, AND THE WAHEELA

Alongside a life-sized reconstruction of a dire wolf at Dinosaur Valley, Wookey Hole, Somerset (Dr Karl Shuker)

One of many in-progress projects of mine is a canine companion of sorts to my very first book, Mystery Cats of the World, though the dog version will also document paranormal canine entities, whereas the cat book concentrated entirely on cryptozoological beasts. Here are some of the intriguing North American examples that will appear in the dog book, and if anyone has additional information on these or any others like them, I'd love to receive details!

The Omer Plains constitute a wild, uninhabited area of swampland and scrubby pines, situated just a few km west of the small Michigan town of Omer. Since time immemorial, native Chippewa legend has claimed that this locality is haunted by a pack of invisible but highly aggressive spirit dogs known as witchie wolves, said to guard ferociously the graves of ancient warriors. In more recent times, however, it has become the focus of a teenage rite of passage, in which youths from the local high school drive out at night in their cars to the Omer Plains, and, if brave enough, step outside to confront its zooform inhabitants. According to David Kulczyk, who first brought the witchie wolves to widespread attention during the mid-1990s, he has spoken to several ‘tough-guy’ youths who have wept out loud when recalling their experiences there – telling of how they were knocked violently to the ground and assailed by what seemed to be an invisible wolf or dog snarling and snapping at their heads. Kulczyk also claims to have seen scratches and dents in cars alleged by their frightened owners to be the result of an attack in the Omer Plains area by witchie wolves.

Very different, but no less preternatural, it would seem, is the medicine wolf of New Mexico. According to cryptozoological investigator Nick Sucik, this is a very large, all-white wolf with long shaggy fur, plus a very large chest, and a somewhat long snout and body. The local Apache people claim that the medicine wolf is very special, so much so that it can only be seen by certain gifted persons, remaining invisible to everyone else. It might be easy to dismiss this as wholly mythical – except for the remarkable fact that late one evening during the summer of 1979, a trucker driving along the road leading to a small valley near Dulce, New Mexico, saw a mysterious creature that precisely fitted the above description of the medicine wolf. Lit by his truck’s headlights, the animal came quickly out of some brush and paused briefly in the middle of the road, before swiftly moving away again and vanishing into the darkness on the other side. When the trucker recounted his sighting to the local Apaches, they had no doubt whatsoever about what he had encountered, and he remains adamant that he did indeed see the creature.

Speaking of great white wolves: this is an alternative name for a very mystifying, and formidable, canine cryptid also called the waheela, which is reputed to exist in the snow-covered tundra terrain of northern Michigan, northern Alaska, and the Northwest Territories of Canada. First brought to attention by American cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson during the mid-1970s, it is said to resemble a huge all-white wolf, but with extremely dense, shaggy fur; proportionately shorter limbs than those of normal wolves (but with longer forelimbs than hind limbs); feet that are noticeably splayed, yielding wolf-shaped tracks but much bigger than those generally left by wolves; a markedly large, broad head, but only tiny ears; and a very thick tail. Moreover, whereas typical wolves hunt in packs, the waheela allegedly hunts alone.

According to Sanderson, one of his hunter friends shot twice at just such a creature encountered while tracking in the Nahanni Valley of Canada’s Northwest Territories during the 1940s or 1950s, but such was the thickness of the animal’s fur that his shots had no effect, and it simply moved away. There have also been claims that waheelas may explain the grisly discoveries of various headless bodies of prospectors in this same region down through the years.

Sanderson boldly speculated that perhaps the waheela was more than just an unusual wolf with solitary behaviour, proposing that it might actually be a surviving amphicyonid (though, confusingly, he referred to it as a dire wolf Canis dirus, which was not an amphicyonid but a true canid, from the Pleistocene, related to but larger than the present-day grey wolf C. lupus). Also known as dog-bears, these huge burly carnivores, distinct from both dogs and bears, officially became extinct around 5 million years ago in North America, and eventually died out everywhere else too, not persisting into the modern age. Could it be, however, as hypothesised by Sanderson, that in the bleak arctic wastelands of northernmost North America, an amphicyonid lineage has indeed survived, only rarely encountered by humans and therefore seldom threatened by hunters? A more recent, less dramatic, but no less interesting suggestion is that the waheela may be a thriving representative of a supposedly-extinct, local wolf form native to Alaska that belonged to the modern-day wolf species, C. lupus, but displayed certain morphological differences from other wolves – differences that just so happen to correspond well with descriptions of the waheela.

Interestingly, huge white wolf-like beasts have also been reported from Greenland, where they are known as the amarok. Zoologists traditionally dismissed such accounts as Inuit folklore, until an amarok was shot during the 19th Century and found to be a truly immense pure-white wolf. Its magnificent pelt was subsequently sent to Denmark’s Copenhagen Museum.