Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

Behavior: Swift runner. Excellent rock
climber. Piercing cry. Lives in a cave. Plays
music on reed pipes (syrinx). Carries a stick for
hunting rabbits. Feared by travelers, hence the
word panic (from the Greek panikon).
Habitat: Thickets, forests, mountains.
Distribution: Mount Likeo, in Arcadia,
Greece, was the focal point for the Pan cult.
Also known in Egypt, West Africa, and Asia.
Significant sightings: Ancient workers in a
marble quarry on Khíos, Greece, discovered an
impression resembling the “head of Pan” within
a slab of stone. News of the find circulated back
to Rome, according to Cicero.
Pomponius Mela places a population of Pans
on a desolate mountain of Africa, where their
campfires lit the night and their cymbals, tambours,
and flutes produced unearthly music.
Bernard Heuvelmans identifies the area as the
Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco. However,
Mela is quoting the Carthaginian seafarer
Hanno’s account of his visit in the early fifth
century B.C. to an apparent volcano described as
“Chariot of the Gods” (Theôn ochèma), which
others have suggested is either Mount Kakulima
in Guinea or the volcanic Cameroon Mountain
in Cameroon.
Possible explanations:
(1) A mythical representation of
precivilized, Neolithic Greece.
(2) A folk memory of Neanderthals (Homo
neanderthalensis) or archaic Homo sapiens.
(3) An imaginative explanation for the
discovery of fossil animal bones in Greece.
Sources: Homeric Hymn 19, “To Pan,” II.
1– 19; Herodotus, The Histories, ed. John
Marincola (New York: Penguin, 1996), pp.
139–140 (II. 145–146); Cicero, De divinatione,
XIII; Pliny the Elder, Natural History: A Selection,
ed. John F. Healy (New York: Penguin Classics,
1991), p. 55 (V. 7); Plutarch, De defectu
oraculorum, 419b–e; Pomponius Mela, De
chorographia, III. 9; New Larousse Encyclopedia of
Mythology (New York: Putnam, 1968), pp.
159–161; Patricia Merivale, Pan, the Goat-God:
His Myth in Modern Times (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1969); Bernard
Heuvelmans, Les bêtes humaines d’Afrique (Paris:
Plon, 1980), pp. 191–192; Vladimir Markotic,
“The Great Greek God Pan: An Early
Hominid?” in Vladimir Markotic and Grover
Krantz, eds., The Sasquatch and Other Unknown
Hominoids (Calgary, Alta., Canada: Western
Publishers, 1984), pp. 251–264; Philippe
Borgeaud, The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988);
John Boardman, The Great God Pan: Survival of
an Image (New York: Thames and Hudson,
1998); Philip J. Brown, Great God Pan, http://
www.belinus.co.uk/mythology/ GreatGodPan.
htm.
PANGOLINS (Unknown)
The Pangolins (Order Pholidota) are a peculiar
group of toothless primitive mammals with an
outer covering of large, overlapping epidermal
scales that make them look like walking
pinecones. The eight living species, all in the
genus Manis, live in sub-Saharan Africa, India,
and Southeast Asia. They range in size from 1
foot 6 inches–4 feet 6 inches long, including the
tail, and consist of both arboreal and terrestrial
forms. The oldest fossil pangolin is Eomanis,
which lived in Germany during the Middle
Eocene period, 45 million years ago. Their place
on the evolutionary tree is a bit uncertain,
though some taxonomists classify them as a sister
order to the xenarthra (armadillos, sloths,
and anteaters).
Only one cryptopangolin is known, a large
animal in Indonesia. Pangolins are not known
from South America; otherwise, Ramón Lista’s
IEMISCH sighting might have rated inclusion.
Mystery Pangolin
VEO
Paraguayan Barking Snake
Dubious SNAKE of South America.
Variant name: Mboi-yagua (“tiger snake”),
probably Guaraní (Tupí), although alleged to be
Paraguayan Spanish (yagua comes close to the
Spanish yaguar, “jaguar”).
Physical description: Length, 10 feet. Doglike
head. Swollen abdomen. Four needle-sharp
hooks on its tail.
PARAGUAYAN BARKING SNAKE 417