Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

Giant Centipede
Oversized segmented Invertebrate of Missouri
and Arkansas.
Physical description: Length, 7–18 inches.
Arthropod with multiple legs.
Behavior: Female wraps itself around newly
hatched young.
Distribution: Ozark Mountains near
Gainesville, Bradleyville, Stone County, and
Taney County, Missouri; Marion County,
Arkansas.
Significant sighting: S. C. Turnbo collected
stories of large centipedes in the Ozarks in the
mid-nineteenth century. An 18-inch centipede
was said to have been captured alive by Bent
Music on Jimmie’s Creek in Marion County,
Arkansas, in 1860. It was placed in a jar of alcohol
in a drugstore in Yellville, but people lost
track of it during the Civil War.
Possible explanation: The largest known
species of centipede in North America is the
Giant desert centipede (Scolopendra heros), a
black-and-orange banded animal with yellow
legs that grows to more than 8 inches. It is
found in Mexico and the southern United
States. Females guard their hatchlings closely for
a few days after birth. A related species, the
Galapagos centipede (S. galapagensis), is the
largest in the world, growing to 17 inches.
Sources: Desmond Walls Allen, ed., Turnbo’s
Tales of the Ozarks: Snakes, Birds and Insect
Stories (Conway: Arkansas Research, 1989); Silas
Claiborn Turnbo, The White River Chronicles of
S. C. Turnbo: Man and Wildlife on the Ozarks
Frontier (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas
Press, 1994); Chad Arment, “Giant Centipedes
in the Ozarks,” North American BioFortean
Review 1, no. 2 (June 1999): 5–6, http://www.
strangeark.com/nabr/NABR2.pdf.
Giant Cookiecutter Shark
Unknown Fish of the North Pacific Ocean.
Behavior: Takes large circular bites out of
whales and dolphins.
Distribution: Arctic waters off Alaska.
Significant sighting: While working in Alaska,
a colleague of Eugenie Clark reported that a
dead Narwhal (Monodon monoceros) was pulled
up alongside their research boat for examination
one night. In the morning, as the scientists
began to examine it, they found round bites on
the animal that strongly resembled those left by
the Cookiecutter sharks (Isistius spp.). However,
they were much bigger than bites made by
known cookiecutters.
Possible explanations:
(1) The Cookiecutter shark (Isistius
brasiliensis) and the Largetooth cookiecutter
shark (I. plutodus) are both subtropical
species. Neither grows much longer than
18–20 inches. The cookiecutter clamps
onto the flesh of its much larger prey with
its jaws and bites down with the sharp teeth
on its lower jaw to extract circular chunks of
flesh. Tunas, elephant seals,dolphins,whales,
swordfish, and other large marine animals
have been found with large gouges that were
probably inflicted by this shark. A giant
species of cookiecutter would theoretically
take much larger bites.
(2) The Pacific sleeper shark (Somniosus
pacificus) frequently scavenges whale
carcasses.
(3) The Greenland shark (Somniosus
microcephalus) also leaves razor-edged,
circular bites on narwhals and seals.
Source: Ben S. Roesch, “Do Giant Cookiecutter
Sharks Exist?” http://www.ncf.carleton.
ca/~bz050/HomePage.giantcookiecutter.html.
Giant Ethiopian Lizard
Mystery Lizard of East Africa.
Physical description: Length, 10–12 feet.
Loose, gray skin. Dorsal crest. Huge, clawed,
three-toed feet.
Distribution: Ethiopia.
Significant sighting: Adrian Conan Doyle interviewed
a big-game hunter who said he had
come across a large, lizardlike animal, about
10–12 feet long, on the border of Ethiopia and
Sudan.
Sources: Adrian Conan Doyle, Heaven Has
Claws (London: John Murray, 1952), pp.
29–31; Bernard Heuvelmans, Les derniers
dragons d’Afrique (Paris: Plon, 1978), pp.
148–151.
GIANT ETHIOPIAN LIZARD 193