Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

crustacean is the Japanese spider crab
(Macrocheira kaempferi), which has a claw
span of 10–12 feet but a body size not
much over 1 foot—nowhere near the size of
the Con rít.
Sources: Abel Gruvel, L’Indochine: Ses
richesses marines et fluviales (Paris, 1925), p.
123; “Le grand serpent de mer,” La Nature
Supplément 53 (November 14, 1925): 153; A.
G. L. Jourdan, “A propos du Serpent de mer,”
La Nature Supplément 53 (December 12,
1925): 185–186; Bernard Heuvelmans, In the
Wake of the Sea-Serpents (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1968), pp. 416–421; Karl Shuker, In
Search of Prehistoric Survivors (London:
Blandford, 1995), pp. 126–127.
Coromandel Man
Wildm an of Australasia.
Etymology: From the mountain range.
Variant names: Forest taniwah, Hairy moehau,
Matau, Moehau monster, Toangina, Tuuhourangi.
Physical description: Covered with red or silver
hair.
Habitat: Caves.
Distribution: Coromandel Range, Waikato
River, and Tongariro National Park, North Island,
New Zealand; Cameron Mountains, Milford
Wilderness, and Lake Wakatipu, South Island,
New Zealand.
Significant sightings: In 1878, gold prospectors
on Martha Hill in Waihi reported large,
long-haired man-beasts carrying stone knives,
hand axes, and wooden clubs.
Large, five-toed, humanlike footprints were
found embedded in mud along a creek in 1903
by miners in the Karangahake Gorge.
In early February 1952, hunters Douglas
Tainvhana and Roy Norman got a fleeting
glimpse of a hairy man running along a track on
the Coromandel Peninsula.
In 1963, Carl McNeil saw an apelike creature
running along a track bed on the Coromandel
Peninsula.
Trevor Silcox was hunting wild pig with a
companion in the Coromandel Range in 1972
when they spotted a 6-foot, naked man covered
114 COROMANDEL MAN
with dark hair moving through the scrub. Four
tracks measuring 14 inches long and 7 inches
wide were found.
Possible explanation: A surviving remnant of
postulated pre-Maori inhabitants of New
Zealand.
Sources: Craig Heinselman, “Hairy
Maeroero,” Crypto 4, no. 1 (January 2001): 23–
26; Rex Gilroy, Giants from the Dreamtime:
The Yowie in Myth and Reality (Katoomba,
N.S.W., Australia: URU, 2001).
Cressie
Freshwater Monster of Newfoundland,
Canada.
Etymology: After the lake.
Variant names: Cressiteras anguilloida (quasiscientific
name), Haoot tuwedyee (possibly
Beothuk/Algonquian, “swimming demon”),
Woodum haoot (“pond devil”).
Physical description: Serpentine. Length, 15
feet. Black. Rounded hump. No fins or flukes.
Behavior: Swims with a rolling motion.
Distribution: Crescent Lake, Newfoundland.
Significant sightings: Around June 7, 1960,
Bruce Anthony and three other loggers watched
an object that looked like an overturned boat
swim and cross a nearby sandbar.
On September 5, 1991, Pierce Rideout saw
an unusual wave and then a black, 15-foot animal
swimming with a rolling motion about 150
yards offshore.
Possible explanation: An oversized American
eel (Anguilla rostrata), which normally grows to
less than 5 feet. Eels usually spawn in the ocean,
but they have never been seen in Tommy’s Arm
Brook, Crescent Lake’s only outlet to the sea.
However, the lake’s deeper water is saline,
which might allow the eels to stay in the lake to
spawn.
Sources: John Braddock, “Monsters of the
Maritimes,” Atlantic Advocate 58 (January
1968): 12–17; Cressie, the Monster of
Crescent Lake, http://www.nfcap.nf.ca/central/
RobertsArm/attract/cressie.html.