Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

“Portrait of a Spring Heeled Hoaxer,” Mystery
Magazine, 2001, http://www.mysterymag.com/
html/spring%20hoaxers.html.
Squolk-Ty-Mish
LITTLE PEOPLE of western Canada.
Etymology: Nootka (Wakashan) word.
Variant names: Chiniath, Tsiahk, Ya-ai.
Physical description: Height, 2 feet.
Behavior: Wears hat made of green moss.
Uses a stick to drum on hollow logs.
Distribution: Pacific Ranges, British Columbia.
Present status: Depicted on carved ritual
masks.
Sources: Vancouver Daily Province, July 9,
1947; John E. Roth, American Elves (Jefferson,
N.C.: McFarland, 1997), pp. 181–183.
Steetathl
CANNIBAL GIANT of northwestern North America.
Etymology: Thompson and Stillaguamish
(Salishan), “wild tribe.”
Distribution: Northwestern Washington;
south-central British Columbia.
Source: Hermann Haeberlin and Erna
Gunther, “The Indians of Puget Sound,”
University of Washington Publications in
Anthropology, vol. 4, no. 1 (1930).
Steller’s Sea Ape
Unknown SEAL or MERBEING of the North Pacific
Ocean.
Etymology: George Steller said the creature resembled
the picture of an animal called Simia
marina danica (Danish sea monkey) in Konrad
Gesner’s Historia animalium (1558). But Gesner’s
animal appears to be a nonexistent, composite
beast.
Scientific names: Siren cynodephala, given by
Johann Julius Walbaum in 1792; Trichechus hydropithecus,
suggested by George Shaw in 1800;
and Manatus simia, proposed by Johann Karl
Wilhelm Illiger prior to 1811.
Variant name: Steller’s sea monkey.
Physical description: Length, 5 feet. Reddish
518 SQUOLK-TY-MISH
color overall but grayer on the back and reddishwhite
on the underside. Tapering body. Doglike
head. Pointed, erect ears. Large eyes. Drooping
whiskers. No visible front flippers. Bilobate tail,
with the upper lobe twice as large as the lower.
Behavior: Extremely playful. Can raise itself
out of the water one-third of its length and remain
in position for several minutes. Feeds on
Bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) common in the
Gulf of Alaska.
Distribution: Gulf of Alaska.
Significant sightings: On August 10, 1741,
German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller,
aboard the Saint Peter, observed a strange sea
mammal about 260 miles south of Kodiak Island
in the Gulf of Alaska. It played around the
ship for two hours, approaching as close as 16
feet, looking at the crew, and diving underneath
the ship to emerge on the other side.
In June 1965, Miles Smeeton, on his ketch
the Tzu Hang, observed a sheep-sized animal
with long, reddish-yellow hair and a droopy
mustache 4 miles off the north coast of Atka in
the Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Its head looked
more like a dog’s than a seal’s.
Present status: Only two observations, 200
years apart.
Possible explanations:
(1) A young Northern fur seal (Callorhinus
ursinus) was suggested by Leonhard
Stejneger, although Steller and the rest of the
crew were familiar with certain types of seals.
However, the first time Steller saw a fur seal
was later, on the rookeries of Ostrov Bering
in the Commander Islands. Steller may have
mistaken the seal’s hind flippers for a tail.
(2) A young specimen of an unknown
Arctic variety of Leopard seal (Hydrurga
leptonyx), according to Roy Mackal. This
seal has no external ears, however.
(3) A stray Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus
schauinslandi ) matches the animal in size
and behavior, but this seal rarely wanders
far from the Hawaiian Islands and similarly
has no external ears.
(4) A Sea otter (Enhydra lutris), though Steller
was also familiar with this animal, which does
not get much larger than 2 feet long.
(5) A juvenile specimen of Bernard