Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

(Nectarinia sperata) are only about 4 inches
long.
(3) Hummingbirds (Family Trochilidae) are
found only in the Americas. The smallest is
the Bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) of
Cuba, which, at 2.24 inches long, is also the
smallest living bird. The bird seen by the
Irrgangs is even tinier and would make it
the world’s smallest.
(4) A large butterfly, moth, or wasp of some
kind.
Source: Loren Coleman, Tom Slick and the
Search for the Yeti (Boston: Faber and Faber,
1989), p. 119.
S ˇ umske Dekle
WILDMAN of Eastern Europe.
Etymology: Croatian, “forest girls.”
Variant names: Divi-te zeni (Bulgarian),
Divje devoijke (Slovenian), Divji moz (Slovenian,
for the male), Divozenky (Czech), Dwiwje
zony (Sorbian), Dziwo-zony (Polish).
Physical description: Covered with reddish or
black hair, except for the face. Large, square
head. Long, strong hands.
Behavior: Shrieks and screams. Sometimes
visits houses or stables in search of warmth or
food. Said to harvest grain, bake bread, catch
game and fish, and weave hemp into clothing.
Able to breed with humans.
Habitat: Woodlands.
Distribution: Between Novigrad Podravski
and Ferdinandovac, Croatia.
Significant sighting: One winter around 1870,
two brothers named Paurović were sleeping in
their stable at Severovac, Croatia, when one
woke up to find a hairy forest girl standing between
them. He touched it, and it ran out the
door. They gave chase but could not catch it in
the deep snow.
Present status: Stories about these creatures
died out after World War I.
Sources: Jan Máchal, Slavic Mythology
(Boston: Marshall Jones, 1918), pp. 263–265;
Zvonko Lovrencevic, “Creatures from the
Bilogora in Northern Croatia,” in Vladimir
Markotic and Grover Krantz, eds., The
Sasquatch and Other Unknown Hominoids
528 SUMSKE DEKLE
(Calgary, Alta., Canada: Western Publishers,
1984), pp. 266–273.
Sundanese Horned Cat
Unknown small CAT of Southeast Asia.
Physical description: Size of a domestic cat.
Two short, stubby, hornlike projections above
its eyes.
Distribution: Alor and Solor, Lesser Sunda Islands,
Indonesia.
Significant sighting: Native accounts have
been collected by Deborah Martyr.
Source: Karl Shuker, “Blue Tigers, Black
Tigers, and Other Asian Mystery Cats,” Cat
World, no. 214 (December 1995): 24–25.
Super-Eel
A category of SEA MONSTER identified by
Bernard Heuvelmans.
Physical description: Serpentine or cylindrical
body. Length, 30–100 feet. Several color varieties
apparently occur. One is blackish-brown or
blue on top and white underneath; others are
speckled or reddish. Head may be blunt or
pointed. Large eyes. Mouth is either at the end
of the head or at the bottom. Neck is a continuation
of the body. A continuous, translucent
dorsal fin begins some distance from the head. A
pair of pectoral fins is sometimes reported. Long
tail tapers to a point.
Behavior: Swims on the surface with a rapid,
undulating motion. Mouth opens and closes
spasmodically when moving forward. It has
been seen fighting with whales.
Habitat: Abyssal depths of the ocean. Comes
to the surface only in exceptional circumstances.
Distribution: Cosmopolitan, though the
speckled variety seems confined to the Mediterranean
Sea.
Significant sightings: In the 1740s, Sicilian
fishermen were familiar with large, speckled serpentine
fishes—possibly large moray eels—that
ruined their nets and let the tuna they had
caught escape.
On October 15, 1870, John Adams and the
crew of his boat saw a 30–40-foot, reddish animal
about a mile off the coast of Norfolk Island