Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

many as nine together at a time, feeding on sunflower
seeds. Ornithologist Alexander Sprunt Jr.
claimed to have seen a juvenile fly swiftly by in
the fall of 1936. Sprunt’s companion, Robert
Porter Allen, had come to believe by 1949 that
they had seen mourning doves or released exotic
parrots.
Orsen Stemville took a color film of some
type of parakeet in the Okefenokee Swamp,
Georgia, in 1937.
In 1938, a woodsman named Shokes saw two
yellow-headed parakeets circling above him as a
juvenile flew up to join them near Wadmacaun
Creek, South Carolina. The Santee habitat was
destroyed during the completion of the Santee-
Cooper Hydroelectric Project in 1936–38.
Present status: The last wild specimens were
shot in April 1904 at Lake Okeechobee, Florida.
The last captive specimen died at the Cincinnati
Zoo in February 1918.
Possible explanation: Nonnative green parakeets
escaped from pet owners or zoos.
Sources: M. S. Curtler, “Carolina Parakeet
Not Extinct?” Animals 7 (November 23,
1965): 532; James C. Greenway Jr., Extinct
and Vanishing Birds of the World (New York:
Dover, 1967); Christopher Cokinos, Hope Is
the Thing with Feathers (New York: Jeremy P.
Tarcher, 2001), pp. 5–58; Errol Fuller, Extinct
Birds (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
2001), pp. 239–243.
Carugua
Unknown Primate of South America.
Behavior: Kills cattle by pulling their tongues
out.
Distribution: Ybytymí area, Paraguay.
Significant sighting: In the 1940s, in nearly
eight months, about 100 cattle were found dead
in the Ybytymí area with no wounds except for
their tongues being torn out. The events recurred
in 1952 or 1953 on a different ranch.
Source: Bernard Heuvelmans, On the Track of
Unknown Animals (New York: Hill and Wang,
1958), p. 308.
88 CARUGUA
Caspian Tiger
Big Catof West Asia, presumed extinct since
the 1970s.
Scientific name: Panthera tigris virgata.
Variant name: Hyrcanian tiger.
Distribution: Talysh, Azerbaijan; the Cudi
Mountains of Turkey and Iran.
Significant sightings: The Caspian subspecies
of tiger formerly had a vast range from
Afghanistan, Turkestan, and Kazakhstan
through the Caucasus to Iran and Turkey. The
last time a living specimen was seen was in
Afghanistan in 1967. A fresh skin had been purchased
by a druggist in eastern Turkey sometime
in the 1970s, but it has not been properly
examined and may have been an illegally obtained
Bengal pelt. However, hunters in Azerbaijan
and Turkey still report hearing and seeing
it.
Sources: Nikolai Spassov, “Cryptozoology: Its
Scope and Progress,” Cryptozoology 5 (1986):
120–124; Karl Shuker, “Tracking a Turkish
Tiger,” Fortean Times, no. 146 (June 2001): 46.
Cassie
A Multihum p ed Sea Monster of the North
Atlantic Ocean.
Etymology: After Casco Bay, in imitation of
other named water monsters. Coined in 1986
by Loren Coleman.
Distribution: Casco Bay and other points
along the coast of the Gulf of Maine, including
Penobscot and Portland.
Significant sightings: Future naval commodore
Edward Preble was serving as an ensign on the
warship Protector in June 1779 when he saw a
large serpent lying on the surface of a bay along
the Maine coast. Commander John Foster
Williams ordered Preble to launch a longboat in
an attempt to shoot the animal, which appeared
to be 100–150 feet long and as thick as a barrel.
As the boat approached, the serpent raised its
head 10 feet above the water. A shot was fired,
but the snake swam away quickly.
On July 12, 1818, a sea monster was seen in
the harbor of Portland, Maine, in full view of a
number of observers at Weeks’s wharf.
In the summer of 1836, Captain Black of the