Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

Distribution: Lake Hanas, Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region, China.
Significant sightings: Biologist Xiang Lihao
and his students visited the lake in July 1985
and photographed a school of some sixty of
these fishes. However, the photos have apparently
never been published.
Three 13-foot specimens were reported by
fishermen in July 1988.
Possible explanation: Enormous species of
Taimen (Hucho taimen), a large, freshwater
salmon that resembles a pike or muskellunge
and normally only grows to 6 feet long.
Sources: Wen Jiao, “Does China Have a Loch
Ness Monster?” China Reconstructs 35 (April
1986): 28–29; “Giant Fish Reported in China,”
ISC Newsletter 5, no. 3 (Autumn 1986): 7–8;
Detroit (Mich.) News, August 10, 1988.
Giant Spider
Unknown arthropod Invertebrate of Central
Africa and Australasia.
Physical description: Huge spider.
Distribution: Democratic Republic of the
Congo; Papua New Guinea.
Significant sightings: R. K. Lloyd and his wife
were motoring in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo in 1938 when they saw a large object
crossing the trail in front of them. At first, they
thought it was a cat or a monkey, but they soon
realized it was a spider with legs nearly 3 feet long.
An Australian soldier, on patrol along the
Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea in the fall
of 1942, claims to have run across a spider the
size of a puppy dog that had spun a 10- to 15foot
web.
Present status: The largest known living spider
is the Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) of
northern South America, a tarantula with a 13inch
legspan and a body length of 3.5 inches.
Other big species are the Brazilian salmon tarantula
(Lasiodora parahybana) and the Brazilian
tawnyred (Grammostola mollicoma), both with
legspans of 10 inches. The largest known fossil
spider was Megarachne servinei, a 16-inch-long
giant with a legspan greater than 20 inches that
lived in San Luis Province, Argentina, 300 million
years ago, during the Carboniferous period.
204 GIANT SPIDER
Sources: Karl Shuker, “From Dodos to
Dimetrodons,” Strange Magazine, no. 19
(Spring 1998): 22–23; Chad Arment, “CZ
Conversations: Giant Spiders,” North American
BioFortean Review 3, no. 2 (October 2001):
28–29, http://www.strangeark.com/nabr/
NABR7.pdf.
Giant Tongan Skink
An unknown Lizard of Oceania.
Physical description: Total length, about 18
inches long. Diameter, 1–1.5 inches. Dull
green, with blackish markings.
Behavior: Runs away swiftly.
Habitat: Wooded areas.
Distribution: Tongatapu Island, Tonga.
Significant sightings: Lannon Oldenburg saw a
lizard about 18 inches long running across the
ground in a plantation near Tupou College. It
was dull green with black markings and lacked a
middorsal ridge.
Peter Chignell observed a large lizard in an
isolated stand of forest near an ancient burial
mound during a burn-off of some scrubland. It
was about 1.4 inches in diameter.
Present status: John R. H. Gibbons conducted
an extensive search for skinks in the remaining
stand of forest on Tongatapu in 1985. No unknown
species were found. Deforestation and
the introduction of cats and rats have made it
difficult for any large lizards to survive on Tongatapu.
Neighboring Eua’ Island holds more
promise.
Possible explanations:
(1) A Giant skink (Tachygyia microlepis),
known only from two specimens probably
collected from Tongatapu Island in 1827 by
J. R. C. Quoy and J. P. Guimard, was over
12 inches long. However, its coloration was
dark brown, with no markings. Also, this
species probably crawled rather than ran.
(2) An unnamed, olive-brown skink (Emoia
trossula) found in Tonga and Fiji is more
likely, though it rarely exceeds 6 inches in
length.
Source: Ivan Ineich and George R. Zug,
“Tachygyia, the Giant Tongan Skink: Extinct
or Extant?” Cryptozoology 12 (1996): 30–35.