Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

National Dictionary (Melbourne, Australia:
Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 518;
George Chaloupka, Journey in Time (Chatswood,
N.S.W., Australia: Reed, 1993); Paul S.
C. Tacon, Meredith Wilson, and Christopher
Chippindale, “Birth of the Rainbow Serpent in
Arnhem Land Rock Art and Oral History,”
Archaeology in Oceania 31 (1996): 103–124.
Rainbow Tiger
Mystery CAT of South America.
Variant name: Tshenkutshen (Shuar/
Jivaroan).
Physical description: Size of a jaguar. Black, or
whitish with black spots. Multicolored stripes
(black, white, red, yellow) on the chest.
Humped back. Muscular legs. Monkeylike
forepaws. Large claws.
Distribution: Sangay National Park and Sierra
Cutucu, Ecuador.
Significant sighting: In 1959, Policarpio Rivadeneira
killed one of these cats on Cerro Kilamo,
Ecuador, after he saw it leaping from tree
to tree.
Behavior: Agile tree climber.
Source: Angel Morant Forés, “An
Investigation into Some Unidentified
Ecuadorian Mammals,” October 1999, http://
perso.wanadoo.fr/cryptozoo/expeditions/
ecuador_eng.htm.
Rakshi-Bompo
Alternate name for the YETI of Central Asia.
Etymology: Tibetan/Indo-Aryan hybrid word
meaning “powerful demon,” according to Gordon
Creighton. Rakshasa are Hindu demons
from the Ramayana; in some old epics, they
were the pre-Aryan inhabitants of India. Rakshi
is a Nepali alcoholic drink made from rice or
millet. Rag tse is Tibetan for “stone.” Bönpo was
a priest of the religion of Tibet prior to Buddhism,
often in charge of exorcisms.
Variant name: Ragshi.
Physical description: Height, 4–6 feet.
Behavior: Herbivorous. Fast runner.
Habitat: Dense forests.
Distribution: Nepal.
Significant sightings: In December 1957, a
456 RAINBOW TIGER
group of Rakshi-bompo broke into the water mill
run by a Sherpa named Phurbu, near Malemchigaon,
Nepal. He found them inside, eating flour.
By the time villagers gathered to drive them
away, they had disappeared into the forest.
Sources: Bernard Heuvelmans, On the Track
of Unknown Animals (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1958), p. 176; Edmund Hillary and
Desmond Doig, High in the Thin Cold Air
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), p. 31;
Odette Tchernine, The Yeti (London: Neville
Spearman, 1970), p. 175; Kesar Lall, Lore and
Legend of the Yeti (Kathmandu: Pilgrims Book
House, 1988), pp. 39–40.
Rassic
FRESHWATER MONSTER of Sweden.
Etymology: After Lake Råsvalen.
Physical description: Length, 12–15 feet.
Looks like an overturned boat.
Distribution: Råsvalen, Örebro County, Sweden.
Significant sightings: In the summer of 1914,
Karl Gustavsson saw a large fish, 12 feet long, as
he was rowing across the lake.
Britta Olgemar watched a 15-foot animal
that looked like a log as it swam near the
Kalmarslund Recreation Center in the summer
of 1987.
Jan-Ove Sundberg obtained some odd underwater
recordings with a hydrophone on November
27, 1999.
Source: GUST Zoology, accessed in 2001,
http://www.bahnhof.se/~wizard/cryptoworld/
index253.html.
Red Jamaican Parrot
Unknown BIRD of the West Indies.
Physical description: Length, 9 inches. Primarily
red plumage. Yellow feathers streaked with
fine lines of red on the inside of wings and the
underside of tail.
Distribution: Jamaica.
Significant sighting: In July 1764, English
bird artist George Edwards painted a watercolor
of a red parrot owned by Alexander Russell. It
had been shot in Jamaica some time earlier and
preserved.