Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

The Mimic octopus, discovered in Indonesia, can quickly camouflage itself as other sea creatures. (William M. Rebsamen)
Micromygale diblemma. The world’s smallest
spider was discovered in Panama in 1983, requiring
the creation of a new subfamily. It breathes directly
through its skin and has only two eyes.
Midgardia xandaros. The world’s largest
starfish is a deep-sea species discovered in the Gulf
of Mexico in 1969. It measures as much as 4 feet
6 inches from arm tip to arm tip.
Millennium bug. A new genus of water strider
in the Family Veliidae was discovered early in January
2000 by Nils Møller Andersen and Tom
Weir in freshwater streams in southeastern
Queensland and northeastern New South Wales,
Australia. This insect is less than one-tenth of an
inch long.
Mimic octopus. Octopus sp. Discovered in
Maumere Bay off the Indonesian island of Flores
in the mid-1990s, this octopus can camouflage
and manipulate itself to appear like a flounder, a
sea snake, a lionfish, a crab, an eel, or a jellyfish, all
in a matter of seconds.
Mljet moon jelly. Aurelia sp. nov. A new
species of moon jellyfish was discovered in January
2001 on the island of Mljet, Croatia, in the Adriatic
Sea. Its closest relative also lives in an inland
lake, in the Philippines.
Mystacocarida. Subclass of wormlike crustaceans
less than 1 millimeter long, first discovered
in 1943 between the intertidal sand grains of
beaches. Three species are known in a single
genus, Derocheilocharis.
Neoglyphea inopinata. Lobsterlike crustacean
collected in the South China Sea in 1908 that remained
unidentified until 1975, when it was recognized
by Jacques Forest and Michèle de Saint
Laurent as a glypheid, a member of a family
thought extinct for 50 million years.
Neopilina galatheae. A small mollusk that
looks like a limpet. Prior to its discovery off the
west coast of Mexico in 1952 by the crew of the
Danish research ship Galathea, no living representatives
of the class of Paleozoic fossil mollusks
called monoplacophorans were known. Unlike
other mollusks, these animals are segmented and
have paired nerves, muscles, sex organs, and heart
chambers.
ANIMALS DISCOVERED SINCE 1900 651