The ancient Greeks had a thirst for mythological monsters. This obsession spread throughout the world and continues to the present day. However, many of the creatures were inspired not by the imagination but by science and nature.

It has been discovered that the sites of the ancient myths were often places where large numbers of fossils were discovered. In trying to make sense of what they were seeing, many myths were born. Here, we look at 10 mythological creatures from ancient Greece and around the world which may have had their origins in fact.

10 Cyclops

In Greek mythology, the Cyclopes (plural of Cyclops) were gigantic creatures with a single eye in the center of each of their heads. They were known chiefly for their barbarity, afraid neither of men nor gods.

The most famous Cyclops was Polyphemus, which attacked Odysseus in a cave and ate half of his men. Odysseus blinded the Cyclops by running a wooden stake through its single eye. Then Odysseus and his men escaped by tying themselves to the undersides of sheep.

This might sound implausible. But for a time, there appeared to be some fairly solid proof of the existence of Cyclopes. Many skulls were found with a single eye socket in the center of the head.

It turns out that the skulls belonged to dwarf elephants. The “eye socket” was the central nasal cavity and the opening for the elephant’s trunk. Many dwarf elephant skulls have been found in Cyprus, especially in caves where the Cyclopes were supposed to have lived. Therefore, it is perhaps natural that an elephant skull would have been taken as evidence of a race of giant, man-eating creatures with one eye and terrible table manners.^[1]

9 The Kraken

Release the kraken! Originating in Nordic folklore, the kraken was said to be powerful enough to drag a ship to the depths by wrapping its gigantic tentacles around the vessel or by swimming in circles around it to create a maelstrom that would drag the ship down.

The first written account of the kraken dates back to 1180, and there were many accounts of a gigantic tentacled sea monster dragging ships to their doom. The kraken was said to be able to devour an entire ship’s crew in a single mouthful.

The kraken myth is likely to have arisen after sightings of a species of the giant squid (Architeuthis dux), which can grow to around 18 meters (59 ft) long, or possibly the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), which is significantly larger than the giant squid and can grow to unknown lengths.^[2]

Very few colossal squid have ever been found intact as they live in the deep waters of the Antarctic. For this reason, it has proved very difficult to find evidence of how squid attack their prey. Some recent research does show that they encircle prey with their tentacles before pulling it to them and eating it. So, you never know.

8 The Duck-Billed Platypus

Although it’s a more recent story than some of the others, the duck-billed platypus was once considered a mythological animal. But it is completely real, if a little weird-looking.

First discovered in the 18th century, it was considered by many to be a ridiculous hoax and not without reason. This was an age when naturalists were creating all sorts of strange creatures with the help of taxidermy and creative imaginations.

For example, Albertus Seba had a whole cabinet of curiosities. Some were real, and some were not. For instance, the seven-headed hydra turned out to be a sackful of snakes sewn onto the body of a weasel.

The platypus looks just as implausible. In 1799, English zoologist George Shaw wrote that it resembled “the beak of a duck engrafted on the head of a quadruped.”

The platypus is remarkable for many reasons, not just its peculiar appearance. Naturalists could not determine whether the creature was a mammal. Did it lay eggs or give birth to live babies? It took another 100 years for scientists to discover the answer to that. The platypus is one of the very few mammal species to lay eggs.^[3]

7 Mermaids

There have been legends of mermaids almost as long as people have sailed the seas. One of the earliest recorded tales of mermaids was that of Thessalonike. She was said to be the half-sister of Alexander the Great. After going on a danger-filled quest to discover the Fountain of Youth, he rinsed his sister’s hair in the immortal water.

When Alexander died, his sister (who may also have been his lover) tried to drown herself in the sea. But she couldn’t die, so she became a mermaid instead. Legend had it that she would call out to sailors, “Is Alexander the king alive?” If they replied, “He lives and reigns and conquers the world,” she would allow them to sail away. But if they said he was dead, she would transform into a monster and drag the ship to the bottom of the ocean.

One possible explanation for the persistence of mermaid sightings is that sailors were mistaking a mermaid, a fabulous creature with the body of a fish but the head and torso of a beautiful woman, with a manatee (aka a sea cow). It is fair to say that the manatee is not the most attractive-looking creature on Earth. So how could the sailors have made such a mistake?^[4]

Well, manatees can hold their heads out of the water and turn them from side to side in the same way that a human can. And seen from behind, the rough skin might look like long hair. It is also known that sailors at sea for prolonged periods experience sailing hallucinations. So perhaps, if it was at a distance or in poor light, then they might mistake a manatee for a mermaid. Or perhaps it was the rum.

6 Vampires

The modern view of the vampire began with Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897) and has changed very little since—a pale, thin stranger with an improbable accent who sleeps in a coffin and is more or less immortal.

It is well-known that Stoker based his character on the historical accounts of Vlad the Impaler. It is also possible that Stoker was inspired by the many rumors and superstitions surrounding death and burial at that time as well as ignorance about how the body decays.

After death, the skin of the corpse shrinks. So its teeth and fingernails become prominent and can appear to have grown. Also, as internal organs break down, “purge fluid” can leak out of the nose and mouth, leaving a dark stain. People may have interpreted this as the corpse drinking blood from the living.^[5]

There was also the evidence from the coffin itself. Sometimes, scratch marks were found on the insides of the caskets, which was taken as evidence that the dead had become undead and arisen from their coffins.

Unfortunately, it is more likely that the undead became dead and that people who had fallen into a coma, for example, were buried in the mistaken belief that they had passed on. After recovering consciousness, they may have tried to free themselves.

It is believed that the philosopher and monk John Duns Scotus perished in such a way. His body was said to have been found in a crypt outside his coffin with his hands bloodied and bruised from trying to escape.

5 Giants

Giants have been part of folklore for thousands of years. In Greek mythology, we have the Gigantes, a tribe of 100 giants who were born of the goddess Gaia after she was impregnated from blood collected during the castration of Uranus. Yuck.

In Norse mythology, Aurgelmir was created from drops of water that formed when the land of ice (Niflheim) met the land of heat and fire (Muspelheim). He must have been quite big. After he was killed by the gods, the Earth was made from his flesh, the seas from his blood, the mountains from his bones, the stones from his teeth, the sky from his skull, and the clouds from his brain. His eyebrows even became the fence surrounding Midgard, which is the Viking way of saying Earth.

Hereditary gigantism might explain some of the beliefs in giants (though not the more outlandish ones). Scientists believe that they have isolated a gene that can lead to familial gigantism. According to researchers, people with gigantism can also have a tumor in their pituitary gland which can stimulate growth.

The biblical giant, Goliath, was said to have been over 274 centimeters (9’0″) tall. There is no modern definition of what height makes us a giant as different societies have different average heights, with as much as 30 centimeters (11.8 in) difference.

A study published in the Ulster Medical Journal suggested that Goliath, famously killed by David with a slingshot, had “an identifiable family tree suggestive of autosomal dominant inheritance.” The pebble used by David hit Goliath in the forehead. If Goliath had been suffering from a pituitary tumor pressing on his optic chiasm, he would have had visual disturbances which would have made it difficult for him to see the stone.^[6]

4 Banshees

In Irish folklore, a banshee (meaning “woman of the fairies” in Gaelic) was a beautiful young woman with flowing white hair and eyes red from crying who “keened” to warn the person who hears it that someone in their family will die. Rather than being meant as a threat, it was supposed to give people time to say their goodbyes to their loved ones.

It is unclear when the legend first arose. There were reports of the banshee in Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh, a written history of the village of Torlough in 1350, and the accounts were still being told in the mid-19th century.

Keening was a traditional way for women to express their grief. They would gather together at the graveside and wail for their loss. This practice gradually died out during the 19th century after it became something of a tourist attraction to watch the keeners at a “real Irish funeral.”^[7]

It is easy to see, however, why the romantic Irish, who were always ready to believe in the supernatural, would take the idea of a fairy woman and mix it with the sadness of women keening over their dead to create a beautiful banshee to call the family home to say their last goodbyes.

3 Hydra

In Greek mythology, the hydra was a gigantic sea serpent with nine heads, one of which was immortal. As one head was cut off, two more would grow out of the fresh wound.

Killing the hydra was one of the 12 labors of Hercules. To achieve this, he enlisted the help of his nephew, who cauterized the wounds as Hercules cut off the heads until only the immortal head remained. Hercules cut off that one, too, and buried it under a heavy rock.

The myth of the hydra may have been inspired by nature. There have been many documented cases of snakes with multiple heads (although nine would be pushing it). The incidence of polycephaly in reptiles appears to be higher than in any other species.

It has even been possible for scientists studying conjoined twins to create polycephalic animals. In the early 20th century, Hans Spemann tied young salamander embryos together with a strand of human baby hair to produce babies with two heads.^[8]

2 Dire Wolves

These days, dire wolves are most known for their association with the Stark children on Game of Thrones. However, the dire wolf is not a figment of the GoT creators’ imaginations.

Much bigger than a modern wolf, the dire wolf lived in the Americas until its extinction about 10,000 years ago. Over 4,000 fossilized remains of dire wolves have been discovered at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. It is believed that they may have become trapped while feeding on the carcasses of other ensnared animals.^[9]

The dire wolf had a huge skull but a smaller brain than the modern wolf. Perhaps if the brains of dire wolves had been bigger, they would have realized that those animals were trapped in the tar pits for a reason. There is no evidence that an albino dire wolf ever existed, although albino cubs have been born in the modern wolf population.

1 Basilisks

According to Greek myth and Harry Potter, a basilisk (aka a cockatrice) was a serpent with a lethal gaze and terrible breath. It was said to have been born from an egg laid by a cockerel and hatched by a serpent.^[10] Supposedly, it feared only the crowing of the cock and the weasel, which is immune to its venom (or Harry Potter’s sword). In Greek myth, the basilisk was of normal size, though it had grown to mammoth proportions by the time it got to Hogwarts.

While it is unlikely that a cockerel would ever lay an egg or that a serpent would choose to incubate it, the idea of a basilisk seems to have some basis in fact. It is probable that the basilisk of myth was actually an Egyptian cobra, a particularly dangerous snake which hisses continually and spits venom to a distance of 2.4 meters (8 ft) while aiming for the eyes of its enemy.

This may account for the myth that the basilisk killed those who looked it in the eye. The cobra’s greatest predator is the mongoose, which bears a strong resemblance to a weasel.

Alexander the Great was famously said to have used a mirror to defeat a basilisk. When the snake looked upon its own image, it died instantly. J.K. Rowling used a version of this story in her novels, too.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels and an occasional travel writer.

Inside the world of extinct animals is a special club—species with dangerous looks. To get a meal or avoid becoming one, both predator and prey refined physical traits to interesting effect.

From fangs in whales to herbivores with a taste for meat and carnivores unlike anything seen today, ancient animals were survival specialists. Recent fossils also revealed unknown predators that terrified the prehistoric landscape and solved the mystery of a unique, if not gruesome, shark.

10 Whales That Ate Whales

Egypt’s Wadi Al-Hitan (“Valley of the Whales”) is littered with the bones of extinct whales. In 2010, researchers stumbled upon a skeleton sticking through the sand. It was identified as Basilosaurus isis. This customer grew 15–18 meters (50–60 ft) long and lived 34 million to 38 million years ago.

Although it was a whale, B. isis did not snack on krill or plankton like its modern relatives. The creature was a ferocious predator that preyed on other whales. This specimen, in particular, provided the first clear evidence.

Inside the stomach curled the remains of a calf. The latter belonged to a smaller whale called Dorudon atrox, a species that matured at 5 meters (16 ft) long. Crush marks on the calf’s skull matched the adult whale’s teeth, proving it was a kill and not a dead body the larger animal had scavenged.^[1]

Once again, the dental side of this ancient whale was far removed from any modern species. B. isis had fangs like a wolf and sharp teeth in the back of its mouth.

9 Largest Early Jurassic Predator

Near the Italian village of Saltrio, a quarry produced a special dinosaur in 1996. Years of dynamite blasts inside the quarry did the fossil no favors. In the end, 130 pieces were recovered. Saltriovenator zanellai took nearly 20 years to put together and identify as a new species.

Weighing about a ton, it was the Early Jurassic’s largest-known predator. Although not the biggest carnivorous dinosaur that ever lived, Saltriovenator was nevertheless formidable. It prowled on two legs and grew serrated teeth and deadly claws.

The time it lived—around 198 million years ago—was significant because this predated the existence of large meat eaters by a cool 25 million years. The beast, which grew to 7.6 meters (25 ft) long, died as a juvenile.

When it was 24 years old, the hunter somehow ended up on the seabed. The scars left by scavengers also made the fossil unique. Never before had any dinosaur remains been found that had been nibbled on by at least three distinct marine creatures—ancient sharks, urchins, and sea worms.^[2]

8 Meat-Eating Herbivores

Pachycephalosaurus often appears in children’s dinosaur books. Illustrations show the dome-headed dinosaurs knocking their heads together in battle or grazing on plants. These animals were classified as vegetarians even though only partial jaws were found. Strangely, they were always the back part of the jaw, but they had classic herbivore teeth. Pachycephalosaurus undoubtedly enjoyed mashing fruit and rough plants.

In 2018 in Albuquerque, researchers gathered in confusion around the most complete skull ever found. For the first time, the juvenile contained a complete front jaw. It sported very different teeth. Serrated and sharp, the pointy blades reminded experts of carnivore teeth, especially those of T. rex. Notably, Pachycephalosaurus lived during the same time (66 million to 68 million years ago).

Further research might change their classification to opportunistic hunter and omnivore, but the discovery could also solve an enduring mystery. Very often, rocks from this period produce the teeth of small carnivores nobody can find. Pachycephalosaurus might very well be the source.^[3]

7 The Oldest Tyrannosaur

In 2012, an expedition uncovered bone fragments in New Mexico. Found in the Menefee Formation, the skeleton was badly weathered. For this reason, restoration dragged on for years. Once completed, the creature turned out to be an 80-million-year-old type of tyrannosaur.

It was a remarkable find. The new dinosaur predated the other 25 species of tyrannosaurs by millions of years. Dynamoterror dynastes was unusually large for such an early version of the lineage. It eventually became clear that the 9-meter-long (30 ft) carnivore belonged to the same subgroup that included large relatives such as T. rex, which lived around 15 million years later.

Dynamoterror is special for another reason. North America’s dinosaur evolution experienced a strange split around this time. A sea divided the continent, causing the same types of dinosaur to develop differently in the north and south. The new tyrannosaur’s differences from those of similar age could reveal more about these unusual evolutionary pockets.^[4]

6 Madagascar’s Super Crocodile

When a species is missing its early history, paleontologists call it a “ghost lineage.” The notosuchians are one such group. In 2017, a discovery not only suggested that they originated from southern Gondwana (the original supercontinent) but also presented a new notosuchian member.

Found in Madagascar, Razanandrongobe sakalavae resembled a crocodile. The head alone was 1 meter (3.3 ft) long. It had an unfriendly grin. Each tooth measured 15 centimeters (6 in) in length. In fact, they rather resembled those of T. rex, making the croc thing an apex predator of its time.

Researchers puzzled the species together using the new find and pieces rediscovered in museums. The combined data showed that R. sakalavae was perhaps the biggest notosuchian and definitely the oldest. It chased dinosaurs for dinner around 163 million years ago, a date that beat the previous oldest notosuchian by a mind-bending 42 million years.^[5]

5 Destroyer Of Shins

When a dinosaur died 76 million years ago, it was destined to be named after a monster in the Ghostbusters movie (1984). The fictional Zuul was a hellhound with a face like a gargoyle.

In 2014, the fossil reemerged in Montana. It was a previously unknown ankylosaurid—a dinosaur resembling an armored tank with a distinctive tail used like a club. The fossil was so well-preserved that its looks garnered the movie-inspired name Zuul crurivastator.

When it perished, Zuul was buried in river sand. This preserved even the soft tissue covering the armor and flank damage that suggested it argued with its own kind—which, in itself, was nothing to laugh at.

Although they were herbivores, this species came equipped with a tail that could smash the legs of T. rex. Tipped with a bony ball, the tail was adorned with spikes and measured 2 meters (7 ft) long. While its face was responsible for the “Zuul” part, the tail earned the rest of the creature’s name—crurivastator means “destroyer of shins.”^[6]

4 Dinosaurs With Mohawks

Among the most recognizable of dinosaurs, sauropods were giant herbivores with whiplike tails and long necks. Not all sauropods were big enough to use size as a defense.

In 2013, a smaller species was located in Argentina. The fossil belonged to a brand-new species called Bajadasaurus pronuspinax. At merely 9–10 meters (30–33 ft) long, it was tiny in comparison to other sauropods.

When paleontologists found a bony spine, analysis suggested that it was one of several that ran the length of the dinosaur’s neck and back, almost like a Mohawk. They were likely thin, sharp, and very long. In addition, the spikes probably had a layer of keratin that gave them a hornlike appearance.^[7]

Since the bizarre feature vanished with the species 140 million years ago, confirming its purpose would be a difficult task. A plausible theory is that the sauropods developed Mohawks to look bigger and more dangerous than they really were.

3 The Meat Hook Hunter

A pretty cool nightmare once haunted South America. The size of a truck, it ate meat and hunted with talons that resembled 40-centimeter (16 in) meat hooks. Its discovery in 2006 was a festive moment for scientists. Its group, Megaraptoridae, is exceptionally mysterious.

This specimen was also one of the largest of its kind and the last. Unfortunately, it lived in the Late Cretaceous when dinosaurs went extinct. Unearthed in Argentina, Tratayenia rosalesi managed to fill in some details about its species.^[8]

The carnivore measured 9 meters (30 ft) long and had bones with air pockets. This feature exists in a living relative—modern birds. When T. rosalesi lived 95 million to 85 million years ago, it might have been more closely related to T. rex. This could explain the serrated, daggerlike teeth and why T. rosalesi was among the biggest and most lethal hunters of its time.

2 T. rex Made Deadly Turns

When most people think about Tyrannosaurus rex hunting, a large and stomping predator comes to mind. One might not credit this barreling hulk with turns that are precision moves. After all, these creatures weighed around 400 kilograms (880 lb). However, T. rex could intercept swerving prey by turning like a figure skater.

New research in 2018 found that their hip bones and leg muscles were specially adapted to make them the ballerinas from hell. Also, the kids were even deadlier. A juvenile T. rex could twirl faster than its elders, undoubtedly a perk that helped them survive to adulthood.

These dinosaurs lived during the Cretaceous (145 million to 65 million years ago). To see if pivoting was a thing among predators of the time, researchers used cutting-edge techniques to study other species that frightened everything else during the Cretaceous. When all the monsters were made to digitally turn on a single foot, T. rex spun up to three times faster than the rest.^[9]

1 The Scissor Shark

Around 330 million years ago (long before the dinosaurs), there was a shark unlike any other. Edestus was first discovered in the 19th century when fossils showed up in England and the United States.

Ever since, experts have argued about its eating habits—more specifically, why the so-called “scissor shark” had such weird teeth. The teeth of modern sharks grow along upper and lower crescents. Edestus‘s two rows of snappers resembled pinking shears. The feature has never been seen in any species before or since.^[10]

As there was nothing for scientists to go on, debates and theories proliferated until a recent CT scan. The scan inspired a three-dimensional replica of the head which revealed the shark’s horrific chomp. Incredibly, the jaw appeared to work on a double-jointed system that sliced prey apart. As the shark bit, the sawlike teeth of the upper and lower jaws snapped together before the bottom slid backward to amputate a piece.

While most children around the world hope for a visit from Santa on Christmas Day, in some parts of the world different tales are shared during the holidays. On this list are some of the creepiest Christmas creatures you and your kids should hope to never encounter.

See Also: 10 Bizarre Things You Didn’t Know About Christmas

10 Elf on the Shelf

The Elf on the Shelf is not a monster per se, but what started out as a cute new tradition for Christmas is starting to terrify kids instead. A little miniature elf is being sold as “Santa’s special scout to help manage the lists of who’s been naughty or nice”.

Unfortunately the little elf doll kind of resembles a creepy clown that is scaring kids instead of making them excited about Christmas presents. There are many stories now on the Internet of people setting up cameras in their home and then catching these elves moving about, and even using the toilet and flushing it! Some children are so scared of the elf that they can’t sleep until, their parents remove it from where they can see it.

9Hans Trapp

The German story of Hans Trapp is said to be based on real life Hans von Troth who was allegedly a satanist and just all-round bad person. The Catholic Church got tired of his fights with his neighbors and other evil habits and banished him to a forest.

While in the forest, Hans Trapp began craving human flesh to the point where he made himself up to look like a scarecrow, stabbed a young boy to death and cooked him. However just as he was about to start feasting, Trapp was struck by lightning and died on the spot. Now Trapp is said to be one of Santa’s helpers who punish naughty children at Christmas while wearing his scarecrow outfit.

8 Belsnickel

Belsnickel is a angry-looking man in fur (the opposite of Santa really) that comes to visit children in the days leading up to Christmas. He has a bag of sweets and nuts in one hand and a wooden switch in the other. Throwing the sweets on the floor, he would whip the children who grabbed them.

Children are also told to recite Bible verses or poems and are sternly warned by Belsnickel to be good before Santa arrived. The tale of Belsnickel is told in Germany, France and Switzerland and takes different forms such as an animal-figure wearing a horned mask of a tiny white creature with the ability to slip through a keyhole.

7Kallikantzaroi

Goblins known as Kallikantzaroi come out from their underground lair during the twelve days of Christmas according to a tale told in Southeastern European countries.

A child born during these days, also known as the unbaptized days, are said to have a great change of turning into a goblin once they are grown-up. In order to prevent a new-born baby from turning into a large, hairy goblin with many different animal parts when they are an adult, the baby should be bound in straw or garlic or have its toenails singed. Another way to keep them away is to leave a colander outside the door. These goblins can’t count higher than two and will be distracted trying to count the holes in the colander and disappear again at dawn.

6 Tomte

The Tomte, according to Scandinavian legend, is a gnome-resembling creature out to protect farmers and their farms. These beings wear farmer clothes and are old with long beards and incredible strength.

It all sounds very good until a Tomte is offended by something a farmer does such as change the way the farm is run or abusing the farm animals. Once a Tomte is angry it has the ability to drive people insane or it will even bite them leaving behind a potentially fatal poison. Smaller offenses such as forgetting to add a spoon of butter on the Tomte’s bowl of porridge on Christmas Eve will cause it to wreak disaster on the farm.

5Anti-Claus

Claude Claus, also known as the Anti-Claus, is said to be Santa Claus’ evil twin brother who was given up for adoption. Santa and Claude’s mother was convinced by a soothsayer to give Claude up as he was evil and should not grow up with the good child Santa. Therefore she left Claude on the doorstep of a church where he was taken by an equally evil couple who abused him.

He eventually killed them both initiating a killing spree that is said to carry on to this day. After learning who his twin brother is, Claude became even more evil, creating Dark Christmas when his mission to take over Halloween failed. He travels in a black sleigh headed by hell hounds and a lone werewolf delivering gifts to the evil on Dark Christmas day, 26 December. He also attacks Santa’s sleigh in mid-air leading to bright fireworks.

4 Le Père Fouettard

Père Fouettard was a butcher , according to legend, who murdered three children in 1150. There are various versions of the story including that his wife drugged the children, slit their throats and then cooked them.

St. Nicholas came to the rescue of the children, brought them back to life and reunited them with their families. He chided Père Fouettard for his crimes and punished him by forcing him to become his helper for eternity. In Eastern France the tale now goes that Père Fouettard goes by Le Père Fouettard and accompanies St Nicholas when he delivers gifts to children. He has a creepy old face, long beard and carries knapsack in which he kidnaps naughty children as well a whip to beat them with.

3Joulupukki

A Joulupukki is a Yule goat-like creature from Finnish lore that scares children during Christmas time. They have mean ugly faces with horns and go around demanding gifts from children. Historically Joulupukkis could be warded off by prayer and certain rituals.

Strangely enough, there is now a modern day tale about Joulupukkis that make them sound a lot less evil. This story includes them resembling Santa, giving out presents during the day when it’s Christmas time and conversing jovially with children. It is unknown why the creature turned from bad to good but both tales are still popular in Finland.

2 Straggele

Demons called Straggele sometimes accompanies a creature called Frau Perchta in countries such as Switzerland and share some of the goodies left out by humans who hope to escape punishment and receive favor in the form of wealth and good health from Perchta.

However, this is not the only reason these demons are out and about on Christmas Day. Sometimes Perchta leaves the punishment of children to these awful demons and they take full advantage of this opportunity by robbing children who haven’t been particularly good. Then they gather the children up and fly away with them only to rip them apart during flight.

1 Frau Perchta

As mentioned above, Frau Perchta is a creature sometimes described as a witch or beast that has two faces, one for good children and the other for naughty children. Starting out with good deeds, she leaves silver in the shoes of good children on the 12th day of Christmas.

The naughty children would do best to run for their lives however, as Perchta is wont to slice open their stomachs, remove their internal organs and stuff their ruined bodies with straw and stones. It is unknown what she does with the organs after removing them but most likely they end up being a Christmas feast for her and the Straggele. Rumor also has it that Perchta is a shape-shifter that can take any form.

Creatures evolved into all the wild and wacky forms we know today for many reasons. These included alterations of ecosystems, changing food supplies, and the appearance of new niches that were opened by the deaths of predators or competitors.

Sometimes, however, Mother Nature got day-drunk and cooked up something really weird, even according to those scientists who uncover strange old things for a living.

10 Amazing Evolutionary Discoveries In Prehistoric Creatures

10 The Tooth-Beaked Dinosaur-Bird

Birds are basically dinosaurs. But the transition between the two happened in such a gradual, piecemeal way that sorting it out is a huge headache.

A new creature has been discovered from this headache-inducing period of animal evolution: the Ichthyornis dispar. It’s a missing link–type animal known as a “stem bird” because it straddles the line (and weirdly) between dinosaur and bird.

It occupied Kansas 100 million years ago—in the days when Kansas was an inland sea. And even though it had a long beak, I. dispar hadn’t yet lost its dinosaurian teeth.

Instead, it combined the best of both worlds to terrorize ancient sea life. It pinched fish from the water with its birdly pincer beak and then crushed its prey into a delicious paste with its well-muscled dinosaurian jaw.^[1]

What’s inside its head is just as important. I. dispar had a surprisingly large brain to go with its imposing beak. This doesn’t agree with hypotheses which argue that jaw muscles should shrink as skulls (and brains) grow more massive.

It’s no wonder that the smart and deadly I. dispar and its ilk had a bright future.

9 The 1,000-Kilogram (2,200 lb) Guinea Pig That Stabbed Enemies With Its Massive Tusks

Three million years ago, prehistoric rodents packed serious muscle. The Uruguayan Josephoartigasia monesi was the mightiest, with a hulking 1,000-kilogram (2,200 lb) body that could stand shoulder to shoulder with a bull.

Of all the rodents’ distinctive features, oversized front teeth are the most obvious. The maxed-out guinea pig J. monesi was a king among beasts in dental regards as well, with 30-centimeter (12 in) incisors that resembled tusks more than rodent teeth.

Just seeing these teeth wasn’t enough for scientists, who wanted to know how they handled. Using CT scans, virtual reconstructions, and computer simulations, researchers recreated J. monesi’s bite and found it was capable of delivering a bite about as strong as a tiger’s—even though J. monesi’s chompers could bear forces three times as great.^[2]

That’s probably because it did more than bite. J. monesi probably used its tusklike incisors to gore anything that ticked it off. The creature also used its teeth to root about the ground and dig up hidden foodstuffs like an elephant would. Overall, very impressive for the cousin of the guinea pig.

8 The Amazing Pig-Nosed Turtle

Turtles are among the planet’s oldest creatures, having graced Earth for more than 250 million years. However, despite sizing disagreements, nature has been fairly conservative with prehistoric turtle design.

The exception?

A slight evolutionary hiccup 76 million years ago which produced the goofy, pig-nosed Arvinachelys goldeni.

The turtle inhabited Utah way back in the day when North America was a big island known as Laramidia. Utah itself also looked radically different during the Cretaceous. Its deserts were replaced by hot and humid swamps which extended into floodplains, bayous, and rivers for the pig-snouted turtle to splash in.^[3]

A. goldeni deepens an existing evolutionary enigma from Laramidia. Creatures from the north and south ended up looking too different. This showcased an unexpected level of differentiation, especially with the lack of obvious factors separating the two populations. This mystery was not at all cleared up by the appearance of the pig-turtle.

7 The Pug-Faced Mega-Hyena

Pachycrocuta brevirostris is known as the “short-faced hyena” thanks to its snub-nosed pug face. But don’t let the goofy visage fool you. P. brevirostris is the baddest hyena to ever walk the Earth.

It’s a hyena with the mass of a lion. And all that hateful mass is packed into a body no taller than that of today’s spotted hyena. P. brevirostris‘s dense, chunky body, stout limbs, and jaw were built for scavenging supremacy.

Its low, stooping stature gave it excellent leverage to tear slabs of meat from large, meaty carcasses. Then P. brevirostris dragged its meal away to eat in peace and safety before repeating the hit-and-run maneuver.^[4]

P. brevirostris forced its way onto the evolutionary scene about three million years ago in Africa and Asia. Then it sauntered into Europe about a million years later.

Unfortunately, that coincides with similarly minded migrations undertaken by our ancestors. There’s evidence that early man and hyena inhabited the same places. This wasn’t so great for our side, according to mangled Homo erectus remains from the Dragon Bone Hill site in China.

6 The Dolphin That Thought It Was A Swordfish

Scores of strange creatures appear and disappear every time the oceans warm and cool. Among the weirdest of these animals was a dolphin that attacked prey with a swordlike nose—like a swordfish.

The longest-snouted mammal of all time, Zarhachis flagellator arrived at the evolutionary party 20 million years ago during the Neogene Period. This creature sported a schnoz five times longer than its skull. This Pinocchio nose of a snout was more than 1 meter (3 ft) long, and it swept through the water as Z. flagellator searched for prey. Once it locked onto an unfortunate meal, Z. flagellator clubbed its victim silly with its weaponized snout.

Scientists know this after studying the structure of the snout to estimate the forces it could withstand. Researchers also compared Z. flagellator‘s physiology to similar prehistoric dolphins as well as modern marlins.^[5]

But the climate eventually snuffed out Z. flagellator around the beginning of the Pliocene Epoch. A brutal glaciation period altered the creatures’ habitat and food supply, wiping out the long-snouts by 2.5 million years ago.

15 Unusual Prehistoric Creatures

5 The Cold-Blooded Goat

Myotragus balearicus, a 46-centimeter-tall (18 in) dwarf goat from the Balearic Islands, survived millions of years by adopting a strategy from the reptilian evolutionary playbook: cold-bloodedness.

Its ancient goat bones stunned scientists, who had never expected to find the treelike growth rings within. Since warm-blooded creatures are continually building their bones, they don’t exhibit this skeletal quirk. But cold-blooded animals grow their bones in spurts when resources allow.

Those resources didn’t allow much wiggle room on the barren, unfruitful island of Majorca. So the Balearic goat became smaller and borrowed some reptilian biology. Now it could laze around in the sun all day and not constantly worry about food.

However, its reduced size and metabolic rate came with a drawback: M. balearicus couldn’t fight or even effectively run away from its predators. Luckily for the goat, it didn’t have any predators on the little island.^[6]

So this puny, defenseless, nonathletic goat enjoyed its Mediterranean paradise for 5.2 million years; that’s twice the average reign of mammal species. M. balearicus was eventually killed off 3,000 years ago when humans arrived.

4 The Walking Crocodilian

Dinosaur lore is full of mysteries. For example, how did dinosaurs survive their reptilian competitors, the proto-crocodilian-like rauisuchians?

Unlike crocodiles with their splayed limbs, rauisuchians (related to a predecessor of crocodiles) held their legs straight below their bodies. The more upright orientation would have made walking easier and faster while traveling on four feet as rauisuchians were apparently wont to do.

This quadrupedal bias was one of the reasons that dinosaurs outlived their Triassic fellows. It seemed that dinosaurs had the advantage of bipedalism, which is a faster and more efficient form of locomotion. But science has found out that at least some of the rauisuchians also walked on two feet. One specimen that did so is the dinosaur-impostor Poposaurus gracilis.

The 225-million-year-old P. gracilis was approximately 4 meters (13 ft) long with a mouthful of backward-curved teeth to shred its prey. It had comically small arms but made up for them with a long, tapered tail which allowed the creature to walk and run upright like its more resilient dinosaurian counterparts.

Thanks to P. gracilis, the mystery of dinosauric dominance is reignited.^[7]

3 The Ferociously Vegetarian Cave Bear

The European cave bear, so-called for its fondness of caves, weighed up to 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) and rivaled the largest living bears. But unlike modern omnivorous, picnic basket–snatching bears, the ancient variant was “exclusively herbivorous.”

These bears roamed Europe and Asia from 300,000 to 25,000 years ago, dying out around the Last Glacial Maximum. Even though its environment was dry and cold, Ursus spelaeus managed to forage for enough vegetation to support its large, 3.5-meter-long (11.5 ft) frame on salad.

How do scientists know?

They analyzed the bones—some of which date back to nearly 50,000 years ago—of six bears discovered at three cave sites in Romania. Scientists zoomed in on the fossilized collagen within the skeletal remains and compared it to bone collagen from carnivores, herbivores, and cave bears from other parts of Europe.

Based on the ratio of different types of nitrogen in the amino acids within the collagen, researchers concluded that U. spelaeus was a strict vegetarian.^[8]

2 The Armored Basking Fish

The armored fish (placoderm) Titanichthys was one of the largest sea dwellers of the Devonian Period 380 million years ago. Titanichthys grew to more than 5 meters (16 ft) in length and boasted a 1-meter-long (3 ft) jaw. But that jaw was a surprisingly weak and toothless one with no cutting edge.

So, if its jaw wasn’t built for combat or ripping bloody chunks out of its prey, what was it designed for? It turns out that this fearsome fish wasn’t so terrifying after all. Instead, it made its living as a “suspension” feeder, like a basking shark.

For all its apparent ferocity, Titanichthys employed a lazy (but efficient) feeding method called “continuous ram feeding.” It just floated about with its mouth gaping open, scooping up the tiny critters that inhabited an ancient sea that is now the Moroccan Sahara Desert.^[9]

The trendsetting Titanichthys is the earliest known species to “bask,” preempting the more famous basking animals, like baleen whales, by a whopping 350 million years.

1 The Anchovy With A Sabertooth

Fossils sometimes sit in museums for many years before being properly described. Two such fossils sat on a shelf for 20 years before recently revealing that anchovies weren’t always the little chumps they are today. While modern anchovies eat plankton and grow to about 15 centimeters (6 in) long, the prehistoric Monosmilus chureloides was about 1 meter (3 ft) long and ate other fish.

It also had a sabertooth—as in a single sabertooth poking from its upper jaw to complement a row of sharp fangs on its lower jaw. That’s right, M. chureloides was a predatory anchovy that impaled its prey.^[10]

The 45-million-year-old M. chureloides hails from the Paleogene when a surprising number of fish transformed into ruthless killers. The niche for ferocious fishes opened up when larger sea terrors were killed off by the dinosaur-obliterating asteroid 66 million years ago.

Like its brethren species, the ancient anchovy from the Eocene Epoch evolved into a beast to fill that niche and feast on lesser fishes.

10 Strange Features Recently Discovered In Prehistoric Creatures

About The Author: Ivan writes things for the Internet. You can contact him at [email protected]

Our legends and histories are filled with mysterious cryptids and terrifying beasts, some of which actually existed. But more often than not, these tales of creepy creatures are just that: tales; imagined beings meant to satisfy a story. Yet, not all farfetched monsters are hoaxes, and there’s enough evidence to suggest that they roam among us. Here are the top 10 creepy creatures that might exist.

10 Dobhar-chú

The Dobhar-chu is a terrifying cryptid with origins in Ireland. Also called the water hound or King Otter, it is a half-dog, half-fish hybrid but is five times larger than a typical otter. It can swim and also run on land, supposedly as fast as a running horse. The Dobhar-chu hunts in groups or pairs and will chase its prey through water and onto land.

The Dobhar-chu is notoriously aggressive towards humans and dogs and will kill and devour them. The popular legend of their aggression towards humans surrounds a husband and wife from the 17th century. Grace McGloighlin was washing clothes in the Glenade Lough when her husband heard her scream. By the time he got to her it was too late; the Dobhar-chu stood above her mutilated body. He stabbed the creature in the heart. It made a whistling noise as it died, which alerted its mate. The second Dobhar-chu chased the husband down and killed him as well.

Inhabiting the freshwater loughs and rivers of Ireland, witnesses have spotted it throughout the centuries. Though now people believe it is extinct, there is a possibility that they still live on Achill Island.

9 Mamlambo

If underwater cryptids and creepy creatures couldn’t get creepy enough, the mamlambo will have you covering your face every time you jump in the water. The mamlambo is a reptilian-like animal about 6’-7’ long with origins in South African and Zulu mythology. Some witnesses describe it as a giant bioluminescent snake, whereas others make it a hybrid of snake, crocodile, and horse, with four stubby legs.

The mamlambo will attack its prey, including humans, and drag it to the Mzintlava River’s bottom in South Africa. Once drowned, it eats its victims’ faces, cracks their skulls, and devours their brains.

The mamlambo has been sighted by villagers who live near the Mzintlava River for a long time. However, police have disputed these sightings, relating the deaths to drowning caused by the river’s swelling during the heavy rain season. They explain that the disfiguration of the victim’s faces was merely caused by river crabs that ate away at the body’s flesh over time. Still, villagers stand by their claims that the mamlambo exists.

8 Deer Women

Add deer women to your list of femme fatales of legend. For North American Central Plains and Woodland Native American tribes, deer women are mostly a benign spirit. They usually appear to women as a sign of fertility as a human, deer, or a mix of the two. Occasionally, they’d appear to promiscuous men and adulterers, seducing them and then leading them to their death or everlasting lovesickness.

In contemporary tales among the native tribes in Oklahoma, deer women are much more violent. These deer women appear as young women but have hooves for feet and deer eyes. They lure men to them and then trample them to death. Some say that Deer Women are women who transformed after being raped or were brought back to life by an original Deer Woman spirit. Regardless of the Deer Woman’s origins, there are documented sightings by an incredibly large amount of Native American tribes.

7 El Chupacabras

There’s nothing like the classic tale of this blood-sucking, livestock-preying, reptilian creature. First spotted in Puerto Rico in 1995, the chupacabra—or goatsucker—preys on livestock and sucks their blood. It is as large as a small bear and has a series of spiny protrusions that run the length of its back. It stands and hops like a kangaroo and has greenish-grey leathery skin. A more “normal” variation of the creature looks like a wild dog. All blood-drained victims have two or three puncture wounds on the chest or neck. Since the first sighting, people have also reported having seen it in Maine, northern Mexico, Russia, and Chile.

Wildlife experts and biologists refute the existence of the chupacabra. Instead, they claim that what witnesses are actually seeing are coyotes with mange or Mexican hairless dogs. Still, there is a good chance that a “chupacabra” does exist, just not in an alien way. Footage shows a strange dog with an especially large head, believed to be a chupacabra, running down a dirt road. In 2010, a chupacabra was killed by animal control, which turned out to be a coyote-dog hybrid with mange and parasites.

What the witness spotted in 1995, though, was certainly no hairless dog. It was a thing of nightmares.

6 Black Stick Men

It isn’t Slenderman, and it’s not a ghost; it’s Black Stick Men. Black Stick Men are long, two-dimensional slender figures. They are abnormally tall, sometimes electrified, and cast no shadow. Black Stick Men are a fairly recent phenomenon, and plenty of sightings are confirmed hoaxes. However, one cryptozoologist named Marc Wolfgang Miller spotted six of them in Buford, Wyoming. He attempted to photograph a 12’ tall stick man, but the creature did not clearly appear in the photo.

5 Fresno Nightcrawler

The Fresno Nightcrawler is a white, bipedal creature with an extremely small torso, round head, and no arms. Most of its body is its legs. People once thought that the Fresno Nightcrawler was a Native American legend, but this is untrue, meaning that we can best describe this creature as some sort of alien. First spotted in Fresno, California, on a home security camera, it’s only been seen one other time, in Yosemite National Park.

4 Snallygaster

The name may be funny, but the creature is far from silly. Based on Germanic superstition and spotted by residents of Frederick County, Maryland, the snallygaster is a dragon-like creature—half-reptile, half-bird—with razor-sharp teeth. Early stories of the snallygaster sometimes give it octopus and vampiric characteristics.

In 1909, the legend became a reality. After encounters with the beast started appearing in newspapers, the creature showed up everywhere, from New Jersey to Ohio. Eyewitnesses reported that the snallygaster had an eye in the middle of its forehead.

The same year, a terrifying account of a man snatched by the snallygaster and drained of his blood caught the attention of the Smithsonian Institute. The Institute would offer an award for anyone who could produce the hide of the animal. But the story was so terrible that President Theodore Roosevelt even considered postponing his trip to hunt it.

The last account of the snallygaster comes from Washington County, Maryland. Apparently, the beast was overcome by moonshine fumes and fell from the sky into the still. Revenue agents soon destroyed both the vat and the body of the snallygaster. No one has seen it since.

3 Mogollon Monster

In 1903, I.W. Stevens encountered a humanoid creature in the Grand Canyon covered in grey hair with a beard that reached its knees. It had talons that were two-inches long and was drinking the blood of two cougars. Almost 40 years later, cryptozoologist Don Davis encountered the same humanoid creature while on a Boy Scout trip. The massive beast had deep-set, expressionless eyes.

This is the Mogollon Monster. It walks with abnormally long strides, can imitate animals’ sounds, and has a terrifying scream. People still see the Mogollon Monster, including several people on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. Biologists challenge its existence despite footage and organic samples.

2 Mantis Man

Here’s a creepy creature that is not only creepy but shy, too? The Mantis Man is a 7′ tall insect-like creature that mostly resembles a praying mantis. Definitely not a creature for the entomophobic! Both reports of its encounter state that it was wading in the Musconetcong River in New Jersey. This is quite unlike the praying mantis we know—the mantis doesn’t spend its time near water.

Between the creature’s location and the fact that Earth’s atmosphere can’t grow a bug that large leads people to believe that the Mantis Man is an aquatic animal. Either that or it could be an alien. Whatever it is, should you encounter it yourself, you won’t have to worry about it attacking you. All reports claim that it runs away when you get too close.

1 Mothman

On a cold night in autumn in 1965, the infamous Mothman visited Point Pleasant, West Virginia. While preparing for a burial, five men saw something fly from the trees. What they saw wasn’t a bird, but rather a terrifying humanoid. Mothman doesn’t resemble a moth. It is about 7′ tall with a wingspan of 10’-15′ long. It has two glowing red eyes in the center of its chest and shuffles like a penguin when it folds its wings. Those who look into its eyes or catch a glimpse of its face report feeling a sense of dread, psychological distress, and overwhelming evil.

Some believe that Mothman warns people of impending disasters. Others think it is an angel, demon, or the result of a curse. Although people have spotted Mothman regularly since 1965, it is still largely considered a legend—or the mistaken identity of a sandhill crane.

And those are ten creepy creatures that might exist. If you’re fortunate—or unfortunate—enough to come across one of these creatures, be sure to catch a photo. You’ll have to prove it’s not a hoax.

Stories of mythical creatures are never in short supply. According to common folklore, most have ridiculous features and characteristics that may make it impossible to believe in their existence. The fact that we often lack verifiable evidence to prove they are real does not make their situation any better.

However, as we are about to find out, many of these supposedly mythical creatures actually existed and some are still around today. Now, you may be thinking, if they are really around, why do we not have pictures? We actually do. It is just that we mistake them for some other creature.

10 Real People Who Died Searching For Mythical Places

10 Mermaids

 

Tales of mermaids, a race of half-human and half-fish hybrids that live in the ocean are a common sailor’s tale.

Surprisingly, many of those stories are actually real even though they may be exaggerated. Mermaids exist. Christopher Columbus even spotted three during his first trip to America. He described them as “not so beautiful as they are said to be, for their faces had some masculine traits”.

Wait, what? Masculine? But mermaids are almost always female, aren’t they?

Well, the creatures we call mermaids are actually manatees and their closely related cousins, dugongs. Both animals are called sea cows because of their huge size. They are the largest aquatic herbivores in the world. Sailors mistook them for mermaids because of their unique human and fish-like characteristics.

A fully-grown sea cow is about six feet long, which is around the height of an adult human. They have five human finger-like bones on their flippers and can turn their necks and stand in shallow waters like a human. Put in their fish-like rears that sometimes stick out of the water and you have a mermaid.

9 Kraken

 

The kraken is probably the most fearsome sea monster ever imagined. According to sailors of old, it is a huge, octopus-like creature with a fondness for sinking ships and eating its crew. Legend says the kraken attacked and sank ships with its strong arms. If it was unsuccessful, it started swimming in circles until it created a whirlpool that sunk the ship.

Is the kraken real? Yes, it is.

The so-called kraken is actually the giant squid, which is huge (as the “giant” in the name already hints) but considerably smaller and less violent than sailors claimed. There are no accounts that it ever attacked or sank a ship or is even powerful enough to sink one.

The kraken moved from folklore to reality when the remains of a giant squid was found on a shore in Denmark in 1853. Curiously, the giant squid is as elusive as the legend it inspired. It lives so deep underwater that we have limited information about it.

However, we know it has the largest eyes of all living creatures, grows up to 18 meters and is frequently hunted by sperm whales for food. The weaker giant squid generally flees when confronted by a whale. However, it sometimes fights back when cornered and it is not unusual to find sperm whales with scars left from their battles with giant squids.

8 Dragons

 

Dragons are probably the most common mythical creatures out there. Their looks vary but the most common descriptions indicate they had reptile-like bodies, bat-like wings and sharp claws. Lest we forget, they also breathed fire out of their mouths.

Why do dragons have such varied description and why do many unrelated cultures attest to their existence?

It is because the real dragons had varied looks and lived in different parts of the world. Long after they were gone, their remains turned into fossils, which natives found and used to describe what they looked like. Some were huge and others were not. Some had sharp claws, some had bat-like wings and some may have had reptile-like bodies. However, none breathed fire from their mouths.

Lastly, we do not call them dragons but dinosaurs. Yes, dinosaurs are the origin of the dragon myth. Many cultures, particularly ancient China where tales of dragons abound, came up with dragons after finding fossils of dinosaurs.

7 Pouakai

 

Maori folklore tells of the existence of a giant flying bird with a fondness for snatching humans off the ground and carrying them away for consumption. They called the bird pouakai, which means “old glutton” in English. As Frederick Richardson Fuller, a taxidermist at Canterbury museum later found out in 1871, that bird really existed.

The haast eagle, as it is now known, was the largest eagle to ever roam the earth. Its wings alone reached three meters and its primary prey was the larger (and extinct) moa bird, which weighed between 100 and 250 kilograms. We humans weigh considerably less, so the bird may have really hunted us.

The haast eagle and moa evolved independently of humans. This means the eagle may have confused the first humans to land on New Zealand with the moa since the humans probably wore clothes made out of feathers. On the other hand, it may not have cared at all and just added us to the menu.

6 Roc

 

If you thought the haast eagle was deadly, the roc is worse. It is a haast eagle on steroids. If a haast eagle could pick up a human, a roc would pick up a community. No one said it did but we are just trying to provide some perspective. However, there are claims the roc could lift a fully-grown elephant off the ground.

Sailors of old claimed the roc lived on an island just off the coast of Africa. In reality, the supposed roc is actually the aepyornis aka the elephant bird. It weighed half a ton and grew up to 10 feet, making it the largest bird to ever exist. Like the roc, it lived on Madagascar, an island just off the coast of Africa.

However, the aepyornis could not lift an elephant into the sky because it was flightless. Besides, there are no elephants in Madagascar and the bird, despite its huge size, is much smaller than an elephant. The elephant bird existed at the time rumors of the roc first appeared 900 years ago but went extinct in the 1500s. Humans may have hunted it into extinction.

10 Real-Life Inspirations For Mythical Things

5 Unicorns

 

The unicorn is a mythical horse with a single horn in the middle of its head. Are they real? Yes, they were but they were not what you think.

Unicorns were not horses but rhinoceroses, that is, if the extinct Siberian unicorn is really the origin of the unicorn myth. Like the unicorn it may have inspired, the Siberian unicorn walked on four legs and had a huge horn in the middle of its head.

However, unlike the unicorn, the rhino was bigger, stronger and probably meaner. For perspective, it weighed four tons. You would not want to be around that thing.

The Siberian unicorn lived in Eurasia until it went extinct around 39,000 years ago. Fortunately for the humans that were around at the time, it was a herbivore and preferred munching down on shrubs. However, like today’s rhinos, it may have been very aggressive towards unlucky humans that strayed too close.

4 Griffins

 

The griffin is another hybrid mythical creature. According to myth, they have the faces, wings and front legs of an eagle and the rear, tail and hind legs of a lion. They flew too, which makes them one creature early humans would have given a wide berth, if they existed that is.

Talking of existence, griffins really existed but that was before the first humans appeared. They were actually a kind of dinosaur called the protoceratops. Like the griffin, the protoceratops walked on four legs and had a beak but did not have a wing.

But at a time when people had little knowledge of dinosaurs and only birds were believed to have beaks, it is no surprise that people claimed it had wings. Whatever had a beak should have a wing, shouldn’t it? Besides, the creature had long shoulder blades that were easily mistaken for wings.

3 Sea serpent

 

The sea serpent is another ferocious creature believed to patrol the ocean. Seafarers of old told elaborate stories of its existence so much that it became folklore. The creature, as you may have guessed from its name, is a supposedly monstrous fish-snake hybrid. Like the kraken, the sea serpent really exists even though its features and stories are heavily exaggerated.

For a start, the supposed sea serpent is actually an oarfish, which really looks like a fish-snake hybrid. But that is where their similarities end. The oarfish is much smaller even though it is considerably long for a fish. It reaches up to 30 feet in length, making it the longest bony fish in existence.

Unfortunately, we know little about the oarfish because it lives deep underwater. However, we know it neither feeds on humans nor fishes but on small marine creatures like crustaceans and krill. It was officially discovered in 1772, centuries after the legend it inspired first appeared.

2 Yeti

 

The Himalaya people of Nepal and China have traditionally talked about the existence of a big and hairy six-foot tall creature they call the Yeti. The existence of this mythical and elusive creature only became widespread knowledge in 1921 when some British explorers claimed to have found its footprints while climbing the Everest.

The explorers said their local guides called them “metoh-kangmi” (“man-bear snow-man”). However, Henry Newman, the journalist who interviewed the group, mistranslated “metoh” as “filthy” instead of “man-bear”. He later changed filthy to abominable because it sounded better. That was how the Yeti got its more common name, the Abominable snowman.

The name, the Abominable snowman, may make you mistake the Yeti for a race of undiscovered and uncivilized humans. However, if we went back to its correct Himalaya name, the “man-bear snow-man”, we would quickly realize we are dealing with a human-sized bear that lives in the snowy region.

The Yeti is actually the Himalayan brown and black bears, two real subspecies of bears that live in the Himalayas. Like the Yeti, both bears are big, hairy and brown (or black in the case of the black bear). DNA tests have proven that most of the hair, skin, teeth, fur and feces that supposedly belong to the Yeti actually belong to these bears.

1 Gorillai

 

Sometime between the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., an explorer from ancient Carthage called Hanno the Navigator discovered a tribe of hairy and “rude people” while navigating the coasts of West Africa. In his reports, Hanno wrote that the tribe had more males than females who he referred to as “hairy women” and called gorillai.

Hanno’s party chased the tribe but they all fled. The males were considerably faster and quickly climbed the cliffs from where they threw stones at his team. The females were slower and his team managed to capture three. However, they fought back aggressively, forcing Hanno and his men to kill and skin them. He took their skins back to Carthage.

The creatures became folklore since no westerner saw them again until an American missionary called T.S. Savage, rediscovered them in 1847. They were not humans but apes. Or to be more precise, they are the apes we now call gorillas. Savage named the new creatures “Troglodytes gorilla” in keeping with Hanno’s gorillai.

To be clear, there is some debate over whether Hanno saw gorillas or some other species of apes. Nonetheless, Savage’s “Troglodytes gorilla” was later renamed “Gorilla gorilla” while the animal itself was called gorilla.

10 Myths Humans Have Used To Explain Natural Disasters

Before it was revealed that the Cottingley Fairies were just cardboard cut-outs, people were mesmerized by these delicate little creatures who were seemingly stumbled upon by two young girls who presented five photographs they claimed to have taken of the fairies.

There is something awe-inspiring about creatures of myth, whether it be their sheer size, their magical powers or simply their beauty. Mythical creatures and monsters are woven into the fabric of our modern-day lives; just think of the elves in Iceland and the ever-elusive Nessie supposedly roaming the waters of Loch Ness in Scotland.
Not to mention the massive creature that roams the deep of the oceans …

10 Sea serpent of Gaelic folklore

… No, not that one.

While most people have likely heard a thing or two about the much-feared Kraken of yore, many may never have heard or read about the sea serpent straight out of Scottish Gaelic folklore: Cirein-cròin.

This humongous sea monster lived alongside dinosaurs and could eat a total of 7 whales in one day. Cirein-cròin behaved in a devious manner by transforming itself into a small silver fish and allowing local fishermen to catch it. As soon as it was on board their boat, Cirein-cròin would change back into its usual form and devour everyone and everything within reach.

Some versions of the tale says that Cirein-cròin wasn’t a sea serpent but a large land-based dinosaur that hunted other creatures and humans both on land and in the ocean.

9 Mortal handmaidens turned evil

Mermaids are commonly depicted as aquatic creatures, half fish, half human, both beautiful and terrifying, both full of compassion and murderous.

This is because before mermaids took over the legends with their beauty and magic, there were sirens. Sirens were said to have taken the form of a combination of a woman and a bird, which meant they had large human heads, bird feathers and feet covered in scales. They sang enchanting songs to lure sailors and mariners which drew them into approaching the sirens, after which the creatures got into their boats and killed them.

These bird-women were said to have inhabited a remote Greek island, and a popular legend has it that before they acquired their half-and-half forms, they were handmaidens to the goddess Persephone. After Hades kidnapped Persephone, the handmaidens were given golden wings by Demeter to help search for her. But since Persephone was being held in the underworld, the maidens were unsuccessful in their search efforts. Demeter became enraged at their failure, banned them to the Greek island and cursed them.

The curse meant they would remain in half-bird form until someone passed their island without stopping first. They were also fated to die if a human heard them sing and survived. When Odysseus passed their island without incident, the sirens hurled themselves into the ocean in defeat.

8 The beast that devoured humans whole

Persian and Greek mythology speaks of a creature similar in looks to the Egyptian sphinx, with the head of a human, the body of a lion and a tail made up of spines filled with venom. Some versions of the legend of the manticore depicts it with the tail of a scorpion. The manticore was said to be invincible and able to kill and devour every animal in the jungle, with the exception of elephants, using its three rows of teeth. Much like a siren, the manticore had a beautiful voice with which it lured its human victims to their deaths. It swallowed humans whole after paralysing them with poisonous spikes shot from its tail.

In modern times, the manticore can found in the popular game, Dungeons & Dragons, in which it appears with added dragon wings (or bat wings). The beast was first introduced to the game in 1974.

7 Gargoyles and grotesques

Gargoyles, those terrifying-looking creatures squatting on the corners of many old European buildings, were popular in Gothic architecture between the 12th and 16th century as spouts that allow water to drain away from buildings. They were so popular, in fact, that they were even added to cathedral roofs.

But, of course, gargoyles and their decorative counterparts, grotesques, have their own place in mythology as well. They were believed to have been made of animated stone which gave them the ability to come to life when darkness fell. Some also believed that these fantastical monsters guarded the buildings they sat on and frightened evil spirits away. Others, however, feared the gargoyles and believed that they could be possessed by demons and as such used for sinister purposes.

During the 19th century, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the US, fully embraced Gothic architecture and to this day the city sports over twenty authentic gargoyles and hundreds of grotesques.

6 Deep water transport

While the hippocampus is a brain structure found in the temporal lobe, it is also the name of the mythical seahorse said to have pulled along the chariot of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. The hippocampus is depicted as having the upper body of a horse and lower body of a fish, wings protruding from its sides and said to appear in both fresh water and salt water, with its fin-mane and fin-hooves helping it to swim.

Hippocamps are described in mythology as having a personality like that of horses found on land and forming close relationships with both mermen and sea elves. When attacked, the hippocamps use their teeth and tails to fend off their attacker, but then swim away to avoid further fighting. Legend also has it that hippocamps only return to the ocean surface when their food source, seaweed, is in short supply in the deeper waters. They don’t require air to live and must stay under water or they will die.

5 Wild asses as large as horses

Unicorns make for cute outfits, cakes, and memes, but this mythical creature is a lot more than just a chubby white horse with a rainbow-colored mane and tail. The first written description of a unicorn came from a Greek doctor named Ctesias who travelled through Persia in the 4th century. He wrote of ‘wild asses as large as horses’ with white bodies, red heads and blue eyes. The wild asses also had horns on their foreheads that were about a foot and a half in length. Ctesias further wrote that the animals were faster and stronger than any other creature.

The lure of the unicorn remained throughout the centuries, with Scotland even naming the beast their national animal. Unicorns are mentioned in the Bible nine times, in the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Job, Psalms and Isaiah, although many take exception to the translation of the Hebrew word re’em to unicorn, as they believe the word referred to an ox or rhinoceros instead.

This belief has been somewhat backed up by the discovery of a skull fossil in Kazakhstan in 2016. The skull belonged to “Elasmotherium sibiricum” or a ‘real-life unicorn’ that lived around thirty thousand years ago and resembled a rhino. Also known as the Siberian unicorn, the creature had longer legs than a traditional rhino, a horse-like gait, and a massive horn on its nose. Experts also believe that the Siberian unicorn may have lived at the same time as modern humans.

4 Monster that causes storms

The most well-known mythical monsters of Africa are the Popobawa, the Mokele-mbembe and perhaps most infamous of all, the Tokoloshe. But have you ever heard of the Inkanyamba?

In KwaZulu Natal, on the Umgeni River, lie the majestic Howick Falls. The pool at the bottom of the waterfall is home to the Inkanyamba, according to legend. This creature, a giant serpent with fins on its horse-like head, is said to have a terrible temper that causes seasonal storms in the summer time. Only traditional healers (sangomas) are brave enough to approach the falls and are the only ones who can do so safely. Once they stand in front of the falls, they offer prayers and sacrifices to the Inkanyamba and ancestral spirits. The Xhosas in the area believe that the Inkanyamba transforms into a tornado once every year and whirls off in search of its mate.

In 1998, residents in the surrounding area tearfully blamed the Inkanyamba for the violent storm that cost thousands their homes.

3 Gnomes for good luck

It’s not uncommon to see gnome figurines decorating gardens, as these mythical beings are said to be good-luck charms, able to enrich soil and causing anything that is planted in it to flourish. People have placed gnomes in their gardens since the early 1800s, starting in Germany and soon the tradition spread to England. By the 1870s, mass production of clay garden gnomes was in full swing, but it was just about wiped out with the start of WWI and then WWII. By the 1960s, plastic gnomes were manufactured but they were nowhere near as popular as their predecessors.

Gnomes, according to legend, lived underground and guarded golden treasure. They could be found all over Europe including Spain, England, Denmark, and Norway but under different names. Sometimes they are called goblins or dwarves because of their depiction as small, deformed ‘old men.’ Gnomes have been tasked with protecting the elements of air, fire, water, and earth from humans. They are said to be sensitive to sunlight and will turn to stone if exposed to it for too long. A gnome’s advice is to be taken to heart as it is claimed it could make rich anyone who listened to it.

In recent times, gnome-napping has become somewhat of a thing. It involves ‘kidnapping’ a garden gnome from any given garden and taking it on an adventure that includes a lot of picture-taking and then sending the photos to its owner.

2 Ogres that torment the living

Ogres don’t exactly look like Shrek. Or at all like Shrek. In mythology they are described as being extremely large, with even larger heads that sprout abundant hair, off-colored skin and a strong appetite for humans, especially children. Ogres have appeared as characters in many fairytales. For instance, the witch in Hansel and Gretel is presumed to be a female ogre (ogress) because she eats children. The wolf in Little Red Riding Hood also resembles an ogre.

In Japan, ogres are called oni and portrayed as having sharp claws and two horns protruding from their heads. Some have an odd number of fingers, toes or eyes and their skin can take on any color, but they commonly appear as blue, black, brown, white and particularly red. Oni are said to be born after evil humans die and end up in one of the Buddhist Hells. There they are transformed into oni and become servants of the ruler of Hell. Part of their job is to crush the bones and peel the skin off wicked humans. When a human is too evil to be redeemed, he is transformed into an oni on Earth and remains there to terrorize those around him who are still alive.

1 The forming of the Milky Way

There are a lot of truly fascinating Maori legends about mythical beings. These include the tale of the god of weather, Tawhirimatea who sent his children, the four winds and clouds, to cause devastation on Earth, as well as the story of Taniwhas, which are reptile-like creatures that sometimes take on the form of sharks and whales and lurk in rivers and other bodies of water.

Then there is Mangaroa, the shark placed high up in the sky by the demigod Maui to look after the Maori tribes on Earth from its vantage point in the ‘sea of the sky.’ Another legend says that the sea in the heavens, better known as the Milky Way, was formed when the god Kiho-tumu formed a ship and sailed across the sky. The ship, named The Long Shark, protects the Maoris and they believe that the dark parts of the Milky Way represent the Long Shark travelling through it, while the white patches are from the waves it creates as it sails through the sea in the sky.

While the smallest organisms capable of killing a human fall on the bacteria and virus branches of the tree of life, they aren’t what many would call a “creature.” There are plenty of proper animals that have been killing folks for hundreds of thousands of years.

Granted, most of the deadliest animals in the world are relatively large. While they are certainly interesting, the smallest killer critters can be far more fascinating. These ten animals are two fundamental things: they’re small and horrifically deadly.

Since they could all kill a person, they are arranged from the largest to the smallest deadly critter. Also, no vectors here, so don’t expect to see mosquitoes or fleas — only animals that can kill a person through direct contact.

10 Australian Animals That Aren’t As Deadly As You Think

10 Australian Box Jellyfish

Most jellyfish are more of an annoying nuisance than anything else. They tend to swarm and get in the way when you’re diving, and outside the occasional painful sting, they aren’t much of a bother.

Some jellyfish stings are excruciating, but they don’t result in death. That’s not true of the Australian Box Jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri), which is often cited as the most venomous marine animal.

C. fleckeri is the largest of the 51 known species of box jellyfish. In terms of size, they average around 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter. Its tentacles can extend for 10 feet (3 meters), so it’s not the smallest thing in the ocean.

Regardless, it’s something that should be avoided at all costs, which can be difficult. They don’t float about with the current and can swim up to 20 ft/second (6 m/sec.) or four knots. Their tentacles can deliver microscopic darts carrying intensely painful venom.

If stung and left untreated, death can come within two to five minutes. A single C. fleckeri has enough venom to kill around 60 adult humans. Nearly 80 fatalities have been recorded in Australia since the 19th century.

9 Amazonian Giant Centipede

The Amazonian Giant Centipede (Scolopendra gigantea) is one of the largest centipedes on the planet, reaching 12 inches (30 cm) in length. They can be found throughout South America and the Caribbean, where it enjoys eating other large arthropods, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and small mammals.

These centipedes are true carnivores. It has no problem overpowering other relatively large insects, spiders, scorpions, lizards, frogs, bats, mice, and birds. While they may look interesting, they should never be handled. They possess a particularly nasty venom they don’t mind sharing with the world.

The venom of S. gigantea contains a potent neurotoxin, making it possible for them to take down animals significantly larger than themselves. The venom targets the cardiovascular, respiratory, muscular, and nervous systems, incapacitating their victims.

Envenomation in humans is incredibly painful and can cause severe issues if not treated. There is only one documented case of death from a bite. In 2014, a four-year-old child in Venezuela found one in an open soda can. The subsequent bite resulted in the child’s death despite a great deal of effort medical professionals made trying to save his life.

8 Geography Cone

Cone snails are common worldwide, and because of their brightly colored shells, they are highly prized by shell collectors. It’s always best to collect the shells long after the snail has died because many of the 600+ species are extremely venomous.

The most dangerous of them all is the Geography Cone (Conus geographus), found in the coral reefs of the tropical Indo-Pacific. Despite being a small snail that grows to between 4 and 6 inches (10—15 cm), C. geographus actively hunts fish. It does this by firing off a harpoon-like tooth that delivers a powerful venom.

These little guys’ venom packs a wallop, and there is no antivenom to treat people once they are hit with it. The only thing medical professionals can do is try to keep a person alive long enough for the toxins to wear off.

If an adult is struck with the venom of the Geography cone, they will die within one to five hours without medical treatment. They are often called “cigarette snails” due to an old bit of gallows humor. It’s said that after a sting, a person has enough time to smoke a single cigarette before they die.

7 Deathstalker Scorpion

Scorpions are always somewhat dangerous to humans, as their sting tends to come with a lot of pain. Still, they aren’t ordinarily deadly, but that’s not to say there aren’t a few capable of killing a person. The deadliest known is the Deathstalker scorpion (Leiurus quinquestriatus), which measures around 3 to 4 inches (80 to 110 mm).

They are found throughout North Africa and the Middle East, where they are well known for the danger they present. Their venom is a nasty mix of neurotoxins that carry a low lethal dose. It includes chlorotoxin, charybdotoxin, scyllatoxin, and three types of agitoxins, all of which block specific channels of the nervous system.

While the envenomation of an adult doesn’t typically result in death, the young, infirmed, and elderly are all at risk. Most stings result in anaphylaxis, which can be followed by pancreatitis. An antivenom exists, but it is often needed in large doses to counter the deathstalker’s venom’s effects.

When death does occur, it’s most often the result of respiratory failure. Interestingly, while their venom can be fatal, it contains components that may help treat brain tumors and diabetes.

6 Blue-Ringed Octopus

Most people don’t think of an octopus as a venomous creature since the main focus is usually on its eight legs. There are several venomous octopi, and the deadliest is, by far, the Blue-ringed octopus. There are four species, and every one of them can be deadly to humans.

Blue-ringed octopi are small compared to other species, as most measure between 2.5 and 4 inches (6 to 10 cm). They get their name thanks to the brilliant blue rings found all over their bodies, and they can be found in tide pools and coral reefs in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

A Blue-ringed octopus is typically docile around humans, which can be a problem. This leads unsuspecting people to pick them up to admire their unique coloration, but this is a mistake. The little octopi are some of the world’s most venomous marine animals, and their venom is no joke.

They carry a powerful neurotoxin tetrodotoxin. A single octopus has enough to kill 25 adult humans in a matter of minutes. Their bite is often painless because of their small size, so most people who are bitten only realize it when they stop breathing and become paralyzed.

5 Golden Poison Dart Frog

The Golden Poison Dart frog (Phyllobates terribilis) is the most poisonous animal in the world. The key word here is “poisonous,” as it has no venom of its own. Still, a single frog has enough poison secreted from its skin to kill 22,000 mice. Their name is derived from the Choco Emberá, who used the frogs to poison their darts used for hunting.

These tiny frogs grow to a maximum of 2 inches (55 mm), making them particularly small. They are prized for their coloration, which is arguably quite beautiful. Still, handling one is a terrible idea should you find them in their native habitat of Colombia’s Pacific coast forests.

Their skin is densely coated in an alkaloid toxin, which causes a victim’s nerves to stop transmitting impulses. This leads to heart failure, and a single frog contains enough toxins to kill between 10 to 20 people.

Fortunately, lethal poisoning is rare, but it can happen. If the frogs are removed from their native habitat, they stop producing toxins, rendering them harmless. Their toxin builds from their consumption of ants that result in the buildup of batrachotoxins, so without the ants, they become innocuous.

4 Giant Silkworm Moth Caterpillar

The Giant Silkworm Moth Caterpillar (Lonomia obliqua) is a saturniid moth species found in South America. They are relatively small, measuring only about 2 inches (5.5 cm) long. According to the Guinness World Records, they make up for their size by being the most venomous caterpillar in the world.

Most people don’t see caterpillars as a threat, but if you should ever find yourself standing on a path with one of these, don’t go anywhere near it! They have a toxic venom capable of causing disseminated intravascular coagulation and consumptive coagulopathy. That’s a fancy way of saying it causes your blood to clot throughout your body.

When that happens, hemorrhagic syndrome and death aren’t far behind. These little guys don’t bite their victims to inject venom. Instead, their hollow bristles, which are found all over its body, contain and inject the venom into the poor fool who touches them.

Their spines may look like hairs, but they can easily penetrate the skin to deliver their venom. Fatalities are common with these caterpillars, but death isn’t certain. It can take several painful and miserable days to kick in, so immediate medical treatment is required.

3 Sydney Funnel-Web Spider

Several species of spiders are capable of killing folks, which is one reason arachnophobia is so prevalent. Still, the vast majority could only hurt a fly — after all, a spider’s venom is wasted on a human since we aren’t their usual prey.

Still, some spiders can kill, and the Sydney Funnel-Web Spider is one of the deadliest. They can only be found within a 63 mile (100 km) radius of Sydney, Australia, and they are the “most venomous” spiders in the world, regarding their toxicity to humans.

They aren’t the largest spiders in the world, with most examples’ body length ranging from 0.4 to 2 inches (1 to 5 cm). They have large, nasty-looking fangs, which they use to inject their entire venom reserve into their victims.

The venom contains a compound called atracotoxin, which inhibits the nervous system in primates. This can lead to death in as little as 15 minutes if untreated with antivenom. A full envenomated bite can kill an adult human, but they are more dangerous to the young and elderly.

2 Blue Sea Dragon

Blue Sea Dragons (Glaucus atlanticus) are a species of sea slug known for their beautiful and unique shape, which resembles a dragon. They measure only about 1.2 inches (3 cm) and can be found throughout the world’s oceans, but if you ever see one, avoid it at all costs!

These critters may be beautiful to look at, but they are incredibly dangerous and more than willing to sting someone who picks them up. Their diet consists of other venomous animals, specifically the parts of animals that contain venom. One of their favorite meals is the nematocysts from the Portuguese man o’ war.

When an animal eats nothing but venom, they tend to incorporate what they eat into their own nasty sting. When they do sting someone, it can be excruciating. It will cause all kinds of problems, including pain, vomiting, and acute allergic contact dermatitis.

Typically, handling one of these animals won’t kill a person. That said, there is a risk of a severe allergic reaction, resulting in death if left untreated. It’s always best to operate under a ‘look but don’t touch’ policy where the Blue Sea Dragon is concerned.

1 Common Kingslayer

The Common Kingslayer (Malo Kingi) is a species of Irukandji jellyfish that is minuscule compared to larger animals such as the Australian Box Jellyfish. M. Kingi measures a comparatively tiny 1 inch (3 cm) and is entirely transparent, making them difficult to spot.

They make up for their small size by carrying a particularly nasty venom, which can lead to Irukandji syndrome. If afflicted with the syndrome, most adults can expect to experience severe pain, rapid blood pressure, and vomiting. While death is rare, it can occur.

The name “Common Kingslayer” was given to the jellyfish following Robert King’s death, an American tourist who died after being stung. King is the only person who is known to have been killed by their sting, but he’s not the only person who’s been hit by them.

Stings are relatively common due to the difficulty swimmers have in seeing and avoiding them. It’s believed that their venom becomes more potent as they mature. Since King’s death in 2002, more attention has been given to M. Kingi, which was first described only five years following King’s death.

Legends of mythical monsters and creatures have sent chills down spines for hundreds of years. So intertwined have these stories become with everyday life that tragic incidents are sometimes blamed on these legendary creatures. For instance, the deaths of nine skiers on Dyatlov Pass were, for a long time, thought to be the handiwork of abominable snowmen living in the northern Urals. Likewise, when two young girls tried to stab their friend to death in a forest in Wisconsin, they blamed the mythical Slender Man, claiming they had been forced to commit the crime to prevent Slender Man from harming their families.

On this list are more devastating incidents that have, to some extent at least, been blamed on creatures of folklore.

Related: 10 Bizarre Legal Actions Regarding Mythical Creatures

10 Bigfoot Kidnapping

Ever since the infamous Gimlin footage made headlines in 1967, there has been a horde of Bigfoot sightings in the U.S. despite experts dismissing the entire concept as being either a hoax or simply ludicrous.

In 1987, things took a turn for the tragic when 16-year-old Theresa Ann Bier apparently decided to skip school and go Bigfoot hunting in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California on June 1. Accompanying her was 43-year-old Russell Welch, who returned from the outing alone. Theresa was reported missing, and when authorities inevitably questioned Russell, he claimed that he last saw the teenager on June 2, after they’d both encountered Bigfoot and she chased after it. According to Russell, Bigfoot had abducted Theresa. He also changed his story several times, adding more and more details to it.

Not believing the story for one second, police arrested Russell Welch on June 11th but had to release him when no sufficient evidence against him could be found. A thorough search that included sniffer dogs in the area where Theresa was last seen yielded no success other than discovering what was believed to be her purse and scraps of her clothing.

To date, no one has been prosecuted for her disappearance, and her fate remains a mystery.^[1]

9 Mermaid Drowning

In December 2013, 12-year-old Siyabonga Masango left his home to play soccer with his friends. A while later, the heat led to the boys deciding to go swimming in a tributary of the Sabie River in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

A man washing his car nearby saw Siyabonga being pulled into the water and rushed over to help. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see or find him inside the water. Police divers searched for two weeks but also couldn’t locate the boy, believing that he had drowned after being attacked by a crocodile.

Siyabonga’s family was not convinced, believing instead that a mermaid had taken their son but that he would be “released”’ in time to go to school. The family also performed rituals to ensure that this would be the case. Siyabonga was never found, however, and his ultimate fate remains unknown.^[2]

8 Ghostly Vengeance

In June 2018, two men in the Thai village of Tambon Dong Yai in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Phimai district died in their sleep. Concerned residents set off to the local medium to hold a rite and call up spirits for an explanation. According to the medium, the ghost of a widow told her that she wanted to kill four men in the village, and as she’d already taken the lives of two, two more would soon follow.

Upon hearing this, several villagers hung a red shirt in front of their homes, hoping that it would keep the ghost away. Some even added a note stating that there were no men in their house, only pets.

Apparently, no other men suffered the same fate as the first two after the red shirts were displayed outside houses.^[3]

7 Alien Abduction

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart spawned a slew of conspiracy theories even after the Navy officially concluded that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan had most likely run out of fuel, after which they crashed into the Pacific Ocean and drowned.

These theories ranged from Earhart and Noonan landing on Nikumaroro and living as castaways until they died, being taken prisoner by the Japanese, or that they were eaten by coconut crabs after crashing somewhere near Howland Island.

Naturally, there would also be a far stranger theory in the mix, with some believing that Earhart was taken by aliens on the day she was to land on Howland Island and sent to a wormhole where she was left in suspended animation.

A version of this theory was included in the popular anthology horror series, American Horror Story, in which a character claims to be Amelia Earhart and makes contact with aliens.^[4]

6 Demonic Murder

Demons and evil forces are prominently featured in folklore, mythology, fiction, occultism, and religion. Going hand-in-hand with these stories are tales of demon possession and exorcism. In modern times, many crimes have been blamed on demons and evil creatures.

In 2016, Aljar Swartz admitted killing and beheading 15-year-old Lee Adams and burying her head in his backyard in Cape Town, South Africa. It was only after his trial, and after psychiatrists and psychologists found him mentally stable, that Swartz’s lawyer suddenly announced that his client was demon-possessed and requested for an exorcism to take place in Swartz’s prison cell where he was awaiting sentencing.

The lawyer also insisted on getting a retired Methodist minister to perform the exorcism after Swartz allegedly told him that a demon in the form of a black lizard appeared to him in his cell and tormented him. Swartz also said that the lizard would crawl into his chest and “control” him. The lawyer argued that his client was a “vessel” and “instrument in the hand of the devil” and could not be held accountable for Lee’s murder.

The court eventually found that Swartz murdered Lee Adams for the purpose of selling her head to a sangoma—a practitioner of herbal medicine, divination, and counseling in some traditional South African societies. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.^[5]

5 By Order of the Vampire Queen

In 2002, 22-year-old Allan Menzies murdered his 21-year-old friend, Thomas McKendrick. Menzies then ate part of his head, drank his blood, and buried him in a shallow grave. During his murder trial, Menzies stated that Akasha, the “Vampire Queen” in the film The Queen of the Damned, had repeatedly instructed him to kill his friend. He also said that he’d watched the film more than 100 times and that Akasha told him if he murdered people, she would reward him by turning him into an immortal.

Menzies further said that he’d made up his mind to kill McKendrick after McKendrick insulted Akasha. He also believed that he was indeed a vampire after the murder and said he didn’t really “feel anything” after McKendrick died.

Menzies was handed a life sentence for the crime in 2003 but was found dead in his prison cell in 2004. It is believed that he committed suicide.^[6]

4 Monster Behind the Mystery

Originating from Norwegian folklore, the Kraken is one of the most feared mythologic beasts. Legend has it that the monster was so big that sailors would often mistake it for an island and try to land on it, only to be dragged to a watery grave. Respected zoologist Carl Von Linné listed the Kraken as a real creature in Systema Naturae. Many believe that such a monster truly existed after Ichthyosaur bones were found in a pattern similar to how octopuses place bones when they’re done with their meal.

Colliding with another mystery, the Kraken has been blamed for the mysterious disappearances of boats and planes in the Bermuda Triangle. Some believe that a super-intelligent Kraken lurks in the depths of the triangle and “feeds” on ships and aircraft.

The Kraken has even been blamed for the Mary Celeste disappearance, even though the legendary ship vanished in a completely different part of the sea.^[7]

3 Quota of Lives

The Higginson Highway in Chatsworth, Durban, South Africa, is notorious for fatal accidents. Here, rocks are often hurled at cars from overhead bridges, after which injured motorists are robbed of their belongings. At other times, drivers lose control of their vehicles and veer off the highway, rolling down the embankment. Sometimes head-on collisions lead to tragic deaths.

Many of these accidents have been attributed to the highway’s resident ghost, aptly named Highway Sheila. Being the restless spirit that she is, it is believed that Sheila has a “quota of lives” to fulfill each year, and she achieves this goal by appearing in the middle of the road, causing drivers to swerve, leading to often-fatal accidents.

Recently, a young Metro police officer and his family were traveling home late at night on the Higginson Highway when he almost hit a woman in white standing in the middle of the lane. They were all terrified by the incident but believed that God had saved them from harm.^[8]

2 Wendigo Psychosis

Filling several pages of Algonquian books on legendary creatures, tales of the Wendigo describe the creature as a humanoid cannibal with antlers who feasts on human flesh to survive harsh and cold climates. Legend has it that the first-ever Wendigo was a hunter who got lost in the wild during winter and was driven to cannibalism to survive. This saw him morph into a Wendigo, doomed to roam the forest in search of more victims.

In the 1800s, a Cree man named Swift Runner slowly became addicted to alcohol, got fired from his job as a guide for the North West Mounted Police, and became increasingly violent as time passed. In 1878, Swift Runner led his wife, six children, mother-in-law, and brother into the woods, killed them, and ate them.

Police found broken hollowed-out bones in the woods as well as a pot of human fat and arrested Swift Runner. He told police that he had been possessed by a Wendigo, which led to him committing the massacre.

No one believed him and Swift Runner was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed in December 1879.^[9]

1 Lurking Leviathan

Described in Caribbean folklore as a 75-foot half-dragon, half-octopus, the lusca is a sea monster said to inhabit the waters surrounding Andros island in the Bahamas. Some versions of the tale say that the creature sports the head and torso of a shark and the lower body of an octopus.

One theory has it that the lusca, or lurking Leviathan as it’s sometimes called, is the ghost of a woman who drowned and was turned into a beast. Another says that a lusca is a mermaid or siren put on Earth by nymphs to lure sailors to their death.

The TV show, River Monsters, aired an episode dedicated to the lusca monster, which explores the possibility that the creature could be responsible for the disappearance of a number of swimmers exploring the blue holes surrounding Andros. The missing people include 38-year-old Liu Guandong, Wesley Bell, and 72-year-old John William Batchelor. Batchelor’s boat has been found, but he remains missing.^[10]

Everyone loves going to the beach, especially on a hot day. The ocean is a beautiful place almost anywhere in the world, with so many entertaining water activities you can enjoy. Whenever you think of the ocean, hopefully, good memories come to mind. Whether you go with your family or significant other, it’s always a good time.

The ocean also has some amazing sea creatures you can see, like whale watching or spotting dolphins alongside your boat. However, the waters of the deep blue sea also hold creepy and gruesome-looking animals. Where there is good, there is also bad. The ocean has a balance of some of the friendliest creatures. But it also has some of the scariest-looking species lying beneath its surface.

Related: Top 10 Fish That Hunt Land Animals

10 Sarcastic Fringehead

The sarcastic fringehead lives off the northeast coast of the Pacific Ocean and is often referred to as a tube benny. They mostly live in burrows or tube-like structures. Some have even been found to live in soda bottles. Most creatures are known to be territorial, and the sarcastic fringeheads are no different. The males are more likely to be the ones protecting their homes, so this is why females usually lay their eggs in the males’ burrows.

Females have even created this system where they make the male species more competitive and engage in territoriality. To establish dominance and protect its food sources, the male tube bennies will open their mouths wide. In comparison, their mouths are about four times as big when open. Both males will open their mouths and compare to see who has the biggest mouth. Whoever has the smallest mouth has to surrender and leave. Ah, so it’s even true in the fish world….

Though the sarcastic fringeheads have unusually wide mouths, they don’t have a history of eating big prey. Actually, they are known to eat planktonic prey like squid eggs. Because they live in burrows, they are rarely caught by fishermen. Luckily, staying very well hidden helps to limit their risk of extinction. So although they look scary, you don’t have to worry about them bothering you.^[1]

9 Northern Stargazer

The real name of the northern stargazer is Astroscopus gottatus, but it is also known as the Popeye fish. Living primarily on the ocean floor, this is by far one of the strangest-looking fish. They have large heads with flat foreheads and spotted flat bodies. Their nostrils, eyes, gill slits, and most of their mouths are found on top of their heads. In addition to its odd looks, this fish also breathes through its nostrils rather than bringing water in through its mouth—a very unfishlike characteristic. The northern stargazer’s pectoral fins are helpful when burying themselves in the sand. These sea creatures can grow up to twenty-two inches in length and weigh up to 20 pounds.

They mostly feed on small fish and crustaceans. The northern stargazer will hide on the ocean floor with only their eyes and mouth sticking out. Then they will proceed to suck in their prey, using their large mouths. Remarkably, these creatures have an organ on top of their heads that creates an electric charge up to 50 volts. Because of this ability to electrocute other fish, they have been considered one of the meanest fish in the ocean. Oh, and they are also venomous!^[2]

8 Deep Sea Dragonfish

The deep sea dragonfish lives in deep waters at about 5,000 feet in depth. They are located mainly in the north and western Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. By far the most gruesome-looking fish with a long slender body. In addition, they have sharp fang-like teeth. Although the black dragonfish looks intimidating, they can only grow to be about six inches. Usually, the males are much smaller than the females. Because the deep sea dragonfish lives so deep in the water, not much is known about their mating habits.

To help survive in the ocean, this sea creature can produce its own light by a chemical process known as bioluminescence, which this fish utilizes amazingly—it can illuminate its whole body. The deep sea dragonfish uses its flashing light in the dark waters to attract prey or even potential mates. It survives on small fish and crustaceans or whatever else it can lure near its mouth. Its black-lined stomach helps disguise the prey as it’s digested since many of its meals also practice bioluminescence. So as long as you don’t follow those flashing lights in the deep sea, you’re pretty safe.^[3]

7 Gulper Eel

The gulper eel is one unnatural-looking sea creature, mostly found in the tropical, temperate ocean. Known for its wide mouth, one of the gulper eel’s nicknames is “umbrella mouth.” Its mouth is larger than the eel’s entire body. It is loosely hinged and can open wide enough to swallow its prey whole. The prey is then kept into the lower jaw of the gulper eel’s mouth, which resembles something like a pelican’s mouth.

With its unusual features, the gulper eel is much different in appearance compared to other eels. This sea creature has small eyes that can only detect traces of light rather than form images. The tail is long in length and has a pink light at the end of it. The eel’s body is not primarily built for chasing prey, so it uses its “tail light” to lure crustaceans—its primary diet—close, allowing its huge mouth to snap up the prey. This abnormal-looking sea creature can also grow between three and six feet in length—though that’s mostly all tail. Still, not something you want to get near!^[4]

6 Fangtooth Fish

The fangtooth fish live well over 16,000 feet deep in the sea. Though they might migrate to the surface at night to catch their prey. This sea creature has a mouth filled with long, pointed teeth and is more active than most deep-sea creatures, actively searching for its prey. Their sharp teeth help ensure that the limited food source of the deep ocean finds itself in the fish’s mouth on the first strike.

It is one of the few deep ocean species that do not have a light-producing organ. Because of this, the fangtooth fish relies on its sense of smell. Thankfully, the fangtooth fish can only grow up to seven inches, making it relatively harmless to humans.^[5]

5 Frilled Shark

The frilled shark looks like a prehistoric sea creature. It can grow up to seven feet in length with fins located far back on its body. This shark has rows of long teeth with three long points for snagging its prey—they prefer the soft-bodied squid. They are active predators and have been known to swallow their prey whole, regardless of its size.

The frilled shark has the same swimming traits as an eel in a serpentine motion. Humans will rarely encounter this sea creature as it lives in deep ocean water. It has been accidentally caught by bycatch in fisheries. Sometimes they are kept and eaten as food. Because of this, the frilled sharks are threatened with extinction.^[6]

4 Angler Fish

There are more than 200 species of angler fish living in the deep depths—over 900 meters or 3,000 feet) of the Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans. Usually dark grey or brown in color, their heads are large, with enormous crescent-shaped mouths. In their mouths sit sharp, translucent teeth. As adults, some species can grow up to three feet in length.

The female angler fish holds one distinctive feature. It’s a piece of dorsal spine that protrudes above the mouth like a fishing pole. This feature baits the prey, which can be twice its size—an easy meal for the angler fish. Males are much smaller compared to females, growing to only about eight inches at maturity. An odd characteristic of male anglers is that they will latch onto females, remaining attached for life. During this process, they lose their eyes and internal organs—all except the testes. A female will carry six or more males on her body, allowing easy reproduction. Wow, most women can’t even handle one!^[7]

3 Giant Isopod

The giant isopod is one of the biggest crustaceans, closely related to shrimp and crabs. Amazingly, the giant isopod has existed for over 160 million years. They have seven pairs of legs with a hard exterior, possessing the ability to roll into a ball for protection like its relative, the land pillbug or “roly-poly.” The giant isopod resides on the deep ocean floor and is normally always in a state of semi-hibernation. They commonly limit their expenditure of energy for movement and breathing. Its overlarge size results from abyssal gigantism—a condition seen in animals living in deep ocean water. Think giant squid!

Because they are carnivores and scavengers, they feed on live and dead animals. But they can go a long period of time without eating. The longest recorded time was four years. Since food is scarce on the sea floor, they will eat in abundance when food is available.^[8]

2 Goblin Shark

The goblin shark is one of the creepiest-looking sea creatures. It has a long prominent snout that’s covered with special sensing organs that help find electric fields in deep, dark water. The goblin shark has an unusual coloration to its body. It ranges from a pinkish color to a purplish grey color. A bright blue surrounds the edges of its fins.

Its jaw can protrude rapidly to help catch and devour its prey. This sea animal usually dines on fish, squid, and crustaceans. It has been recorded that the goblin shark’s jaws differ in length. At 16 feet when fully mature, it’s definitely not something you want t meet in the murky depths.^[9]

1 Vampire Squid

The vampire squid is neither a squid nor an octopus, according to scientists. Granted, the sea creature has eights arms and two thin, long filaments, but the name comes from the dark color and the skin that connects the arms. It resembles a cape, much like one worn by a vampire. They live in dark waters deep in the ocean. When the vampire squid is frightened, it inverts its cape in a threatening show by putting its large spines on full display. These spines line the underside of its many arms.

The vampire squid feeds on plants and animal matter. Because they are relatively harmless, they depend on finding food particles rather than aggressive hunting. The sea creature uses a sticky cell on its tentacles to capture these bits of food. Unlike most octopuses or squids, the vampire squid does not squirt black ink. It will squirt out a substance that contains bioluminescent material to distract or confuse any predators. Like most deep-sea creatures, it can produce light at the tip of each of its arms, typically used for communication.^[10]